The Half-True Lies of Cricket Cohen

by Catherine Lloyd Burns

  “It’s a lot to process. Your mother was showing signs of confusion. She wasn’t displaying good judgment. She was responsible for a minor. They could have wandered off. They could have gotten lost. They could have been in danger. When this comes to our attention, we have to protect the child.”

  Cricket hadn’t understood this until now. The police and the store had a legal responsibility. Her safety was considered a more pressing issue than Dodo’s shoplifting.

  The sergeant showed Bunny and Richard a wall of posters to the left of his desk. There were rows of faces. A number of the faces, he explained, belonged to missing persons who had Alzheimer’s or dementia.

  Cricket looked at the faces. Were they like Dodo? Was that what they were saying, that she was demented? Poor Dodo. Cricket turned to her grandmother. Dodo’s expression was impossible to read. She had crawled inside herself, like a turtle.

  “Helping families find loved ones who have wandered off because of dementia, that is a lot of what we do. It’s a national program. We found someone from Minnesota last week. We got him back to his family. Mrs. Cohen, the store did the right thing. They did the kind thing. Separating your mother and your daughter would have been quite traumatic.”

  “And rounding them up in a police car and taking them down to the precinct, that isn’t traumatic?”

  The sergeant handed Bunny the box of tissues.

  “Bunny, try and calm down,” Richard said. “No one’s working against us here.”

  “Mrs. Cohen, you’re very upset, it’s understandable.”

  Bunny and Richard looked over at Dodo and Cricket. Part of Cricket wanted to run into their arms. The other part didn’t want to leave Dodo alone.

  “Mr. and Mrs. Cohen, these situations don’t always end so peacefully,” the sergeant said. “Confused elders are often agitated and disoriented. They lash out, they fight. This was like a dream version of what could have happened.”

  “Mr. and Mrs. Cohen, your mother is a very charismatic lady,” said Bryant. “To be honest, myself and Officer Coolidge found it a privilege to escort her back here. But the real hero of the day is your daughter. You are very lucky.”

  Cricket couldn’t believe what she’d just heard. She was actually pretty sure she’d imagined it.

  “It’s hard to see the silver lining here,” Coolidge said. “But if there is one today, it’s your daughter. She’s got a real knack for following her grandmother’s thinking and helping to reorient her. Without making her feel bad about her confusion. She has a very calming effect on Mrs. Fabricant. She talks to her with respect.”

  Dodo took Cricket’s hand. Maybe she had been listening to everything.

  “It’s true,” Bryant said. “The situation can be so frustrating because caregivers or relatives just can’t deal with the senior’s inability to remember the simplest things. So they get angry. Understandably. Alzheimer’s is one of those diseases that affects the families just as much as, maybe more than, the person with the condition. But the more irritated the caregiver gets, the more disoriented and agitated the confused person gets, and it just feeds off itself.”

  Bunny was the one who was so impatient with Dodo. She was the one who got irritated. She was the one who’d moved her mother here, trying to keep her safe. And she was the one who just lost her patience more often than not. Cricket wondered if Bunny was beating herself up about everything.

  “Keeping a person calm and relaxed is the best thing to do. The confused person is confused. It doesn’t matter how many times you use rational thought, they will still be confused. But your daughter has a real gift. You’re very lucky they were together. Your mother could have wound up somewhere very different than where she is now,” Bryant said.

  “If she were my daughter, I’d be very proud. You got a good girl there,” the sergeant said.

  Cricket was mildly insulted at being spoken about as though she weren’t there, but she also wanted to roll over like a dog and have her tummy rubbed. She actually wanted to jump up. She wasn’t simply an irresponsible maker-upper of tall tales anymore. According to the officers of New York’s Nineteenth Precinct, Cricket Cohen was not bad. She was good. She had a gift. She was an asset to her family. This was what they were saying. Her parents had better remember.

  “Thank you,” Richard said. He looked over at Cricket. “Your ears must be burning. Everyone’s talking about you. You okay, Dodo? Can we borrow Cricket?”

  Dodo gave Cricket a little shove in the direction of her parents. They put their arms around her. Her mother kissed her over and over. Bunny had tears running down her cheeks that were now on Cricket’s cheeks.

  “Before we release them,” Officer Bryant said, “we have to give you the following referrals. We highly recommend Mrs. Fabricant be evaluated for Alzheimer’s. There are cognitive tests that her GP can run. The doctor can take it from there. And we are giving you this literature about a very good program that links all kinds of resources together to help families. Today ended well. Thank goodness. But you should prepare yourselves. Shoplifting is often one of the first things to happen in a longer list of typical behaviors. A lot of people wander at night. Does your mother live alone?” Bryant said.

  “Mrs. Cohen,” the sergeant asked, “how long has your mother been showing these symptoms?”

  Bunny blinked like she was caught in a blizzard. Like the questions were coming at her so fast, and she couldn’t see two inches in front of her. Bunny had always perceived Dodo as a nut, an eccentric, someone who got into fights with people about nothing. She was notorious. Was this not true? Cricket could tell that Bunny was asking herself if her mother was truly the victim of a brain that struggled against itself.

  “Bun, how long do you think?”

  “Forever?” Bunny said helplessly.

  “At least a couple of years,” Richard said.

  “How long do you think, Cricket?” Bunny asked. It was the first time Cricket could remember her mother treating her like an adult.

  “I think it’s gotten worse since she moved to New York,” Cricket said.

  “I think that’s right,” Richard said. “She’s been under a lot of stress. She retired, she moved. Bunny, she often doesn’t know what day it is, she forgets the plan. But it’s not the end of the world. The officers are right. We’re very lucky something worse didn’t happen.”

  “I don’t feel lucky,” Bunny said.

  “We are lucky.”

  “How?”

  “Like they could have ended up at Bellevue Hospital, honey, they could have lost each other at Grand Central Terminal, they could have been mugged, they could have gotten hurt. But everyone’s safe and nothing bad happened.”

  “Richard, my mother was caught shoplifting! That is not nothing.”

  “Bun, it isn’t anything to be ashamed of.”

  “I’m ashamed,” Bunny said. “I’ve been so hard on her. I’ve been so hard on everyone. I’m so ashamed.” Bunny burst into tears and apologized and couldn’t stop apologizing.

  30

  BREADSTICKS AND MARBLES

  It was five-thirty when the Cohens and Dodo walked out of the Nineteenth Precinct. Cricket felt like it had been a lifetime since she’d seen the light for real, not through a window.

  “I could eat a horse,” Bunny said. “Richard, did we have lunch today?”

  “No,” he said.

  “Let’s treat ourselves to Gino’s. We can’t afford it, but we deserve it.”

  “I can afford it,” Dodo said. “I’ll take us. We all deserve something very pampering.”

  Bunny linked arms with Cricket, who linked arms with Dodo, who was escorted on the other side by Richard. They walked like that, taking up the whole sidewalk. Bunny was giddy and Cricket felt like she was living in two worlds at the same time. She was determined to remember, for the rest of her life if possible, what this was like—a moment when her mother wasn’t worried or angry about something. Cricket was also trying to commit to memory what had happene
d in the police station. She felt she might need to recall it. Her mother had asked her opinion. Like Cricket was an expert. Like Cricket’s opinion mattered. Her mother had cried on her shoulder. Her mother had thanked her.

  Occasionally, because they were taking up most of the sidewalk, the Cohen group had to split up to let other people pass. But even then, Bunny didn’t let go of Cricket.

  Gino’s had yellow-and-black zebra wallpaper inside. When Richard was still a partner at the law firm, they used to come here. It had been a long time. They rarely came anymore. Cricket was happy to be back. What a day. In a way she had had the truest adventure of her whole life and it was ending with a bang, in a fantastic restaurant. A waiter appeared from nowhere and pushed Cricket’s chair with Cricket sitting on it in to the table. He did the same for Dodo, and she laughed because she said she felt like a kid on a ride.

  He brought a bottle of wine, and a soda for Cricket.

  “Here’s to Cricket,” Bunny said.

  “Here’s to Cricket,” Richard said.

  “Hear, hear. To Cricket,” Dodo said.

  Everyone clinked glasses. “To my unsung hero,” Bunny said. “Thank you, Cricket.”

  “For what?” Cricket asked. Hero wasn’t a word she’d ever expected to hear her parents use to describe her. But nothing today had gone like she’d expected.

  “For being you,” Bunny said. “For being my daughter. You possess everything I lack. It is infuriating sometimes. But thank goodness you are you.”

  Richard put his arm around his daughter.

  Was this a dream? The waiter came by with breadsticks. The breadsticks were real.

  Bunny grabbed one and said, “God bless gluten.”

  “God bless gluten,” Richard said, too.

  “So,” Dodo said, after a big guzzle of wine, “let’s get to business. Have I lost my marbles? Is that the consensus?”

  Aha, Dodo had been paying attention to everything. She may have crawled inside her shell like a turtle at the police precinct, but she had stereophonic sound in there. Bunny burst out laughing.

  “Mother, do you think you’ve lost your marbles?”

  “Not yet. Not entirely. But they’re definitely rattling around in there. I looked up Alzheimer’s a few years ago. I noticed I was forgetting where I put things. Apparently I can have it for a long time before I need to make any changes.”

  Bunny and Richard sipped their wine. They gave each other a long look.

  Dodo said, “I will agree to let you hire someone. I will allow you to hire someone to make sure I don’t steal things or set myself on fire. But I don’t plan on talking with them. Or liking them. And please, for my sake, buy them a cookbook.”

  Their salads arrived, along with a giant plate of delicately fried zucchini and its blossoms. Cricket almost asked for ketchup (just to be funny), but she didn’t.

  “You know what, let’s just get through the summer, Mother. Come to the Hamptons with us. We’ll all be together and we’ll find a doctor out there to get an assessment. How does that sound?”

  “So reasonable,” Richard said.

  “Really, really reasonable,” Cricket agreed. “Are you okay, Mom?”

  “Wait, you’re telling me that I’m not usually this reasonable? Don’t answer.” Bunny ran her hands through her hair and took a deep breath. “I’m apologizing to everyone. Especially to you, Mother. I’ve been mad at you. But this isn’t your fault. It’s my fault. I didn’t want to know. I’ve been in denial. I guess because I want you to be my mother the way I remember. I don’t want you to change.”

  “Me neither, Bunny. If it makes you feel better, me neither,” Dodo said. “I guess we’re all good at pretending.” She squeezed Cricket’s hand under the table.

  “What did Marvin Morgan always say, Cricket, about denial?” Richard asked.

  “It’s not just a river in Egypt,” Cricket said.

  “Who is Marvin Morgan? He’s very funny,” Dodo said.

  “He’s a psychiatrist, the father of a friend of Cricket’s,” Richard said. “Veronica Morgan’s father.”

  “I always liked that Veronica girl,” her grandmother said.

  “Me, too,” Cricket said. “Her father also said that denial was one of the most underrated coping mechanisms known to mankind.”

  “That’s right, and I used to think he was kidding. But maybe not,” Bunny said. “Anyway, I’m not kidding about how good this antipasto is. Or how much I want to get home.”

  “Me, too,” said Richard.

  “Maybe we can watch a movie together tonight,” suggested Cricket. “Something with Bette Davis.”

  “That sounds lovely,” Dodo said. “But first, Cricket and I have to check out of our room at the Pierre.”

  Bunny laughed. “Oh, Mother. I think you’re imagining—”

  “She’s not, Mom,” said Cricket.

  “I beg your pardon?” Bunny said.

  “Cricket and I had—what would you call it, Cricket?” Dodo asked.

  “I would call it an adventure, Dodo.”

  The waiter came just in time and refilled Bunny’s wineglass.

  “What do you mean, Cricket?” her father asked. “Something else happened before Barneys and the police station?”

  She looked at Dodo and they both smiled.

  “Yes,” Cricket said. The time had come to confess that part of their adventure.

  31

  “THE ERRATICS OF WEST SIXTY-FOURTH STREET”

  by Cricket Cohen

  Memoir Project

  Mr. Ludgate

  As long as I can remember, my grandmother and I have been really good at pretending. We’ve been contestants on game shows, we had our own cooking network. We’ve pretended to be explorers on other planets, immigrants from foreign countries who didn’t speak English, blind people who had to understand the world with their fingers. We have a lot in common, my grandmother and I, even though she is seventy-five and I am eleven. A few days ago we ran away. I’m tempted to tell you that when we ran away we boarded a steamship filled with international spies, that we avoided deadly run-ins with evil dictators, and that my grandmother stole a diamond the size of a grapefruit.

  But the truth is, we just walked across Central Park to the Upper East Side of Manhattan. Central Park is full of erratics. You’ve probably seen them, gigantic boulders that sit on top of landscapes they don’t belong in. A long time ago, glaciers pushed them here from far away. My grandmother is an erratic. She was pushed here from another place by a force more powerful than herself—my mother.

  During our walk, a man on roller skates crashed into us. We almost died. I thought that was the story I’d tell everyone about. Little did I know.

  Later, we checked into a hotel and spent the night. The hotel was so fancy it had four different kinds of showerheads. I thought that was the story I’d tell everyone. Little did I know.

  We went to Barneys and my grandmother took a shawl. It turns out she may be in the early stages of Alzheimer’s disease. She is going for tests soon. She repeats a lot of things. She gets confused. Sometimes she sees things that aren’t there. She’s mad that people don’t want her to fight back. I think she’s mad that people treat her like an old person. I think she took the shawl because she’s mad about losing her purpose. Even if she is losing her memory, she isn’t losing her personality. She shouldn’t have to lose her dignity. But I guess lots of people don’t like old people. At least that’s what she says. But I love her. I can’t imagine not loving her.

  Men in suits wanted the shawl back, so they took us in a padded elevator to the basement, and then they sent us away with the police. I thought we’d be sent to prison. I wasn’t sure my family would try to get me back, and if that was the story, I didn’t think it was one I could ever tell anyone. I hadn’t done what they wanted me to. I mean I did do it—they wanted me to write this memoir—but I didn’t write it when they told me to write it. They don’t like when I don’t do the things they want me to do
at the exact time that they want me to do them. I think there are a lot of things in my grandmother’s life that she doesn’t like either. So she tries to rearrange them. People call that lying. I think lying is when you say something untrue to cause pain or get someone in trouble. I don’t do that. Neither does my grandmother.

  Here’s what else I think. People absorb pressure. Memories and experiences seep into brains like water seeps into rocks. Over time, your experiences and your memories expand and contract, causing erosion. Maybe that’s what Alzheimer’s disease is.

  My grandmother misses my grandfather. Sometimes I see her looking lost and I’m pretty sure she’s thinking about him.

  If you pay attention, a person will give you clues about themselves, just like a rock. And maybe life is like that, too. At first I didn’t understand why I had to rewrite my memoir. People (aka Mr. Ludgate and my parents) thought that my made-up stories got in the way of my real story. I guess there is truth to that. I didn’t make this memoir up at all. I just thought about the truth of my grandmother. I thought about what she means to me and I wrote it down.

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  The real-life inspiration for Cricket’s favorite scientist, Dr. T, is Dr. G, also known as Dr. Laura Guertin. Her blog (journeysofdrg.org) lit up my imagination. I was very fortunate that she agreed to read over the geology sections of this book. I still can’t believe that she corresponded with me and tried to help me. Stephen Porder of Brown University was also generous in this way. They were like private professors. I’m obviously not a scientist, though, and any errors are mine alone. Steven Kidder of CUNY and Diana Marsh are also scientists who let me, a non-scientist ignoramus, bounce ideas off them. David Shenk is a writer I met at a birthday party. While eating cake, he let me describe an idea I had about the relationship of pressure in geology to memory loss in people. Wesley Adams gave me loads of wonderful ideas and encouragement. I’m eternally grateful to FSG’s copy editors, too. Adam Forgash, Paul Bravmann, Sarah Burnes, and Logan Garrison Savits read drafts and gave me valuable feedback. If these generous and smart people hadn’t lent me their time and their ears and their thoughts, I’d still be sitting around procrastinating, imagining a story about a curious girl and her declining but wonderful grandmother.