The Things We Keep

by Sally Hepworth

  “I want a baby.”

  They say something happens to a woman when she reaches thirty-five and her fertility starts to ebb. Even the coldest, least maternal women start to feel the twinge. Maybe that’s what it was? Kids weren’t exactly something I’d always wanted, but all of a sudden, I started noticing pregnant women. I started looking in strollers and smiling at grubby faces.

  Unfortunately, when it came to having a baby, Aiden was less easily led. “Let’s wait a few months,” he said. But a few months became a year. The clock was ticking, and not just the biological clock. I was forgetting things by then. There was no firm diagnosis, but the writing was on the wall.

  “Jesus Christ, Anna!” it became, after a while. “Will you let up about a fucking baby? Am I nothing more than a sperm donor to you?”

  I wanted to be outraged. To ask how he could even ask me that. But by that stage, we both knew it was an accurate description for what he was. We rarely talked about anything meaningful anymore. The motorcycle trips were a thing of the past. We’d put our old camping equipment out on the sidewalk on garbage day. I may as well have put my ovaries there, too.

  So I agreed with Aiden that a baby was a bad idea. And a few weeks later, when I was officially diagnosed with Alzheimer’s, I left.

  * * *

  It’s visitors’ day at Rosalind House, and we’re in the garden again—a practical decision, as with Jack and Helen and all the boys here, we couldn’t all fit in my room. Apart from the sun, which is shining right in my eyes, I like it out here. It’s Sunday, and most of the residents have visitors. Southern Lady sits opposite a woman who bears such an uncanny resemblance to her—from the floral dress to the puff of yellow hair—that she has to be her sister. Really Old Lady has a visitor, a young man in gray sweatpants who, age-wise, is most likely a great-grandson, or even a great-great. Young Guy is flanked by an older woman who is either a mother or a grandmother and a younger woman, about my age. And Eric swans around the lot of us, like a King visiting his villagers.

  “Can I have a ride in your wheelchair, please? I mean, if you’re not using it.”

  My nephew Hank beams at Really Old Lady. Clearly he’s very proud of himself for saying please. He’s definitely not expecting the pinch on the arm that he gets from Helen. “Ow, Mom! What?”

  Really Old Lady fiddles with her hearing aid. “What did you say, young man?”

  “Nothing,” Helen says hurriedly. “Nothing at all.” She takes Hank by the arm and drags him away, toward the far end of the lawn, where Ethan and Brayden are playing.

  Jack leans back on his garden chair and stretches his arms out. “So? How’s it been?”

  I blink into the sun, wishing it would go behind the tree. “Not bad. Actually, it’s been better than I expected.”

  “Seriously?”

  “The fact that you look so surprised doesn’t bode well for you, considering you were the one who tossed me in here like a piece of rotten fruit.”

  Jack laughs. “As I recall, you tossed yourself in. I just found the place.” He looks so happy, I’m worried he might cry. “Hey, I think this place is great. I’m only surprised because I didn’t expect you to … adjust to it … so soon.”

  We both drop our eyes. By “so soon,” he means before I started to really lose it. Before I forgot that he, or any of them, existed.

  “Eric says you’ve started to get into the swing of things,” he tries again. “That you’ve come out of your room a few times—”

  “More than a few,” I tell him. “I’ve even made some friends. That lady over there”—I nod at Southern Lady, who is surrounded by a cluster of little children and teenagers— “and him.” I point at Young Guy, whose eyes lift at that exact moment to meet mine. Quickly I point to another couple of residents that I’ve never seen before in my life. “Her and him, too.” Since I don’t remember anyone’s names, I might as well include them all.

  “Good!” Jack’s enthusiasm is tragic. It reminds me of the way he used to cheer when Ethan finally went on the potty. “That’s … great.”

  “Yep. There are lots of things to do. There’s a bus that we can take to town, as long as we have a … a person that goes with us … and there’s bingo on Friday nights.”

  At this, Jack’s enthusiasm is replaced by suspicion. “Bingo?”

  “I mean … I didn’t play or anything, but they have it, so that’s good.”

  I need to backpedal, fast. I want Jack to think I’m happy, not crazy. But I get the feeling that, with bingo, I took it too far.

  Helen and the boys run up, saving me at the eleventh hour. “Anna do you have one of those beds that goes up and down?” Hank asks.

  “Bed goes up, bed goes down. Bed goes up, bed goes down,” Brayden and Ethan chant.

  “Why don’t you go have a look?” I suggest, because I have no idea if I have one of those beds. For all I know, I’ve been sleeping on a lump of clay since I arrived—beds have not been at the top of my mind.

  They jog toward the house, trailed by Helen, and I watch them go. There’s a floor-to-ceiling window, I notice, way at the top of the building, directly above the paved courtyard. I zero in on it.

  Back when I was a paramedic, I’d once been the first to reach a woman who’d leapt in front of a train. Her right leg had landed over the track and had been sheared off at the knee. On the way to the hospital, she slipped into a coma.

  Tyrone sat beside her, shaking his head. “You gotta feel sorry for this one. This wasn’t no cry for help. She wanted out.”

  I nodded. “I think you’re right.”

  “She needed height.”

  “What?”

  “Height,” he repeated. “You fall from a certain height, you’re dead. You don’t need to be worryin’ about the speed of the train or the amount of pills or the strength of the rope. You just need a bridge or a tall building. It’s foolproof.”

  I stare at the window and think about what he told me. All of a sudden, I have my plan.

  “Anna?” someone is shouting. “Do you have any gum?”

  I look away from the window at Ethan. “What?”

  “Gum,” he says. “Do you have any?”

  I blink. Gum? Do I have gum? The sun is still pounding down on me like an unrelenting beast, and I can’t think. I close my eyes, but it just continues to beam, turning my eyelids red.

  “Can someone turn off that damn sun?”

  There’s a silence. I feel my chair being dragged along the grass, and a second later, blissfully, the sun is gone. “Well,” I say. “Praise be to God.”

  I open my eyes. Ethan is staring. “What? What are you staring at?”

  “You’re being weird,” Ethan says. “Isn’t she, Dad?”

  Jack looks at Ethan and slowly back to me. Typical attorney—when you don’t know what to say, say nothing.

  “Is it because you’re in this place?” Ethan asks. “With these old people?”

  Jack touches Ethan’s shoulder. “Buddy—”

  “It’s my fault, isn’t it?” he says, ignoring Jack. “Because I got burned?”

  His eyes get shiny.

  “Eath,” I say. “Nothing is your fault.”

  “Of course not,” Jack says, finding his tongue. “Anyway, this place hasn’t made Anna weird. Anna has always been weird.”

  “He’s right,” I say. “In seventh grade, I was voted Weirdest in the Whole School.”

  This isn’t true, but I figure, it doesn’t matter. Ethan lowers his hands and sniffs. A tiny pathetic-excuse-for-a-smile appears on his face.

  “How’s this for weird?” I lean in toward him, bulging my eyes as wide as they go and waggling my eyebrows.

  His smile swells. “Pretty weird.”

  “Told ya,” I say proudly. “Your dad tried to beat me, but year after year, Anna Forster won for Weirdest. He’s always been pretty sore about it, too.”

  “Yeah, well, Dad’s a sore loser. Sorry,” he says when Jack frowns at him, “but you are.” He
looks back at me. “So you don’t hate it here?”

  “Nope. It’s actually pretty nice. Don’t you think?”

  “I guess. I like the garden. And that’s a good climbing tree.” He looks at me. “Remember when we told Dad that we were stuck up that tree at the park, and we made him climb all the way up to rescue us even though we were fine?”

  His face is so happy that I have to smile back. But it’s a stretch. Because I have no recollection of what he’s talking about. Not even the foggiest, haziest hint of a memory.

  “Now, that,” I say, giving him a high five, “was a fun day.”

  I glance at the tree in this garden. Its long, thick arms are solid, forking out in different directions, many low enough even for Ethan to jump to from the ground. Once, I’d have noticed that tree immediately. I’d have been the one to suggest to Ethan that we climb it, all the way to the top, then throw acorns down on Hank and Brayden and Jack. Once, not so long ago.

  When I look back at Ethan, he’s already looking at me. His joker-smile is a question: Are you game?

  I know what Jack will say: It’s not safe. Anna can’t climb, her depth perception is off, she might fall. I’ll climb with you Eath, he’ll say. So I don’t look at Jack. Instead, I nod at Ethan infinitesimally. His smile widens. And together we sprint toward the low arms of the tree.

  Now, this is the memory I want to leave my nephew with.

  6

  I sit in the parlor all afternoon. Southern Lady drifts off to sleep in the seat opposite me, and Young Guy stares out the window. It’s nice, not having to talk, especially today. In the real world, people talk a lot. Conversations move quickly. By the time I’ve caught up enough to ask a question or make a point, everyone has already moved on. But at Rosalind House, things move slower. Everyone takes the time they need to digest what’s been said. If I want to say something, I have time. And if I don’t want to say anything, I don’t.

  Ethan and I had a good climb, and I managed to give Jack a hug without causing any suspicion (I think). It wasn’t the good-bye I would have liked, and I don’t think I had them utterly convinced that I was happy. But it will have to do. Because now I have a plan, tonight is the night.

  “Visitors’ day wears people out.”

  I look up. Young Guy is watching me, stretched out, dwarfing the small armchair he is sitting in. “No kidding,” I say. No one has said much all afternoon.

  “You have a good visit?” he asks. He’s wearing a faded denim shirt with the sleeves rolled and jeans that are torn at the knees. It’s a nice look on him, I decide. Scruffy-chic.

  “Sure,” I say, though I’m not sure it’s a good idea to be talking to him. At this point, the last thing I need is a distraction. And he—with his dimple and his scruffy-chic thing going on—is definitely a distraction.

  “Who were they?” he asks. “Your v-visitors.”

  “My brother,” I say. “And his family. Who were yours?”

  Good one, Anna. So much for not talking to him.

  “My mom.”

  I picture the older woman, white-haired and stooped.

  “Mom’s old,” he says, answering my unspoken question. Then his face sort of tenses. It’s virtually unnoticeable, just the slightest indication that speaking requires a little effort. “She was … fifty when she adopted me.”

  “And … the other woman?”

  Once I would have felt too direct asking this. I would have spent time talking around the issue and tried to slip in questions naturally. But I’ve lost patience for that stuff. It’s hard enough retaining new information without having to add in social graces. I can only hope he feels the same.

  “Sarah,” he says, pushing his hair behind his ear. “My brother.”

  “You have a brother called Sarah?”

  He frowns, and immediately I want to take it back, pretend I didn’t notice. Then he shakes his head. “Sister. I meant sister.”

  I don’t know much about Young Guy’s specific form of dementia other than what he told me at breakfast the other day, but from his expression, I can tell his slip is dementia-related. Idly, I wonder how many slips I have without noticing. Less idly, I think about how I’d like people to respond when I do.

  “My sister was here today, too,” I tell him. “Jack.”

  I watch as the joke connects with his brain and a smile wriggles onto his face.

  “It looked intense,” I say. “Whatever you were discussing.”

  “Just … who is in ch-charge of my affairs when I can no longer hold a pen.” He grimaces, trying to come up with the word. “You know the…”

  “Power of attorney?” With an attorney as a brother, “power of attorney” is probably the last expression I’ll keep. After I was diagnosed, he bandied the word around more times than I could count, the one part of my disease that Jack could control.

  “Yes!” Young Guy exclaims, and I feel a surprising thrill at being the one to provide him with the word.

  “Mom has my p-power of attorney, but she’s getting older. And she wants to g-give it to Sarah.”

  “And you don’t?”

  “I’m just not sure she’ll respect my wishes.”

  “Which are?”

  He looks at me. “I want to live.”

  “Ah,” I say, as though this makes everything clear. “And your sister wants to kill you?”

  He blinks, then laughs loudly.

  “It’s okay,” I say. “I’m pretty sure my brother wants to kill me, too.”

  Now we both laugh. It’s one of those laughs that starts as a chuckle and winds up in a full-bellied guffaw. I get so lost in it that I startle when he suddenly leans forward in his seat, then falls onto his knees in front of me. My laughter vanishes. He’s so close, I can feel the warmth of his skin on mine.

  “Hey, you’ve g-got a…” He reaches for my face, and I forget to breathe. What is he doing? If I leaned forward an inch or two, my lips would touch his. I can’t remember the last time I was this close to someone. Then again, I wouldn’t remember.

  “Eye-hair,” he says finally, swiping a hair from my cheek. He balances it on his fingertip for me to see. I get the feeling that “eye-hair” is not the word to describe it, but I am too acutely aware of the proximity of his body to think of the right one. He blows the eye-hair away, then sits back. “Sorry. What did we … what were we s-saying?”

  I can’t remember, and I suspect it has nothing to do with the Alzheimer’s. I can still feel his warmth, the burn of his fingertip on my face.

  “Uh, was it … your sister?” I ask.

  “Oh. Yeah.” He shuffles, pulling his knees to his chest and wrapping his arms around them. “Sarah’s c-cash-rich, time-poor, and a believer in finding solutions.” His throat works with the effort of speaking. “I just worry what she’ll do down the road, when the next … ‘problem’ p-presents itself.”

  He doesn’t need to explain what the next problem could be. I already know. Delusional episodes. Loss of bladder and bowel control. Feeding issues. Catastrophic reactions. DNRs.

  “Sarah cares, b-but … I’m not sure that she’d make the same decisions that I would, when it came to the crunch. I don’t want … diapers … the first time I have an accident or to be f-furnished with a chalkboard when my speech deteriorates. I don’t want to be … p-pushed in a chair with wheels when I can still walk.”

  This little speech looks like it’s taken an enormous amount of effort. And while I don’t entirely share his convictions, there’s something to be admired about his passion. It might be the fact that it’s difficult for him to speak, or maybe just the pendulum of moods of Alzheimer’s, but as I listen to him talk, my eyes fill.

  “At some point, I’m going to have to start letting go of control,” he says. “But I have n-no plans to do it without a fight. And Sarah, I can just see her—Luke’s having trouble dressing himself, let’s p-pay someone to do it for him. Luke’s not doing enough … exercise; let’s schedule some activities. Let’s give him slee
ping tablets to help him s-sleep, let’s feed him. No. That’s not what I want. I don’t want to exist. I want to love.”

  “Live,” I correct, but he doesn’t seem to notice.

  I have to admit, I think he’s right to be wary of handing his affairs to his sister. It’s one of the reasons I don’t want my life to get to that point. As good as Jack’s intentions are, I wouldn’t want him pulling my puppet strings down the road.

  “Brothers,” I say with an over-the-top sigh. It’s funny, even though we’ve just been discussing dementia-related stuff, for the last few minutes, it didn’t feel like either of us had dementia. It felt like we were just a guy and a girl, discussing life.

  “Luke?”

  We both glance at the doorway, where Eric is standing.

  “Your doctor is here to see you,” Eric says.

  “Oh. Sure.” Young Guy, Luke, rises to his feet.

  “Would you like me to take you back to your room, Anna?” Eric asks.

  Luke looks at me. He kicks his foot gently against mine—a benign enough gesture that somehow has me blushing. “W-will you be here when I get b-back?”

  I glance to where Eric is standing: red-faced, fat and smirking. Then I look back at Luke. “Well,” I say quietly, “I’ve had some pretty tempting offers, but yeah, what the hell, why not?”

  To Eric I say, “Thanks but I’m fine right here.”

  Luke grins and wanders off toward Eric. In the doorway, he pauses, staring at the thin, shiny strip of metal edging on the carpet, separating the parlor from the hall. Then he lifts his foot to knee height, stepping over the strip as though it were a raised bar or stair. At first I don’t know what he’s doing. Then I do.

  The first time I saw Mom do this was at my basketball championship. She’d been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s six months earlier. She’d sat in the third row during the game, cheering and clapping when we got a three-pointer (and occasionally, when the other team did). After we won, everyone tramped onto the court, greeting us with hugs and high fives. As the shooter of the winning team, I was lifted onto my team’s shoulders and tossed about. It was from there that I saw Mom. She was on the edge of the court, frowning at a line on the floor as though it were some sort of intricate puzzle she couldn’t figure out. I tapped someone to let me down, but before I could get to her, she shimmied up her skirt and stepped over the line as if it were a waist-high fence. A few people looked, but most were distracted by the commotion on the court. Once over the line, she smiled at me, a little relieved, and gave me a hug. “Congratulations, darling. Great game.”