Mothers and Daughters: An Anthology

by Deborah Bedford

  “Are you coming by later?”

  “Probably not, honey. I have bowling tonight.”

  Carrie lifted an eyebrow. “With Ken?”

  She liked teasing her mother about the rugged farmer. The pair had been friends long before Ken’s wife died, but now Carrie suspected a romance. Except for the fact that Ken had taught Frannie to drive a tractor and ride a horse, both a little silly for someone of her age, Carrie was glad. Mother had been alone for most of her life.

  Fran flapped a hand and laughed, her cheeks shining pink as she headed toward the gold Olds, or as Lexi called it, The Tanker. “Tell Lexi she missed out.”

  “Are you still coming for dinner tomorrow after church?”

  Her mother stopped, turned and whipped off her aviator sunglasses. “I’d forgotten all about it.”

  Carrie squelched a twinge of irritation that she was low man on Mother’s totem pole. “Are you coming? I’m baking a red velvet cake.”

  “Wouldn’t miss it, then.” She shoved the sunglasses back in place. “And honey, why don’t you take those extra bulbs over to Sara Perneky? She could use some good cheer.”

  Before Carrie could remind her mother that they’d already discussed doing exactly that, Frannie had slammed the car door and cranked the engine.

  As the Olds roared away, Mother gave two final blasts of the horn.

  Carrie waved, shaking her head. Mother was…well, Mother.

  By the time Dan and Lexi returned with the peat moss along with a bag of burgers from Whopper World and a few other items Carrie didn’t remember needing, Carrie had gone inside for a break.

  “Saw your mom at Wal-Mart.” Dan bent to kiss her cheek.

  “That’s funny. Mother stopped by more than an hour ago and didn’t say a word about seeing you.” Carrie dipped to the side so as not to streak Dan’s green Henley with dirt and shoved her hands under the kitchen faucets. Her back ached a little from muscles atrophied by winter. “She wanted Lexi to go with her.”

  “Where?” Lexi asked, though she continued rummaging through a Wal-Mart bag.

  “The airport to watch skydiving.” Carrie rinsed her hands and reached toward the paper towel holder. “I didn’t know you were going to Wal-Mart.”

  No wonder they’d been gone so long.

  “Lexi needed some new earrings.”

  “Oh right. Like my mother needs another hat.”

  “I didn’t have any blue ones.” Lexi tilted her head to display a series of neon-colored hoops dangling below two gleaming studs. “Do you like them, Mom?”

  They were hideous. Three holes in one ear. Good grief. “Great for spring.”

  “You hate them.”

  Carrie patted her daughter’s silky brown hair. At fifteen and all legs, Lexi was growing into a beauty with tastes of her own. She was a great kid. The only kid. Though Carrie and Dan had prayed for more, these prayers had gone unanswered. “If you like them, that’s all that matters.”

  “I told Dad you’d say that.” Her daughter didn’t seem the least offended. Their tastes had never run along the same lines and lately the gulf had widened. Where Carrie preferred subtle and classic, Lexi gravitated toward bold colors and the hottest trends.

  “Come on.” Lexi settled at the bar. “Let’s eat. I’m starving.”

  Dan pulled a face. “This is after two doughnuts.”

  Even with starbursts bracketing his eyes from years of working out in the sun, Dan Martin was a handsome man, fit and trim with hair as dark as ever. His worst flaw was that he didn’t attend church and in a small town like Riverbend, church membership was socially important. Though Dan claimed to be a believer, he also claimed to spend more time with God in the great outdoors than most people did in church. Carrie wasn’t much on the long-winded preaching, but she’d made plenty of friends and hopefully some brownie points with God by working in the nursery every single service for the past ten years.

  “You stopped at the bakery, too?” Paper rustled as she took a fragrant burger from a sack and straddled a bar stool. “I’m starting to feel left out.”

  Dan shot her a wink. “Brought you a surprise.”

  Dan’s bakery surprise was always the same. “If it’s a chocolate éclair, you’ll be forgiven, although I may change my mind when I go shopping for an Easter dress.”

  “You look good to me.”

  Mouth full of burger and heart full of pleasure, Carrie was laughing with her lips closed when the telephone rang. Lexi exploded off the bar. “I got it.”

  In seconds she was back, holding the cordless receiver toward her mother. “For you.”

  At Carrie’s questioning look, she shrugged and mouthed, “I don’t know,” then poked another ketchup-laden French fry into her mouth.

  Carrie quickly swallowed and put her sandwich down. “Hello?”

  “Mrs. Martin?”

  “Yes, who’s this?”

  “Officer Shane Wallace with the Riverbend police department.”

  Carrie’s nerves tensed. The bar’s granite felt cold against her elbow. “Hello, Shane. Is something wrong?”

  Shane’s family attended her church. One of the perks of small town living was being acquainted with at least one person in every sector of business and government.

  “Yes, ma’am, I’m afraid there is. I’m here with Mrs. Adler, your mother. I thought I should call you first.”

  Carrie blinked. First? Before what?

  Her hand tightened on the receiver. She looked at Dan, who had lowered his hamburger and now watched her with curiosity.

  “Has she had an accident?”

  “No, ma’am.” My, he was formal today. “At least, none that we can ascertain. You see, I found her sitting in her car on the shoulder of Highway 56. When I stopped to assist she didn’t recognize me.”

  “Oh, well, that’s understandable. You look so grown-up in your uniform.”

  “You don’t understand. Mrs. Adler seems confused. She didn’t know where she was, how she got here or where she was going.”

  Carrie brushed a stray hair out of her eyes. Her shoulders relaxed the tiniest bit. “Are you sure Mother isn’t teasing you, Shane? You know how she loves to joke around.”

  “I don’t think so, Mrs. Martin. Your mom seems pretty scared.”

  Mother? Scared? Impossible. Mother was fearless. Nothing scared her. She’d raised two children single-handedly on a pauper’s wages. Two years ago she’d trekked the jungles of Honduras to take supplies and Bibles to a group of native churches. Mother had never expressed fear about anything. Ever.

  “But she was here only a while ago and everything was fine. I just don’t understand…”

  “Mrs. Martin,” the young officer’s voice intruded, this time with a respectful firmness. “I really think you should come.”

  “Oh.” Suddenly, the call was too real. Something was wrong. “Okay. Yes. Of course I will. Tell me what to do.”

  Carrie took note of Shane’s instructions and then replaced the receiver. She felt numb. Not scared. Numb.

  “Carrie?” Dan had appeared from somewhere to touch her arm. “Who was that, honey? You’re as pale as paper.”

  “We have to go. Let me get my purse. Something’s happened to Mother.” Her fingers clawed into Dan’s forearm. “Oh, Dan, I’m afraid Mother’s had a stroke.”

  Chapter Two

  “It’s probably one of those mini strokes,” Carrie said for the tenth time. She sat in the waiting room outside the Emergency Room, shivering from nerves and the overhead air-conditioning vent. Her fingers twisted the handle of her purse into a knot. “I’ve heard of those. A person has a tiny lapse in memory. It’s not all that uncommon or even serious. Mother will be fine. I’m sure.”

  Dan, his wide shoulders uncomfortably crammed onto a too-small swoop of green plastic the hospital considered seating, patted her knee. From the time they’d arrived, she’d prattled on like a magpie. He was probably sick of listening, but she couldn’t help it. Nothing could be wrong wi
th Mother. She was invincible.

  Carrie pulled air into her lungs, the clean, antiseptic smell reassuring in some bizarre way. Cleanliness was next to godliness. If she was clean, she was godly and nothing bad could happen.

  Tempted to laugh aloud at the race of silly thoughts, Carrie wondered if she was getting hysterical. Heaven forbid.

  “The doctor will write her one of those new prescriptions for cholesterol or blood thinners or whatever they are,” she went on, unable to stop the flow of words. “You see them advertised on TV all the time. A prescription and she’ll be fine.”

  “We don’t even know if it is a stroke yet, Carrie.” Dan reminded her, his tone gentle. Maybe too gentle. It made her even more nervous. Her throat went as dry as a saltine.

  “Of course it’s a stroke. What else could cause her to forget where she was?”

  Shane, the police officer who’d called, had stayed around only long enough to be respectful and then he’d left. Business at the small town E.R. was surprisingly fast paced. Carrie couldn’t remember the last time she’d been here. Maybe when Lexi wrecked her bike and needed stitches, but that had been five years ago.

  Times changed.

  The thought frightened her. If times changed, people changed. They got sick. They died. She closed her eyes momentarily against the inevitable decline of human beings. Morbid thoughts. An overreaction, surely, to being in an emergency room. She hated hospitals.

  Two nurses swished by in a rush, stethoscopes swaying. Croc shoes instead of white orthopedics squished softly on white tile that had been polished to a mirror finish. The intercom beeped for some doctor she’d never heard of. When had Riverbend grown large enough for strange doctors?

  She angled toward her husband, deeply relieved that he’d come with her. “Do you think we should call Lexi?”

  Dan swiveled his head in her direction, his eyes as calm and gray-blue as Lake Placid. “And tell her what?”

  That was Dan. Solid. Quiet. Irritatingly calm. He hadn’t even gotten excited the day a tornado ripped the roof off their storage building.

  “I don’t know. She must be worried.”

  Though fifteen and well able to remain home alone, as the only grandchild living in the same state, Lexi was very close to her beloved “Grannie Frannie” and would be waiting by the telephone.

  Without further comment, Dan took their shared cell phone from her purse and punched in numbers. They’d never seen any reason to own two. It seemed extravagant, as did the notion of using a cell phone to take camera photos or for text messaging. She’d learned from Frannie the importance of frugality, though as a teenager she had been humiliated by their tiny family’s poverty.

  The three of them, including her younger brother, Robby, had struggled by on the minimum wages paid to a widow without a high school diploma. A few times, when things had gotten particularly difficult, Carrie suspected Mother had taken public assistance in order to provide for them, though she’d never admitted as much to her children. Carrie was humiliated just thinking about it, and had vowed never to let that happen to her.

  The tightness in Carrie’s chest increased. Mother’s life had not been easy.

  Dear God, let her be all right. Like all her thoughts today, the prayer was half-baked. If you’ll let her be all right, I promise to work harder at getting Dan into church. I promise—

  An exam door opened. “Mr. and Mrs. Martin?” A smiling nurse looked in their direction and motioned them inside. “You can come in now. The doctor will be with you as soon as he can.”

  Dan poked one thick finger at the phone, discontinuing the call to Lexi. “I’ll call her after we see Fran.”

  Clutching her purse against her waist, Carrie jerked upright. With dismay, she realized she still wore the white camp blouse, complete with peeling shamrock and smudges of dirt. The knees of her old cotton gardening slacks were grass stained. Fervently, she hoped no one from work or church saw her here.

  Dan touched her elbow. “Carrie?”

  She nodded, swallowing. “She must be fine. The nurse is smiling.”

  With Dan at her side, she rushed into the exam room. Frannie sat on the side of a paper-covered table humming, high-heeled feet swinging as if she had not a care in the world.

  Carrie stopped short. “Mother, are you all right? What in the world happened? You scared us half to death. Shane said you were confused, didn’t know where you were or how you got there.”

  Her mother stopped humming. Head tilted to one side, a tiny frown puckered between well-penciled eyebrows, she asked, “Shane? Was that who that was? Shane Wallace? I thought he looked familiar but I couldn’t place him. Such a nice young man.”

  “You’ve known Shane since he was born, Mother.”

  “Hand me my hat. I feel naked.” Frannie’s green, broad-brimmed hat occupied the only chair in the room. Carrie took up the monstrosity and handed it over. “I had a senior moment, that’s all. I’m fine and dandy now.” She perched the wide felt atop her fluffed hair and gave it a pat for emphasis. “Let’s go home.”

  “Not until we talk to the doctor.”

  “I talked to him. No need for you to bother.” Frannie hopped down from the table and glanced at her watch. “Fiddle. I’ve missed the skydiving. Alice will be disappointed. She’s sweet on Rick Chambers, you know, and he looks really cute in his jumpsuit.” She pumped her eyebrows up and down.

  “Mother, for goodness’ sake. Something happened to you today and we are not going to sweep it under the rug.” But as she spoke, her anxiety eased toward relief. Maybe nothing had happened. Maybe the episode really was just a senior moment. Sometimes she jumped to conclusions. She had a tendency to expect the worst because she’d learned the hard way that life usually handed out lemons and no one she knew had a lemonade stand. “Tell me what the doctor said?”

  “He said I’m a hoot and he liked my hat. I gave him a shamrock. All that white-coat business hurt my eyes.”

  “Mother! I am not leaving here until I talk to him.” Carrie spun toward the door, willing and able to block the entrance if her mother tried to leave before that doctor arrived. “Where is he anyway?”

  “Carrie.” Dan’s voice held a note of warning. He was always like that, reminding his impatient wife to wait and see. Sometimes, like today, his accepting attitude was downright annoying.

  A rebuke boiled up on her tongue but died away when the physician, looking young enough to be in high school, sailed into the room. In a crisp white lab coat and a blue tie, he carried a large brown envelope tucked beneath one arm. Frannie’s shamrock was squarely in place over his heart.

  “Where’s Dr. Morrison?” Carrie asked, caught off guard and not at all comfortable with a green-behind-the-ears college boy. Dr. Morrison had cared for her family for fifteen years. He knew Frannie and all her idiosyncrasies. He would know if something was seriously wrong.

  “Taking some time off. I’m Dr. Wilson.” He extended his hand, first to her and then to Dan. “And yes, I graduated from medical school. I’m not as young as I look.”

  Mollified but a bit embarrassed, Carrie nodded stiffly.

  “What’s wrong with my mother? Did she have a stroke?” Her stomach rumbled in memory of the half-eaten hamburger. Carrie pressed a hand to her midsection.

  Dr. Wilson hitched the leg of his expertly creased slacks and perched on the edge of the gurney. The doctor gazed at Frannie standing next to him like a chubby green bird about to take flight. She winked at him. He smiled and turned his attention to Carrie. “I’ve already discussed my concerns with Ms. Adler—”

  “Mother, why didn’t you just tell us?”

  “Tell you what, honey?”

  With a heavy, exasperated sigh to let Fran know she was annoyed, Carrie looked to the doctor for clarity. “What is it, Doctor?”

  “I want to run some further tests and consult with a neurologist.”

  Prickles rose on the back of Carrie’s neck. “A neurologist? For what?”

  Frannie
answered for him. “Alzheimer’s, honey. The doctor thinks I’m losing my mind.”

  Three weeks and many clinic visits later Fran sat across the desk from a neurologist who looked as if he’d flavored his coffee with pickle juice.

  Carrie sat next to her, face stony and pale as the doctor confirmed the diagnosis. She’d known he would. That’s why she hadn’t wanted Carrie to come, but here she was, shaking like a leaf and looking the way she had when she was ten and ate too many green blackberries. Sick and hollow-eyed.

  Fran understood the feeling. She was feeling a little sick herself. Jittery, too. No one wanted to be told that she would eventually disappear into a fog and break her family’s hearts.

  “Isn’t there a medicine for it?” Carrie’s fingers trembled as she pushed her hair behind one ear.

  Of all the things Fran had dreaded about today, this was the worst, to know her family would suffer because of her, and there was so little she could do about it.

  Dr. Pickle Juice made a few more comments, then excused himself and left. A nurse came in, smiling more than the doctor, and handed them both a card about the Alzheimer’s Association. Frannie gave her a Jesus Loves You smiley sticker, and slid the card into her I Love NY purse. She’d never been to New York, but she’d always wanted to go. Maybe she would do that now. Someday was no longer an option.

  “I don’t know what to do,” Carrie said when they were alone.

  Fran placed a hand on her daughter’s arm. “We do what we’ve always done. We put it in the Lord’s hands and trust Him.”

  The look Carrie gave her said she didn’t buy that answer in the least.

  The ugly diagnosis haunted Carrie day and night. She could think of little else. Mother’s casual attitude didn’t help, either. Carrie wondered if denial, nonchalance and a foolish determination to put a happy face on a devastating diagnosis were symptoms of the disease. An hour after they’d arrived home from the clinic Mother changed into a rhinestone cowboy hat and red boots and went to her weekly guitar lesson. How foolish was that?