When I told Jack about it, he told me that for some people, depth perception is one of the first things the brain casts off when it starts to degenerate, making it difficult to tell the difference between flat and raised, high and low. That’s the thing about dementia: You can forget for a moment, even an hour. But sooner or later, dementia reminds you—and everyone else—that it’s there.
* * *
Before I had Alzheimer’s, I used to listen to a radio competition called Beat the Bomb. Callers who dialed in had the opportunity to play for up to twenty-five thousand dollars. When the game began, the clock would start ticking, and every few seconds, an eerie, prerecorded voice would announce an amount of money. “Five … hundred … dollars. One … thousand … dollars. Five … thousand … dollars.” It kept going up. As soon as the contestant said stop, the money was theirs, but the longer they waited, the more they risked the bomb (buzzer) going off and getting nothing.
When I was sixteen, Jack and I came home one day to find Mom in the garage. The car was running, and she was in the passenger seat with the car windows open. Her head lolled against the open door. I ran to call 911 while Jack dragged her from the car. By the time I got back to them, she was awake. Drowsy, making no sense, but awake.
“If I don’t remember,” she muttered. “Will I have been here at all?”
When the paramedics arrived, I listened as Jack explained that she had been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s and that she was easily confused. She must have thought she was driving somewhere, he said. Or perhaps she thought it was her favorite chair and decided to have a sleep. I wondered if Jack really believed that. As he talked, I stared at Mom, trying to catch her eye. “Is that what happened?” I’d whispered. “Were you confused?” The fact that she wouldn’t look at me told me all I needed to know.
After that, we never left her alone. She had a nurse that stayed with her all day. Dad had already left us, so Jack or I slept by her side at night. After a few months, she went into a nursing home. She’d gone downhill so fast that by that point, even if she’d still wanted to kill herself, she wouldn’t have known how. The window had closed.
Most people who want to kill themselves can wake up and decide, You know what? Today’s not the day. If I feel terrible tomorrow, I’ll do it then. Or the day after. Maybe next year. But the thing about having Alzheimer’s is that you’re a ticking clock. You don’t have the luxury of waiting. You have to beat the bomb.
* * *
I’m back in my spot by the window, sitting in my chair, looking into the dark night. I wonder if, after I’m gone, there will be an imprint left in this chair. A marker that I was once here. I won’t leave much else in the way of markers. No money. No friends. No children.
Something a lot of people don’t understand about Alzheimer’s is that while you won’t find Alzheimer’s listed as the cause of death on my death certificate, it will kill me. Trouble going to the bathroom will lead to bladder infections. Problems with swallowing may make it hard to eat. Less mobility will result in blood clots. And if I’m not eating and not moving while fighting infections and pneumonia, guess what? I’m on a one-way street to God’s waiting room.
In front of me is a row of envelopes, clean and white, addressed with first names. Jack. Ethan. Hank. Brayden. Helen. (I didn’t want her to feel left out.) Dad. I thought about that one awhile: Dad. What do you say to the man who left your mother right after she was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s? On second thought, perhaps there was a lot to say to a man like that? I decided not to go with the torrent of abuse, tempting as it was, and instead wrote down memories. Of Mom’s death-ceremony-thingy. My graduation. The birth of Jack’s children. For some reason, it felt important to document them. Maybe it was my way of responding to the letters he’d sent me over the years, the ones I’d burned during my pyromaniac years, and simply thrown out after that. Or maybe I was trying to rub it in, to make him feel the sting of what he missed. Or maybe it was just the idea of having it all on paper, something tangible that would exist after I’d gone.
It feels a little strange leaving my room without a bag, without keys. But it’s not like I’m going to need them. The place is quiet. I’m ready.
I twist the doorknob quietly. It opens without a rasp, and I send a thank-you to the gods. But I speak too soon, because on my first step into the hallway, there’s an almighty creak. I tuck myself back into my room, straining to hear something over my thundering heart. My favorite helper-person, the young one—Blondie, I call her—is on duty, and if she finds me, she’ll probably offer to play cards or make me a cup of tea, and then I’ll never be able to go through with it.
After a minute, when nothing happens, I step over the creaky board and pick my way along the corridor toward the stairs. I’m in my sleeping-clothes. I’ve thought this through. If someone finds me out here, I have a great excuse. I have Alzheimer’s. I’m lost. Confused. Take me back to my room. It may or may not happen again. I am nearly at the stairs when I hear a click.
“I kn-know what you’re doing.”
For a moment, I think about thrashing around, acting disoriented. Then I recognize the voice. Young Guy.
When I turn, he is standing there in a T-shirt and undershorts. His bare legs extend from his shorts, long and quite muscular. His left cheek is creased from the pillow, and his hair is mussed.
It takes me a moment to remember what he said. “You know what I’m doing?” I ask when it returns to me. “What?”
He takes a few silent steps toward me, and his eyes do a lap of my face. “Doesn’t take a … really s-smart person to figure it out,” he says. “Who wouldn’t want to kill themselves, d-diagnosed with dementia at your age?”
I blink. When he puts it like that, it does seem obvious. Yet Jack has never questioned me about suicide. Neither has Helen. Or Eric. The only one who asked me about it, as a matter of course, was Dr. Brain. And only because it was a printed question on his list. Number seven. Or perhaps eight.
“You have dementia at my age,” I say. “Do you want to kill yourself?”
“No.” He doesn’t hesitate, even for a second.
“Well, then.” It’s strange that I sound—even feel—triumphant. I’ve proved him wrong. Even though he’s right.
“Why not?” I ask suddenly.
“I value life,” he says. “As long as my heart keeps b-b-beating, I want to be here.”
“Even if you’re stuck in a wheely-chair and you don’t know your own name?” I ask.
“Who s-says I won’t know it? Who says I won’t be h-happy? Who says you won’t be?”
I laugh blackly. “I’ll never save another life. I’ll never run a marathon or ride a motorcycle. My best jokes are definitely behind me.”
A sudden, muffled snore punches into the silence, and I leap. Young Guy steadies me. I can smell the laundry soap on his T-shirt. It’s unnerving, and also … exhilarating. His clothes are thin and so are mine, and for the second time in a day, I imagine leaning forward and pressing my lips against his mouth.
“Okay, so no m-marathons,” he whispers, letting me go. “But w-what about the other stuff? Sitting in a garden. Eating eggs on toast. Spending time with loved ones. Doesn’t that have value?”
“You should be a motivational speaker.”
“Thanks. But you … didn’t answer my question.”
“No,” I whisper. “I don’t think that stuff has value. I don’t think life is about eggs on toast. Life is about doing something great.”
“How do you know … something g-great … isn’t still ahead?”
The question hangs in the air. I contemplate telling him the truth. On one hand, it seems unnecessarily cruel, on another, it might be the only thing that gets him off my back.
“My mom had Alzheimer’s,” I say finally. “And I promise you, there’s nothing great ahead.”
As predicted, this silences his eternal optimism. I’m almost disappointed when he doesn’t fire back immediately with a retort. He seemed s
o committed to life. I start toward the stairs.
“What was her name?” he calls after me.
“What?”
“Your m-mom. What was her name?”
The question stops me short. Since I’ve been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s, lots of people have asked me if there is a family history. They’re interested and sometimes saddened to hear about my mom. They express sympathy. Some say prayers for me.
Not once has anyone asked Mom’s name.
I half turn back. “It was … Valerie.”
“V-Valerie,” he repeats. As he says it, he nods like he’s trying to commit it to memory. It does something to me. The room starts to move, and I realize I’m sinking to the floor.
“No…” I whisper when I feel his arms go around me, but the fight seems to have gone out of me. And when he guides me back to my room, I let him. Then I’m in bed and he’s tucking blankets up around me and I’m crying, from a place deep within. I never had a good answer to Mom’s question. “If I don’t remember, will I have been here at all?” But maybe her question was flawed. Maybe it doesn’t matter what you remember. Maybe if someone else remembers and speaks your name, you were here.
7
Eve
On our first morning in our new home, I wake early. Clem is beside me, sweaty and warm, and completely dead to the world. She’s flat on her back with her arms outstretched (“the crucifix,” Richard called it) while drool weeps slowly from her open mouth. Last night, once we’d got through the first twisty, turny hour, she’d been a delight to sleep with—a sweet-smelling deadweight to cocoon around. It was so welcome after four months of sleeping alone. So unbelievably welcome.
I decide to make poached fruit and muesli for breakfast, if only to mask the smell of salami. I gulp down some coffee, then peel my pears and apples, chop my rhubarb, get out my cinnamon and vanilla bean. It’s my first day of work. Surprisingly, I find that slightly thrilling. During my study at the cookery school, I’d looked forward to this. Not working at a residential care facility, obviously, but cooking for a living. I’d visualized it—the fresh produce I’d procure from markets; the bustling nights in a hot, hectic kitchen; the new twists I’d invent on traditional recipes.
Mother didn’t like it when I said things like “new twists.” “Why do you have to get all fancy all the time, Evie?” she’d say. “A bit of tradition never did anyone any harm!”
I grew up on meat and three vegetables, but I’m not sure which three, because Mother always cooked them until they were so gray and mushy, they were unrecognizable. Everything was drowned in ketchup and swilled down with soda or, in Dad’s case, a pint of Guinness. Condiments were used liberally, so were butter and cream. We lived by Dad’s foolproof equation: Salt plus pepper equals flavor.
I still remember the day I tasted my first spice, on a date when I was seventeen. I don’t remember the guy’s name, but I do remember the warmth that shot into my belly when we wandered into that Brick Lane curry house in London. The scent of turmeric and cumin—so thick, I could taste it. The colors—yellows, reds, and greens—of the food on the table. The burst of fire when I chomped down on a surprise chili, the relief of the coconut rice against the roof of my mouth afterwards. That was the moment I knew cooking was in my future.
Six months later, I packed up and moved to New York to attend the Institute of Culinary Education. It was a lifetime ago now and so much had changed. Perhaps the one thing that hadn’t changed was my love of cooking.
Once my fruit is poaching on the stove, I set out some bowls. I find the newspaper outside the door. The old tenants must have forgotten to cancel their subscription. I smile, thinking Clem will like it—a little like being at a hotel—until I see Richard’s face on the front page. Actually, the paper is folded in half, so all I see is his chin—that sweet cleft Clem has inherited. The one I used to squash between my thumb and forefinger teasingly … I’d know it anywhere. And although after four months, I should be used to seeing Richard’s face in the news, I feel the familiar flap of panic. What now?
I scoop up the paper and scan it quickly. I’ve probably got only another minute or so before Mother calls and tells me what it says anyway. And with the way Mother exaggerates, I’m better to read it direct.
RICHARD BENNETT’S ACCOUNTANT TO PLEAD GUILTY IN SCHEME
This was new. Ever since this whole thing blew up, Richard’s longtime tax accountant, David Cohen, had denied knowledge of Richard’s scheme. Most people were skeptical, but I’d given him the benefit of the doubt—after all, I’d shared a bed with Richard and had no idea what he was up to. Or did I? I’d been asking myself this lately. Is it possible that, on some level, I did know? Not the details, of course, but that something was up? Did I ask enough questions? Or had I been afraid that, if I did ask, I might uncover something I didn’t want to know?
The funny thing is; I still haven’t cried. I’ve started to—plenty of times—even set the stage for a proper weeping session, with wine and a warm bath and memories of good times. But the tears just don’t come. And before I know it, I am thinking of the bad times, reminding myself of irritating habits, turbulent fights. The way he used to say yes to everything in the moment, and then come up with last-minute excuses when the time came. That, in particular, drove me crazy.
“If I had known you were going to work late,” I used to cry, “I wouldn’t have said we’d both be there! They’ve probably catered for you!”
“I’d like to be there,” he’d reply stiffly, “but this is business.”
And business, of course, trumped everything.
I finish the article and the surrounding stories. Tales of people who lost money next to pictures of Richard boarding a private jet. Pictures of angry investors. Financial records. In one corner is a tiny studio shot of me. The media favors this photograph—young, doe-eyed, stupid—the kind of woman who doesn’t notice that her fraudulent husband is running the biggest Ponzi scheme since Bernie Madoff.
On cue, my phone rings. I shove the newspaper into a drawer where Clem won’t see it. “Hello, Mother.”
I picture her at the hall table in her apartment, twisted around her phone, which, amazingly, still has a cord. “Have you seen the newspaper?”
“Yes,” I say.
“Are you all right?”
I fall back into a squeaky armchair. “I’m fine.”
Mother is quiet a moment. “Good. And was your first night at the apartment … tolerable?”
I can tell Mother is thinking of the house Clem and I just vacated—its six bedrooms, its saltwater pool, its 1.5 acres of lush grounds.
“Perfectly tolerable,” I say.
There’s a short silence; a sharp inhalation. I brace myself.
“Oh, Evie, it just makes me so angry! You and Clem stuck in that awful place when you two are innocent in all this! I swear if I could get my hands on that man I’d—”
I tune out. I can’t bear to listen to it all again. While Richard did some terrible things, I still feel surprisingly uncomfortable hearing her slam him, particularly after she’d allowed Richard to move her and Dad over from England and set them up very nicely. I also feel uncomfortable since she spent a decade kissing his ass so wholeheartedly that even Richard felt awkward. (And Richard never felt awkward around adoring women.)
“Thanks, Mother, but we’re fine. Really.”
“You’re hardly fine, Evie. You’ve taken a job in a residential care facility! I must admit, I still don’t understand why. Even if you didn’t have the experience to become a head chef at a restaurant, surely you could … I don’t know … open a little catering business or something?”
I don’t bother to point out that in order to start any kind of business, I’d need money, something that was in desperately short supply for me right now. Instead I remind her that if we don’t want Clem to be moved to Buttwell Elementary we need an address in the area. When I finish talking I notice Clem standing in the doorway of the bedroom, holding her tatty pink
bunny by the ears.
“Clem’s awake, Mother. I have to go.”
“Hold on a minute,” she says. “Your father wants to speak to you.”
There’s a shuffle, and then I hear Dad clear his throat. “Saw the paper. You hang in there, baby. People will realize that you were dealt a rough card, too. The only one who should be suffering is your low-down scumbag of a husband.…”
Clem climbs onto my lap, and I smile brightly. She watches me intently, her radar for knowing when people are talking about her father in perfect working order. “Don’t worry about me, Dad,” I say brightly. “I’m fine.”
“You’re a special girl, Evie,” he says softly. “More special than you know.”
It’s a sweet sentiment, but all the same, it makes me cringe. “It takes a special kind of person to make someone else great,” Mother said to me in the early days with Richard. “To lift them up and help them achieve their dreams.” I wonder what it says about me that the person I was supposed to be “helping” and “lifting up” is dead.
* * *
As Clem and I arrive at Rosalind House in the morning, Rosie, the night nurse, is scampering down the front steps. Even in an obvious hurry, she grins. “Sorry,” she pants. “Gotta flight to catch.”
“Where are you off to?” I ask as she skips past me.
“Jamaica for a week with the girls.” She turns and starts jogging backwards. “Sorry I won’t be around for your first week. Eric should be here any minute, so make yourself at home. Hey—cool dancing last night,” she says to Clem. “You gotta show me your moves when I get back.”
Clem beams, and Rosie turns and jogs away before she can find out she has a friend for life.
The Things We Keep Page 6
