It struck her then that maybe the family members didn’t know what they wanted. Maybe they were simply going along with Belinda and Lu’s philosophy. What could the relatives do, after all? Belinda and Lu were the specialists. If they said Alzheimer’s patients should be reminded of reality, then the family members would almost have to agree.
Ashley’s voice grew quiet. “I thought . . . you’d be mad at me.”
“Mad?” Sue gave Ashley a puzzled look. “I want whatever will make Mama feel better. The way she acts now, I barely recognize her.”
“Right.” Ashley swallowed hard and stared at Helen’s file. “Well, here’s my idea.”
Ashley explained that Helen seemed to be stuck in the 1960s. “She can’t imagine she could have anything but a teenage daughter.”
Sue nodded.
“So . . .” Excitement coursed through Ashley. “You might have a better conversation with your mother if you don’t even mention that you’re her daughter.”
“You think so?”
“I do.” Ashley gave Sue a tender smile. “Tell her you’ve come for two reasons. To visit . . . and to talk about Sue.”
“About me?” Sue leaned forward, her expression curious.
“Right.” Ashley pointed to the file. “I think if you tell her you’ve been checked, assure her you’re not a spy, but don’t insist on being her daughter, then maybe she’d be willing to talk to you. You could even tell her you know Sue, find that common ground only the two of you share. You know, stories about your life growing up, funny memories, songs you used to sing together, things you used to do. Talk about all of it.”
“As though I only know Sue?”
“Right.” Ashley could feel her enthusiasm growing. Other than painting, her time with the people at Sunset Hills was the most exciting work she’d ever done. “Then she won’t be afraid of you. “See”—Ashley drew a steady breath—“your mom gets very frightened when you show up and tell her you’re Sue. She still thinks of you as a teenager—eighteen, nineteen. She doesn’t want to see a woman in her fifties walk through the door and call herself Sue.”
A light of understanding ignited in Sue’s eyes. “I get it. But if we talk about Sue, we might begin to be friends.”
“Exactly.”
“Okay.” Sue ran her tongue along her lower lip. “I’m nervous. But I’m ready. Bring her in.”
Ashley practically jumped from her chair, and a minute later she led Helen into the room. “Helen, there’s someone to see you. She wants to visit.”
Helen wrinkled her nose and stared at Sue. “I’ve seen her before.” She looked at Ashley. “She’s a spy.”
A shadow of pain fell across Sue’s face, but it lasted only a moment. “No, Helen, I’m not a spy. I’ve been checked.”
Helen cast a wary eye at Sue. “You have?” Her eyes lifted to Ashley’s again. “She has?”
“Yes, Helen. I checked her before she came in. She’s not a spy.”
“Okay, then.” Suspicion settled in around Helen’s eyes. “Why are you here?”
Sue smiled and reached for Helen’s hand. “I want to talk about Sue.”
Neither of them spoke for a moment. Helen blinked once, then again. “Sue?” Her tone was suddenly gentle, filled with longing and sorrow. “You know my Sue?”
As discreetly as she could, Ashley pulled out the chair beside Sue and helped Helen sit down. Then she stepped back and leaned against the wall. So far so good. It was the first time Helen had been willing to sit and talk with her daughter since Ashley had worked at Sunset Hills.
Probably much longer.
Sue still had hold of her mother’s hand. “I know Sue very well. She’s doing fine. She . . . she talks about you a lot.”
Helen’s expression was almost childlike. “She does?”
“Yes.”
“What does she say?”
“She remembers when the two of you would go to the library and pick out books.” Sue brought her other hand up and laid it gently across her mother’s fingers. “Do you remember that?”
“Yes. We read The Chronicles of Narnia.”
“Right.” Sue blinked back tears. Ashley wanted to jump around the room shouting. It was working! Helen and her daughter were actually finding common ground, sharing a conversation.
Helen stared into space and then shifted her eyes back to Sue’s. “The two of us would read by the fireplace, and when we finished, we’d switch books. Then we’d talk about the stories. Sometimes we had hot milk in blue mugs.”
“Yes.” Sue wiped at a tear on her cheek. “Sue tells me the two of you had quite a good time together.”
Helen nodded. Then in an instant her expression changed. Worry and fear and suspicion were back, robbing Helen of even the joy of the memory. She studied Sue, her lips pursed, eyes narrowed in anger. “Someone stole her from me. My Sue.”
“No . . .”
Ashley held her breath. Come on, Sue. Don’t give yourself away. She pressed back another step, not wanting to interrupt.
Sue consciously raised the corners of her mouth. “Sue’s fine, Helen. She told me so. She’s happy and well, and she wants you to know.”
Helen jerked back and slapped the table, causing Sue to jump. “Then where is she? How come no one will tell me where she is?”
“Well . . .” Sue looked nervous. “She lives far away. But she’s making plans to visit.”
The cloud of anxiety and anger lifted. “She is?”
“Yes.” Tears shone in Sue’s eyes again. “Until then, she wants me to visit you. That way I can talk about her with you.”
Ashley angled her head, touched by the effort Sue was giving. It had to be terribly painful to sit hand in hand with her mother yet feel a million miles away from her.
“What else do you know about her?” Helen settled into the chair and looked intently at Sue. It was the most normal the woman had looked since Ashley had known her.
The conversation between mother and daughter lasted nearly an hour.
The next day Sue was back. This time she talked about a trip she and her mother had taken when she was a teenager. Again, they shared the afternoon without a single outburst or accusation of covert behavior from Helen.
On the last day of Belinda’s absence, Ashley took stock of the changes at Sunset Hills, and she was amazed. Helen was slapping and hitting things about half as often as before, and Edith seemed more focused during her visits with Irvel.
The Past-Present strategy was working!
Reaching Irvel was easier than the others, of course, because the place where she lived was obvious. Irvel was stuck back in a time when her Hank was strong enough to fish every day, back when sharing peppermint tea with the girls was the highlight of each afternoon. Weeks ago, Ashley had asked Irvel’s niece, an attorney who lived an hour away, to round up as many pictures of Hank as possible. Hank and Irvel, Hank and their children, Hank by himself—it didn’t matter so long as Hank was in the photograph.
A box of pictures had arrived in the mail that week, and Ashley had purchased frames for several of them. Earlier that afternoon, while the residents of Sunset Hills napped in their recliners, Ashley hung the photographs on Irvel’s bedroom wall—all but one of them.
The missing photo was a close-up of Hank in his twenties, the lazy grin that showed up in every photo stretched across his face. The moment she saw the photo, Ashley had been drawn to it, driven to bring the man’s face to life on canvas. Days earlier, she’d taken it home and set it up next to her easel.
The man’s portrait had taken up every spare moment since then, and she still had a few days’ work to do before she could present it to Irvel. Ashley could hardly wait. But for now the wall held eighteen pictures of Hank—a monument to the man and all he’d meant to Irvel through the years.
Ashley stepped back and studied the images. How much one could learn from photographic art, from the expressions and actions of the people frozen in a single moment of time.
H
ank Heidenreich had been tall and handsome in his day, a man whose smile and touch seemed to come easily. The pictures of Hank and Irvel showed his arm slung loosely around her shoulders, his face taken up by a grin that traveled straight up his cheeks to his eyes.
The photos of Irvel were also telling. In Hank’s arms she had the look of joy and security and utter peace. Together, their love glowed so brightly that it almost seemed to affect the quality of the picture—as though the photographer had used special lighting.
Ashley stared at the photos a moment longer and let her mind drift. Where was Landon this afternoon? Had he found Jalen? Was he okay after all he must have seen and done at Ground Zero?
God, please help him. Help him find his friend. Help him be safe. Please . . .
She’d kept her promise. Whenever she thought of Landon, she prayed, just as he’d asked her to do.
He was a hero now, of course. The local newspaper had done a spread on how he’d saved the little boy’s life back in July and now was one of those digging through the rubble of the World Trade Center. Landon’s mother had been quoted in the article saying that hundreds of Bloomington residents had sent letters thanking her son for his heroic efforts. Several had even proposed marriage.
Ashley sighed. She’d called Landon’s mother after the article appeared. “How is he?” She had hesitated. “I’ve been . . . worried about him.”
“You mean”—the surprise in his mother’s voice caught Ashley off guard—“he hasn’t called you?”
“Not yet.”
“I’m sorry, Ashley. I would’ve let you know sooner. He’s working every day—sometimes sleeping twelve hours straight before going back to Ground Zero. I’m surprised he hasn’t called you.”
Deep down, Ashley was surprised too, but she shook it off.
Landon would always be special to her, but clearly he had decided to move on with life. He’d been gone more than two weeks, and there’d been no word from him. If he was getting marriage proposals here in Bloomington, the same was probably true in New York.
Why did that bother her, anyway?
She’d always known she wasn’t the right person for Landon Blake. And that was still true, even though she’d told him about Paris. Even though she’d prayed for him and gone to church these past weeks. She enjoyed the music and even Pastor Mark’s messages. But she was hardly a woman of faith, hardly suitable for a man as committed to God as Landon was. He needed someone like Kari or Erin.
But if Landon wasn’t the right man for her, who was? Who would grace the walls of her final days? The question dangled in the winds of uncertainty as Ashley headed into the kitchen. She unloaded the dishwasher while the women napped, but still she had no answers for herself.
When Irvel woke up, Ashley led her to her bedroom, then stepped back to take in the old woman’s surprise.
“My goodness, dear. Hank must have been by while I was asleep.” She reached out toward the pictures one at a time, making her way slowly along the collection. “He’s certainly a handsome one, isn’t he?”
Ashley swallowed back the emotion welling in her throat. “He is, Irvel. Very handsome.”
Irvel shook her head and cast a backward glance at Ashley. “Sometimes I think that man spends too much time fishing. I haven’t had a day alone with him in . . .” She looked down for a moment, then back at Ashley again. “. . . in a week, at least.”
“You like the photos?”
“Like them?” Irvel smiled, and the sparkles in her eyes shone through her cataracts. “Dear”—she lowered her voice—“it makes me feel like he’s right here in the room. Like he never went fishing at all.”
Ashley felt the warmth of Irvel’s smile in the deepest, dark places of her being. This was why she’d taken the job, after all. So the hardened layers of her heart would be chipped away, so she could learn to feel again.
“Come on, Irvel, let’s go have a snack.” Ashley held out her hand.
Irvel took one last look at the wall of photos and turned toward Ashley. As she did, she tilted her head, her eyes completely void of recognition. “I’m sorry, dear. I don’t think I’ve introduced myself.”
Ashley smiled and linked her arm through Irvel’s as they left the room. “I’m Ashley. I work here.”
* * *
Ashley worked a double shift that day, and after the residents were asleep, she pulled out her files and studied one in particular, the file belonging to Bert. A letter from Bert’s son had arrived in the mail earlier that day. Ashley hadn’t had time to read it until now.
She slid her fingernail beneath the envelope flap and pulled out a page of single-spaced type.
Dear Ms. Baxter,
First let me thank you for making an effort to reach my father. If you feel that knowing more about his past will somehow help him, I’m glad to provide whatever information you need. I support you and whatever you can do with the details I’ve provided. I’ve been thinking about the history I gave you earlier, and I forgot something. It may not be important, but I thought you should know.
Ashley felt her heart rate quicken. She needed as many facts about Bert’s background as possible. Somewhere there had to be an explanation for his incessant circling. She let her eyes race ahead.
I told you Dad worked with horses, but I didn’t tell you how. Dad was a saddler—a saddle maker. He crafted the finest saddles in the region and brought in as much money that way as he did running the dairy farm.
The letter went on to explain that the dairy farm had been in the family for years and practically ran itself. As a young man, Bert had felt little significance in overseeing such a self-sufficient operation. So he’d hired men to keep the farm running and built a shop where he began making saddles.
“Horse people from all over the country used to buy Dad’s saddles,” the letter continued. “He spent hours every day working the leather, rubbing oil into those saddles until they shone. He was more proud of his saddle making than almost anything else he did.”
Ashley’s breath caught in her throat. Bert had spent hours every day rubbing oil into saddles?
She pictured Bert the way he looked now, the way he looked every day. That determined, vacant stare—driven to make circles along the edge of his bed all day long.
Suddenly it made sense.
Bert wasn’t rubbing out the wrinkles in his comforter. He was rubbing his saddles, trapped in a time when his days held purpose and his actions were appreciated by countless customers.
Ashley tucked the letter inside Bert’s file and rested her forehead on her fingertips. She could be wrong about Bert, but there had to be a way to find out. What could she do? Bert wouldn’t talk, let alone listen to her. Her knowledge about his saddle making meant nothing if she couldn’t somehow use it to reach him.
For fifteen minutes, Ashley sat there searching for a solution. Then it hit her. She knew exactly what to do to bridge Bert’s past and present. But it would take a few days. And that meant pulling it off when Belinda was here.
But that shouldn’t matter. What Ashley did during her hours as a care worker need not bother Belinda so long as the house rules were followed. And there were no rules forbidding the thing she was about to do.
Besides, who knew what might happen if she was right? Her plan could be life-changing for Bert and the greatest proof of all that Ashley’s experiment was working.
Now it was simply a matter of putting it into action.
Chapter Twenty-Four
Landon was beyond exhausted.
After four weeks at Ground Zero, fatigue and soul-numbing weariness were permanent conditions for him and the others. The days of sifting debris and locating bits and pieces of human remains were taking their toll, leaving many of the rescue workers depressed and disoriented, as though time and life and all sense of normalcy had ceased forever.
The rest of America was getting back to life. Stock market reports were leveling off. Businesses had stopped making drastic layoffs. Anthrax, the deadly dis
ease whose spores had been found in political offices and postal centers after the terrorist attacks, wasn’t in the news as much anymore. Instead, headlines were filled with the impending war effort—Operation Enduring Freedom. Though eighty thousand airline-industry workers had been laid off after the attacks, people were flying again. For most of America, the nightmare of September 11 seemed to be lessening.
But at Ground Zero, the task had only begun.
Officials were saying it could take a year before the debris of the twin towers was completely explored and removed from the heart of New York City. The papers reported that ninety thousand tons of debris had been taken from the site in the first eleven days alone. The actual weight of the rubble pile was more than any of them could imagine.
At the same time, rescue workers had recovered bodies or body parts of fewer than three hundred people. And the farther down into the debris they dug, the fewer human remains they found. However many bodies were eventually recovered, the number would clearly fall far short of the thousands missing, those incinerated when the jets hit, or pulverized when the buildings collapsed. The latest reports indicated that more than four thousand people were missing from the World Trade Center—victims from more than sixty countries.
Landon’s routine had changed little since his first day at the scene. But in the quiet places of his heart, the subtle differences were enough to alarm him. Or they would have been if he wasn’t so worn-out.
He stepped out of the bucket-brigade assembly line and trudged down the block toward Canal Street. Lately he’d been taking his lunches at Nino’s, a diner not far from Ground Zero. Since September 12, Nino’s had been serving free meals for the rescue workers. Volunteers—many of them women—packed the place. They wore paper hats and aprons and sometimes hung around the tables of firefighters longer than necessary, looking for a way to be useful.
Landon walked inside and waited until his eyes adjusted to the dim lighting. He scanned the room and found a place in the corner. Nodding to a few firefighters along the way, he stopped at a quiet booth and slid in, his legs aching from his morning shift. A buzzing worked its way through his weary body, and he felt nauseous. His forearms dropped like anchors onto the table. He let his head fall forward.
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