“That’s ‘daughter and me,’ Doctor,” Will scolded. “You wouldn’t say ‘please tell I,’ would you?”
“Very good. Please tell your daughter and me the name of—”
“She’s not my daughter. My daughter is Betsy. Betty. Same name as my mom, I mean as my wife. This is my wife, Elisabeth.”
Elisabeth bit her lip and looked at Dr. Fitzgerald. “He has always called me Elspeth. Always.”
The doctor nodded. “Mr. Bishop, please tell your wife and me the name of the president of the United States.”
“Lincoln.”
“The president now, Mr. Bishop.”
“Abraham Lincoln.”
“And what year is this?”
“Nineteen hundred.”
“Nineteen hundred and what?”
“Nineteen hundred and nothing.”
“Abraham Lincoln was president seventy years ago, Mr. Bishop. Before any of us were born.”
“I was born in eighteen ninety-nine.”
“And how old are you, sir?”
“You’re going too fast.”
“This is the end of 1933. That makes you how old?”
“Don’t tell me.”
“Oh, Will,” Elisabeth said, reaching for his hand. He ignored her.
“I’ll get it,” he said.
She turned to Dr. Fitzgerald. “Must you continue? I get the point. What can we do?”
“It’s important we determine the extent of the dementia.”
“Dementia, at thirty-four?”
“Thirty-four!” Will shouted. “I’m thirty-four!”
“Ask him who the president is.”
“Will, you know who the president is, don’t you? You didn’t vote for him, but you’re still hopeful, remember?”
“Woodrow Wilson.”
“Not anymore. Who was elected two years ago and took office early last year? A Democrat.”
“Roosevelt.”
“Yes! Good!”
“Teddy Roosevelt.”
“No.”
“Yes! Teddy. San Juan Hill.”
Elisabeth stood and embraced Will, fearing she had lost him forever.
In truth, Elisabeth realized, she had lost Will. He spent the next two weeks in the Three Rivers Hospital while she endured batteries of forms and interviews, trying to determine any injury, trauma, or stress-related incident that might have triggered a psychosis. While discussing with Jack Jacobson the symptoms that surfaced at the office, Elisabeth remembered that Will’s own father had suffered the same malady, though not at so young an age.
Elisabeth’s days became jumbles of housework, baby-sitters, trips to the hospital, meeting with Fairbanks-Morse over employee benefits, insurance, and the like. Christ Church people rallied round her, but at times she felt if she had to answer one more question she would explode. At the end of two weeks she had little hope of bringing Will back home. Dr. Fitzgerald asked that she come in at her convenience to discuss Will’s transfer to the State Hospital in Kalamazoo.
“How long do you expect he’ll be there?” she asked wearily, desperately short of sleep.
“Mrs. Bishop, may I get you something? A sandwich? Something to drink?”
She shook her head. “Do I need it? Am I not going to like what you’re about to say?”
He sighed, rearranged a few things on his desk, and looked at her sympathetically. “The move to Kalamazoo will likely be permanent. We have a diagnosis, but of course, diagnoses are open to interpretation. We have studied the elder Mr. Bishop’s records and compared them to your husband’s symptoms and tests, so we feel fairly confident of our evaluation.”
“I’m ready.”
“We believe your husband has an acute degenerative disease of the brain.”
“He’ll get worse?”
“There is new research all the time, new medicine, new therapies. We never rule out hope. At this point, however, if he has what we fear he has, it is incurable.”
“Does it have a name?”
“In lay terms it’s senility, but in your husband’s case it is premature and unusually aggressive. My colleagues and I are persuaded that Will’s condition is exacerbated by what is becoming known among researchers as Alzheimer’s disease, after the neuropathologist who first described it about twenty-five years ago. Only an autopsy can confirm this diagnosis. We should have a pretty good idea in a few months by watching his symptoms, but if this is the disease Dr. Alzheimer has catalogued, Will would be among the very youngest victims on record. The two most common risk factors are advanced age and genetic disposition. He, of course, had only the latter. He might survive long enough to benefit if someone finds an antidote, or, because of his relatively good physical condition, he could live longer with the disease than most. But I remind you, his rapid deterioration leads us to believe that more than one disease is attacking his brain.”
“I believe in prayer,” she said, realizing her legs were crossed and her foot had fallen asleep.
“As do I, but I feel obligated to tell you everything. Your husband’s core symptom is memory loss, which he is, of course, already experiencing acutely. The speed with which his deterioration is progressing is as alarming to us as it is to you. The general course of this disease sees the patient regress in language, reasoning, and even visual ability. In short, adults regress to childhood with symptoms more acute every year. Whereas your husband learned to crawl, then walk, then talk, then control bodily functions, unless some cure or arrestor is found, he will gradually, in essence, forget how to do those same things.”
Elisabeth set both feet on the floor and fought to maintain composure. “You’re telling me that without a miracle, Will will be in diapers.”
“I’m sorry.”
“And in ten years he’ll be gone.”
“That is harder to predict, because he is still so young.” Elisabeth stood. “Are you okay, ma’am?”
“I’m trying to find some ray of hope,” she said, “some bright side of my husband living longer as a helpless infant when death might be the greatest blessing.”
Elisabeth followed the ambulance that transported Will twenty-two miles north to Kalamazoo. She had traveled the route before, of course, but today it seemed particularly depressing. The blacktop road was crumbling and the sparse farms bored her. Not even the Burma Shave signs cheered her.
Once Will was settled in, she sat next to his bed. “I’m going to have to go soon,” she said. “I’d like to be home when the children get home from school.”
“Yes,” he said, looking directly into her eyes as if he understood perfectly.
“I’ll bring them to see you, maybe next weekend.”
“I’d like that, Elspeth.”
She felt a chill. “Will, you understand me right now, don’t you?”
“Yes, I do.”
“Do you understand what’s happening?”
“No.”
“Do you want me to explain it?”
“I’m hungry.”
“You ate just before we came here. Dinner will be at six. You should be able to wait until then to eat. All right?”
He nodded. “I love you.”
She stood and embraced him. “I love you too, Will,” she said, sobs racing to her throat. “I love you with all my heart, and I’ll be with you every step of the way.”
“You’ll go to Beloit with me?”
“I’ll go anywhere on earth with you, Will. Just stay with me as long as you can.”
“I can stay a little while longer.”
She smiled through her tears and sat again, looking at her watch. “You can?” she said.
“What time is it?”
“About one-thirty.”
“I can stay with you until two, Elspeth.”
“Where are you going then, Will?”
“To a party. It’s Christmas, isn’t it?”
“Soon.”
“It’s the Christmas party at work.”
“That will be nice.”
“I’m getting promoted.”
“Um-hm.”
“Big boss.”
“You’ll be the big boss?”
“Yes. Jake is leaving.”
“Is he? Where’s he going?”
“Three Rivers.”
She opened the drapes and brightness from the sunlit snow burst into the room. “Time for breakfast,” he said.
“Dinner at six,” she said.
“Dinner at six.”
“I really should go.”
“I’ll miss you, Elspeth.”
“I already miss you, Will. Where are you? Where have you gone?”
“Beloit.”
“Do you know who I am, sweetheart?”
He was smiling, and except for the gibberish, she could pretend she was talking with her old Will. “I love you,” he said.
“Yes,” she said. “That’s who I am. You love me.”
Elisabeth wept during the whole drive home, her stomach aching from the effort. She prayed aloud through her tears, “God, heal him or take him quickly! I won’t be able to stand to see him like this. I believe in you, trust you, want to obey you in everything. I’m committed for the rest of my life, but I’ll need you if I’m going to survive this. It’s more than I can bear alone.”
She arrived ahead of the kids and a neighbor asked how things had gone. Crazily, incongruously, she said, “Oh, fine. As well as could be expected.”
Why do I do that? she wondered. How did things go? I just put my husband in an institution where he will slowly lose his faculties and die, that’s how things went. I don’t know what to tell my children, how I can prepare them for the man they’ll see Saturday, how I’ll raise them on my own, how I’ll support us, how I’ll maintain my own sanity.
She put dinner in the oven and tried to freshen up. In the mirror she saw an old, humorless woman, eyes full of dread fear, hair pushed into place, bags under the eyes, skin drawn around the mouth. Elisabeth splashed water on her face and rubbed hard with a towel, bringing color to her cheeks. She would not be able to smile for the children. She was determined to answer every question honestly. She would not start down a path of half-truth or misdirection that would be impossible to navigate. She knew what it was to be raised by one parent, and she also knew what it was to lose her father. The children deserved the truth in exchange for all they would lose.
Betty arrived home first. Elisabeth tried in vain to cheer her. “When’s Daddy coming home?” she whined.
“We’ll go see him Saturday,” Elisabeth said. “But he will not be coming home. He’s very ill.”
“When then?”
“Probably never.”
“Is he going to die?”
“Not very soon, but eventually.”
“Before you?”
“Probably.”
“I want to see him now.”
“Saturday.”
Betty whined and busied herself upstairs. When the boys got home, Benjy terrorized Bruce, as usual. Bruce couldn’t compete physically, but he was merciless orally.
“You only try to beat me up because I’m smarter than you!”
“Come here, you little rat. I’ll kill you.”
“Benjamin,” Elisabeth said, “I don’t ever want to hear those words out of you again!”
“He’s a coward, making fun of me because I’m stupid, but he won’t stand and fight!”
“Why should he? You’re bigger.”
“He better not forget it.”
“Bruce, run along for a moment so I can speak with Benjy alone.”
Bruce, probably assuming his mother was going to scold Benjy for bullying him again, stuck out his tongue and bounded upstairs. Benjy’s threats echoed through the house.
Elisabeth had never had success sitting Benjy down and talking seriously with him, especially when he thought he was in trouble. But something about her carriage or countenance must have caught his attention. They sat across from each other at the big dining room table.
“I need to tell you about Dad,” she said. “Things are going to have to change around here.”
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Benjy did not respond well to the news. Elisabeth saw fear in his eyes for the first time in years. Then came the defiance she was used to. He looked suddenly older, his physique developing, his voice changing, a shadow of hair on his lip.
“First of all,” he said, “if you really want me to be man of the house, I want to be called Benjamin from now on.”
“Fair enough,” she said. “It might take some time to get used to that, so be patient with—”
“Just tell Ugly and Big Mouth, and I’ll remind you anytime you forget.”
“Benj—Benjamin, if I ever hear you refer to your sister and brother like that again, you’ll lose every privilege you’ve got.”
Benjy pushed his chair back from the dining room table and tilted on the back legs. “And I don’t want to have to do all that Bible stuff all the time either.”
“The memory work has helped you in school.”
“Nothing helps. It won’t be long before Big M—before what’s-his-name passes me up, and he’s four years younger.”
“Well, you’re not getting out of church or learning the Bible.”
“Then I don’t want to be man of the house, because I’m not going to do it, and then you’re going to keep me in all the time.”
Elisabeth was tempted to slap his face, which scared her. She had spanked the children, Benjy more than the others. But she had seldom done it in anger, and even then she had been able to keep from actually hurting them. She’d never hit one in the face, though Will had once backhanded Benjy in the mouth when he had sassed his mother for the umpteenth time.
She prayed silently but couldn’t quit glaring at him.
“What?” he said.
“Don’t you have any questions about your father?”
“Like what?”
“Anything. This is a rare disease, and he’ll never be the same again. It won’t be long before he doesn’t recognize us.”
“He hardly knows me anyway.” Benjy let the chair drop forward, the front legs banging on the hardwood floor.
“How can you say that? He loves you! You’ve been hard to handle, but he’s spent a lot of time with you. Your father has more character in one hand than all the other men you know, and if you just tried to pattern your life after his, you’d—”
“I’d wind up just like him. He does all this good stuff, loves God and all that, and look at him now. I don’t want to see him that way.”
“But you’ll see him Saturday, Benjamin. He can still talk with us.”
He scowled and turned away. “If you make me.”
“He’s failing so fast.”
“I don’t want to see him in any diaper.”
“Don’t be spreading that around, Benjamin. I told you it would come to that only so you would understand. Your father deserves dignity and respect, and no one should ever know the extent of his disease, unless it’s someone who really cares.”
“Yeah, like I would tell my friends my dad has to be fed like a baby.”
Elisabeth shook her head. “It’s certainly not his fault.”
“’Course not. It’s probably my fault, like everything else around here.”
“Nobody’s ever said that.”
“So, what, does the man of the house have to take over all Dad’s chores too?”
She was tempted to wish aloud that Bruce were the oldest. “I’m going to need a lot of help,” she said. “I’m going to have to go to work.”
“Great,” he spat. “I get to shovel snow and rake leaves and all that.”
“You’ve done that before.”
“Not all of it!”
“We’ll all pitch in.”
“And what if I don’t?”
“What does Proverbs say?”
“I don’t know, but I’m sure you’ll tell me.”
“Chapter 21, verse 25 says, ‘Th
e desire of the slothful killeth him; for his—’”
“I know all the verses, Mom, all right? You calling me lazy now?”
“You’re the one who said you might not help out. First Timothy 5:8 says that if anyone does not provide for his own, and especially for those of his household, he has denied the faith and is worse than an unbeliever. Second Thessalonians 3:10 says that if anyone will not work, ‘neither shall he eat.’”
Benjy stood so quickly that his chair flew back and toppled. “Don’t you ever get tired of all those verses?”
“Benjy—Benjamin—stop it! Honestly, I never dreamed of talking to my father that way, not ever.”
“Then he wasn’t like you.”
“Pick up your chair and sit down here for one more minute.”
He glared at her as he slammed the chair back into place and plopped into it. “I’ll tell you when a minute’s up,” he said. She dreaded the day he would simply stop obeying. What would she do then?
“I want to know when you stopped caring what God thinks about how you act.”
“I never cared.”
“I don’t believe that. You were in trouble a lot at church, but still you learned. You know all the stories, the songs, the verses. I thought you gave your heart to the Lord when you were little.”
“I don’t even remember that. If I did, I’m taking it back. I can’t stand all that stuff, and anyway, look where it’s got you and Dad.”
“We wouldn’t trade our walk with the Lord for anything.”
“I sure would.”
“It seems you already have.”
“Time’s up.”
“I worry about you, Benjamin,” she said as he stood.
“Yeah, yeah.”
“I’ll never stop praying for you.”
“I knew that was coming.”
“I need you to do two things for me before dinner. Send your brother down and then bring in more firewood.”
He sighed loudly. “Bruce!” he shouted.
“I asked you to send him down. That means go get him.” But Bruce was already on his way. “And don’t mess with the fire. Just get more wood.”
Elisabeth rested her forehead on the table, realizing she would never again be able to talk and pray with Will about Benjy. They had often wondered if he had the devil in him, but they believed if they loved him and remained firm, he would not turn from the way he had been trained.
Though None Go with Me Page 17
