by June Shaw
Eve hit her horn right before I unlocked my door and ran out. She didn’t look much better than I did. “What do you think happened?” she asked.
“I have no idea, but I am so sorry for her and whatever family she has.”
“Me, too. Do you think they’ll let us in there this morning?”
I stared at her and she at me. “If they don’t, we’ll have to find a way to sneak inside. I am going to see Mom.”
She slapped palms with me to agree and her eyes speared the road.
“Eve, I hate to even think this, but do you believe Mom could be losing some of her mental capabilities?”
She kept her eyes forward, her body appearing almost totally still. After a long moment, she took a deep inhale that made her shoulders and chest rise. “God, I hope not. That would be so hard on her.”
“I know.” While we rode in silence, another thought came. “What if we get her one of those pill cases that some of those older people use? The ones that have a small opening for the medicine they take every day of the week.”
“Yes. Then she could tell if she took one a day like she’s supposed to.”
When we were a few blocks away from the manor, she whipped her car into a parking lot. “Look, there’s only one car here at the drugstore. Do you want to run in and grab one of those containers for pills?”
“Good idea.” I fast-walked after she parked, knew where I had seen them, and went straight for the long narrow plastic containers. I paid for one and hurried outside.
“That should help her,” Eve said and pulled onto the empty street.
The memory of police cars parked close to the manor came to mind. My back tensed while I imagined even more of them over there now. Last night they were investigating what Detective Wilet suggested made me believe was a resident’s severe illness caused by her possibly taking someone else’s medicine. Today they would surely be checking even deeper into her death.
What I saw made my chest expand with my deep breath. The main entrance to the manor looked exactly as it normally did. No police cars surrounded the entry. Not one squad car that I could see parked in the lot.
Eve and I gave each other small smiles before she parked. We rushed inside. The first thing that slammed against us was all the voices. Residents everywhere were talking. They talked to each other and to staff members and guests, and spoke loud. Everyone seemed to be scurrying about.
“What’s going on here?” I asked once we’d walked past the foyer and approached Mom’s group of Chat and Nappers. Mom wasn’t sitting with them. Two others who normally sat in this gathering weren’t around either.
“Oh my God,” said the woman I almost didn’t recognize, since she hadn’t worn any pearls today. She pressed her hands to her chest. “It was horrible here last night, like a prison.”
“They locked us in our rooms and wouldn’t let us come out.” A woman wearing a startling bright red dress sat on a sofa and lifted her walking cane. She held it straight out and swung it back and forth. I got the impression she was using it to let herself out.
“They locked you in your rooms?” Eve asked while concern came to me.
The little woman cuddled near in her wheelchair shook her head first, followed by some others. “They didn’t really lock the doors,” she said and then looked around. “Did they?”
“I didn’t try the door to my suite, but it was wrong of them to make us stay in our rooms,” the one holding her dead husband on her lap said.
“But they didn’t actually make us,” the woman missing her pearls said.
“Oh, yes they did.” The one still holding her cane out slammed its tip on the floor. “If we’d have tried to come out, they probably would have stopped us.”
Tears misted the eyes of a couple of them, while the faces of most revealed anger. I had the feeling the teary eyes were for themselves and the situation they endured instead of grief for the woman who had lived here but passed on. These ladies were friends of our mother. They had surely known that the person who died hadn’t been very nice to her. She had insisted she wanted Mom’s beau. But did she really, or had that been only talk, like an adolescent trying to get another girl’s boyfriend? And did it really matter?
The group we stood between kept up their chatter, telling each other and me and Eve how ticked off they were about being told to stay in their rooms. “And the bread on my sandwich was stale,” one said.
“My soup was cold,” griped another.
More complaints flew from each of them while other people moved around. Staffers moved faster than usual. The nurse scurried past with rolling trays of medicines. The assistant-administrator, Rita Picou, always walked like she was in a hurry. This morning she seemed to move even quicker. Maybe she was trying to get away from thoughts of being at the hospital with their resident who died. Probably she needed to fill out many forms and contact people, just like I imagined the head lady had been doing. She was not scrambling around that I could see.
The men’s deeper voices carried much more than usual. From where we were, I could see many of them sitting at tables where they often played cards or read the newspaper or a book. Now, though, they kept talking. Many of their voices sounded angry. Nobody here liked being told to stay in their rooms last night or any other time. And was that even necessary?
“I’m sorry you had to go through that,” I said to the ladies seated around us and considered mentioning my sorrow for the person who died. But did they even know about that death? Had the administrators let people here know about it?
A man’s raised voice made me look at the males in view again, recalling that Emery Jackobson had been here last night just like we were.
I didn’t see him now.
“Do y’all know where our mother is?” Eve asked in the middle of these ladies’ non-stop chatter.
Some of them looked at each other. Two of them glanced toward the hall with the men’s rooms. My stomach clenched.
“Good morning, daughters.” The cheerful voice came from behind us, from the direction of the elevator she always used to reach the floor to her room.
“Good morning,” Eve and I told her, one after the other enjoying her hugs.
“What’s wrong?” Mom asked her group of friends. “None of you wanted to let my girls sit down today? They’re very nice, you know.”
“We know that,” one uttered, scooting to make room on a sofa.
“I’m sorry,” another one said. “We were just so busy talking we didn’t think to be polite.”
All of them on the sofas tried scooting one way or the other and patting the seats they opened for us. The widest section to open up was where Mom normally sat in the middle of the central sofa. We squeezed in on each side of her.
“How are you doing today?” Eve asked her.
“I’m just fine. I slept well.” So she mustn’t know that a woman she’d known here died. She pointed to the small plastic bag I held. “You brought me breakfast?”
“No, just…” How was I going to put this so she wouldn’t take it wrong? So I would not give away our concern? “It’s just a little present.” I held it out to her.
All the other ladies had gotten quiet. They all watched, expectation of something good in the package on some of their faces.
Mom pulled the long pill container out of the bag. She held it straight up from one end. “Why would you bring me this?”
I kept my eyes away from her, aiming them at the vinyl floor. My neck and cheeks warmed. I was certain they had become pink. My outer vision let me see that she turned to face Eve, again holding the pale blue pill holder almost as though she were gripping a weapon. She slipped the single prescription bottle out of her knitted pouch.
A little fake cough came from Eve. “We thought you might want to keep your medicine in there instead of that pouch.” Her throat sounded constricted.
<
br /> Mom caught me looking straight at her. “And why did you two believe that?”
I didn’t speak. How do you tell your mother of your horrible fear that she could be losing the person she once was? The woman who had always held and nurtured you? Whose mind could be slipping?
The pearl-less woman broke my silence. “I keep all of my pills in one of those reminders.”
“Me, too,” a couple of others said.
“I have one like that for my morning pills and a clear case like that for all of my evening pills,” said another.
They went on telling each other about how many pills they take each day and what all their pills were for, most of them taking something for high blood pressure and high cholesterol. Some had acid reflux, constipation, and diabetes.
Mom kept staring at me. We sat so close I could smell her light bath powder and feel her familiar soft hip against mine.
“But I only take one pill a day.” Mom held up her prescription bottle. “And this isn’t for birth control.”
A few of her buddies laughed. “I wish I needed to take that kind of pill again,” one said and others chattered about wanting to have sex again or dreading the whole mess.
“Well, Eve.” My mother looked straight at me, seated right against her. “I’m waiting.”
I’m Sunny! I wanted to blurt. A soft Christmas carol swirled around my throat. I had already lost my beloved mother? She didn’t know me anymore.
“Sunny,” she said, turning to my sister. “Why would you two choose to have me use something like this for the single pill I take each day instead of just letting me continue to take a pill out of its prescription bottle?”
My twin’s eyes widened with panic. “Mom, it’s me, Eve.” She pointed at me. “That’s Sunny.”
I held my breath as I knew Eve surely did hers. The mother we had always known was gone. Who was this new person in her place?
Chapter 23
Mom looked from one to the other of us as though she were confused. The back of my eyes started to burn. And then Mom burst out laughing and handed the new pill container back to me. “Here, Sunny, you can bring this back to the store. I don’t need it.”
So she did know me. She was tricking us.
“I’ll take that. Mine is old,” the woman on my opposite side said. I handed the container for pills to her.
Eve and I both leaned in to Mom and squeezed her in a long hug, which she returned.
“Okay, I’m confused,” a woman behind me said.
“About what?” asked someone else.
“About why Miriam is laughing like that. She smiles a lot, but she doesn’t laugh very often.”
When the three of us let each other go, all of us were smiling, Eve told the confused woman, “Mom was pretending she didn’t know which one of us was which.” Confusion remained written on the woman’s face, so Eve pointed at me and herself. “Mom called Sunny Eve, but I’m Eve, and she called me Sunny.”
“Well, I wouldn’t know y’all apart,” the woman without her pearls said.
“Me either,” said another.
But our mother always would. We let the group take up their chatter about twins, about taking the wrong medicine and forgetting to take it while Eve, Mom, and I snuggled our faces close to each other in our semi-private conversation.
“We got you that pillbox so you’d be sure to take your medicine right,” Eve said.
I touched Mom’s cold hand with the twisted fingers. “Do you need a sweater or something?” I asked and she shook her head. Her hands often felt cooler than the rest of her body. “Mom, some days you must have taken more of your medicine than you were supposed to. That could really harm you.”
“But I didn’t take more than one every day.”
Eve clasped her other hand. “Then what happened to those missing pills?”
“I must have spilled them, and they got vacuumed up before I noticed they’d dropped.” Sadness touched her eyes. “You two heard about Clarice?”
“We did,” Eve said.
“That is so sad,” I said.
Mom nodded. “I know. It’s horrible. I can’t believe she’s gone.”
Everyone in our group quit talking at one time. The next voice, which came from the wheelchair-bound woman, carried. “I guess they’ll be advertising another room available here. Or did she have a suite?”
“A suite,” the woman beside her replied, and many of them began discussing where the newly available suite was located and maybe one of them would want to move up from her single bedroom to what the dead woman made available.
Thoughts of that were gruesome. They made me consider that even if our mother hadn’t really developed dementia, she was aging. Those deepening lines in her face sucked her soft skin even farther down outside her eyes and into folds across her neck. Signs of her youthful beauty remained evident—in the twinkle in her eyes when she was happy, in her high cheekbones and cupid lips. But lines now folded all around those lips.
“Good morning, everyone,” a man’s cheerful voice called out. It was Mac, using his cane for a fast walk toward us.
“Good morning,” most sitting in our group said to him. So did Mom and Eve and me.
Our mother’s face had brightened with her wide smile. “Oh, it’s getting time for breakfast already?” She glanced at one of the many large wall clocks.
“Almost.” The intensity of his eyes, aimed at her, said she was important to him. And then he turned them toward me and Eve. “But I see that you have company this morning, Miriam, so I’ll just talk to you later.”
How many laters would our mother have for a man who seemed to love her?
“No, we were just leaving,” I told him. Eve gave me a questioning look, to which I nodded. I hugged and kissed Mom. “Enjoy your day,” I told her before she smiled her appreciation and gave a quick hug and kiss to my twin.
The most wonderful smell of sizzling bacon filled our space, making me not want to leave. But we exchanged good-byes with Mac and our mother’s lady friends before I recalled something. I nudged my head to the side to tell Eve to follow me. We went straight to the counter separating the main staff from others. The secretary sat behind the desk.
She grinned at us. “Your mother and her guy friend are sure hitting it off, aren’t they?” she asked and pointed.
We looked back toward where she’d aimed. Mom was walking side-by-side with him. They smiled at each other and held hands.
“They always do that,” the woman at the desk said. “They take a little walk around before every meal and then when mealtime comes, they need to part, since they sit at different tables.” Her smile spread. “But that will change once they get married.”
Eve and I exchanged questioning glances. I wasn’t totally sure how I felt about Mom and her man friend anymore. I’d thought I had begun to accept their escalating relationship, although when this woman spoke of her marrying, I felt as though someone slapped my chest, pushing the air out. I didn’t want to feel that way.
Doors to two of the offices behind her were open. The nurse’s door wasn’t. The top official and her assistant both appeared busy on their phones at their desks. Their faces were tense.
“Can I help you?” The secretary looked at Eve and me.
“We wanted to see if Ms. Hebert is ready for us to fix this.” I stepped near the end of the counter and tapped its uneven cutout section.
“I sure wish she would. That opening is so aggravating to go through since it’s gotten uneven like that.” She looked back at her boss, who now waved her free hand around while she spoke on her phone. “Now probably isn’t a good time. I’m sure you heard something happened here last night, so there’s lots of commotion.”
“Yes, we know,” Eve said. “Please tell her we’ll be ready to repair this when she’s ready.”
The young wo
man looked back and then at us. “I will.”
We thanked her and headed for the exit. I checked behind us before we walked out the door. Mom and her beau were nowhere in sight. Again outside, we looked around. “It’s great not to see any police cars here again,” I said once I slid into Eve’s car.
“It is. That was a frightening image.” She gave my arm a small pat. “I’m proud of you.” In response to my quizzical expression, she asked, “Have you been seeing Lesley?” She referred to our friend the psychiatrist.
“I have.”
“Good for you. It shows.” She steered us out of the parking lot. “And as a little reward, I’m going to treat you to breakfast at Josie’s. I’ll even eat bacon with you.”
After experiencing all the tension at the manor, it was nice to watch her smile and to consider the treat we would soon enjoy. The enticing aroma of bacon at the manor had made me want some, so now I wouldn’t have to bother to cook it. I thought of Josie’s flaky, buttery biscuits that we’d get with the meat, and my mouth watered. Eve was proud because even though events from last night had been fearful, I was almost entirely able to control my instinct of singing. She never ate such fattening foods as bacon, so she must also be feeling different. Events at the manor had been sad. Mom tricked us into believing she was no longer herself. Now she was with that man.
“Eve, what do you think about Mac?”
A small crease folded across her smooth forehead. “What do we really know about him? He was Edward’s uncle.” She glanced at me with a shrug. “He seems to make Mom happy.”
“But is he good for her? Now with a woman she knew well dying at the manor, she might consider how short life can be. You never know when it will be gone.”
“So this death might make her rush into going after what she wants.”
Our mother could do that, just like when Edward was around and pushing them into that commitment.
Life was short. Dave wanted more of a commitment from me.
