From Bad to Wurst

by Maddy Hunter

  Hmm. All things considered, this amnesia thing might turn out to be a blessing in disguise.

  “Mrs. Andrew requires no further treatment,” Dr. Fischer assured us, “but be mindful that losing one’s memory can be extremely unsettling, so I encourage you to be as supportive and patient as humanly possible. Do you have any other questions?”

  “If she doesn’t make a full recovery within twenty-four hours, should we call you?” asked Etienne.

  “She’ll recover at her own pace,” said Dr. Fischer. “Twenty-four hours is just an average, not a hard and fast time limit. So the answer to that is no.”

  “Last questions,” said Etienne, referring to his notebook. “How do we prevent this from happening again, and should we expect any long-term complications?”

  “Since we’re not absolutely sure what caused it, I can’t tell you how to prevent it from happening again, but according to the literature, the condition rarely manifests itself again. Erring on the side of caution, however, I would recommend that for the next few days you keep Mrs. Andrew’s stress levels to a minimum. As to long-term complications? None.”

  Dr. Fischer pushed away from the table and stood up. “As soon as I sign her release forms, she’ll be free to leave.”

  “Can’t thank you enough,” said Dad, rising to his feet and shaking Fischer’s hand with the enthusiasm of a kid working a pitcher pump. When I extended my hand, Dr. Fischer clasped it politely, then tightened his grip as he studied my face with sudden interest.

  “The lesions on your face, Mrs. Miceli.” Disbelief in his voice. Incredulity in his eyes. “They’ve disappeared.”

  “They have?” I clapped my hand to my cheek, sampling the affected area with my fingertips. I’d been so freaked out about Mom, I’d never looked into a mirror before leaving the hotel this morning. Shoot, I hadn’t even stopped to brush my teeth.

  “How is this possible?” He tilted my chin toward the ceiling lights. “What did you do?”

  “I slathered on some kind of compound that a friend gave me.”

  He turned my head left and right. “Developed by what pharmaceutical company?”

  “She formulates it herself.”

  “Is she a chemist?”

  “Retired anthropologist. She discovered it in New Guinea while living in the jungle. I guess it’s a must-have with the folks who shrink heads for a living.”

  “I see.” He took a step back, his eyebrows dipping to a V above his nose. “In other words, you’d prefer not to tell me.”

  “I just did tell you. Really! I don’t know anything about the stuff other than it smells really good and apparently works like gangbusters.”

  He tipped his head politely, his expression skeptical. “I would invite the three of you to join Mrs. Andrew in her treatment room as soon as possible. Given her present condition, she’ll feel more at ease if she’s surrounded by familiar faces. Mr. Miceli.” He extended his hand. “Pleasure.”

  My phone chimed an alert as he left the room. I checked the readout. “Text message from Nana: house margaret dune?”

  I flashed the screen toward Dad, whose brow furrowed in confusion when he saw the words with his own eyes. “Is that one of those coded messages?”

  “I think it’s supposed to read ‘How’s Margaret doing?’ But Nana’s voice text function tends to garble her diction. The little gizmo that transposes verbal commands apparently doesn’t understand Iowan.” I touched his arm. “Can I ask you about something before we go?”

  He sidled a look at me, his expression as unsure as that of a child who’d just been called to the principal’s office. “Sure.”

  “I’m heading down to Margaret’s treatment room,” Etienne announced as he removed his mobile phone from its holster. “And I’ll give Wally a call to give him a heads-up about our ETA.”

  “Okay, sweetie. We’ll join you in a minute.” I narrowed my eyes at Dad. “Can you really play the accordion?”

  “Don’t know anymore.”

  “But you used to play? In grade school?”

  He nodded. “Yup.”

  “Why didn’t you ever tell anyone?”

  “No one ever asked.”

  “And you never thought to just throw it into a conversation sometime?”

  “Nope.”

  “What am I going to do with you?”

  “Walk me down to see your mother, I suppose.”

  I gave him a peck on his cheek as we headed for the door. “So…why the accordion?”

  “We had one in the house because your Grampa Andrew played, so it was available.”

  “Grampa Andrew played the accordion? We have authentic musical genes in the family?”

  “Don’t know that I’d go that far.”

  “Were you any good?”

  “Depends on who you ask.”

  “Why’d you give it up?”

  “My music teacher told me I was hopeless.”

  “Aww.” I hugged his arm against me, worried that this didn’t bode well for his comeback. “I’m sorry your musical career was cut short.”

  He lifted his shoulders noncommittally. “Guess I just wasn’t cut from the same cloth as your grampa.”

  As we approached Treatment Room 3, Mom’s voice drifted out into the hall. “How come I don’t recognize this place?”

  “Because it’s an unfamiliar emergency room,” said Etienne.

  “In Iowa?”

  “Bavaria.”

  “It’s quite a nice facility, isn’t it? Very tidy.” A pause. “How come I don’t recognize this place?”

  Dad fixed me with a woebegone look. “Ooh boy.”

  My phone chimed another text alert. Nana again: emily, sheets knot dead, is she?

  Nope. Mom wasn’t dead, but if I was able to resolve this latest crisis the way I wanted, Nana might end up wanting to kill Mom herself.

  “You want me to what?” Nana skewered me with her crinkly little eyes.

  I was seated with Nana and Tilly in their newly upgraded room—a luxurious suite with kitchen facilities, floor-to-ceiling bay windows, a cozy living room with sofa, comfortable chairs, fresh flowers, and a minibar that was stocked with goodies that were free for the taking. But the best part of the room was—it was exactly like mine!

  “I need you to help me with Mom.” Knowing what an uphill battle this would be, I launched into the spiel I’d prepared on our taxi ride back from the hospital, when Mom had been asking where she was and where we were going every ninety seconds. “It should only be for twenty-four hours, until her short-term memory kicks back in. And I’ll be with her every minute when I’m not needed someplace else, so we can be a kind of tag team. Dad volunteered to do it all himself, but if he does, he won’t be able to practice with the band, and I can’t have that. He’d be so disappointed. He really did play the accordion when he was a kid, so this is his big comeback.”

  Nana opened her mouth. I continued talking.

  “I know she drives you crazy, Nana. I know you hate to be smothered, tethered, and made a fuss over, but she needs you. I need you. The doctor said it’s not a good idea to leave her alone right now because she can’t remember much, so she needs constant reassurance that she’s where she’s supposed to be and with the people she’s supposed to be with. So I’m asking you to set aside your differences with Mom for twenty-four hours. I’m beseeching you to ignore her annoying habits, her obsessive-compulsive tendencies, her alphabet fixation, her—”

  “Okay.”

  My spine straightened so fast, it made a crack like a broken tree limb. “What?”

  “Okay.”

  “Why are you saying okay?”

  “Isn’t that what you want me to say?”

  “Well, yeah, but…why are you agreeing so quickly?”

  She dropped her gaze and hung her head, causing
all three of her chins to cascade onto her chest. “I’ve been known to say some awful critical things about your mother in years past, dear, and it’s all comin’ home to roost. The Lord’s callin’ in his chips. He’s let me whine long enough, and now he’s deliverin’ my comeuppance. ‘Marion,’ he’s sayin’, ‘it’s time to pay the piper.’”

  I’m not sure the Lord would use this many mixed metaphors, but who was I to judge divine grammar? “Sooo…what you’re saying is…”

  Tilly thumped the floor with her cane. “Your grandmother is feeling guilty about all the cynicism she’s directed at Margaret, so she’s convinced herself that this health scare is her personal wake-up call to start treating your mother with more kindness and less snark. Is that about right, Marion?”

  “Pretty much.”

  “And if you’ll allow me to submit the Lutheran translation,” offered Tilly. “The Good Lord just scared the snot out of Marion, so she’s going to leave no stone unturned in a Herculean effort to turn over a new leaf and mend her wicked ways.”

  Okay, then. A Lutheran could screw up metaphors just as badly as a Catholic.

  “The Lord’s probably payin’ me back for what I done to you, too, Emily. That was probably the last straw. He couldn’t even wait ’til after my vacation to bust me. He decided to nail me today.”

  “So you’ll help me out?”

  “I don’t see where I got no other choice. Margaret might drive me crazy, but she’s still my kid, and…dang it”—she heaved a woeful sigh—“I love her.” She peeked at me above her wire rims. “You never heard them words leave my mouth. Right?”

  “Right.” I stood up. “Would you like to see for yourself how mom’s doing? Her room’s at the end of the hall.”

  “I s’pose.” She boosted herself to her feet. “Now’s as good a time as any. But if she’s got amnesia, how’s she gonna know who I am?”

  “She’ll know you. It’s not that kind of amnesia.”

  As we skirted around a freebie newspaper that was lying outside the door of a nearby suite, I was reminded of what the morning had held for everyone who hadn’t been holed up in the emergency room. “Did the reporter from the newspaper stop by to conduct all the promised interviews?”

  “Reporters,” corrected Tilly. “They sent a battalion of them.”

  “And a photographer what took all kinds of pictures,” Nana enthused. “Individual shots. Group shots. We’re gonna be front page news tomorrow. Above the crease.”

  “And the interviews were quite in depth,” added Tilly. “I was quite favorably impressed.”

  Arriving at Mom’s room, I knocked on the door while Nana fidgeted nervously beside me.

  “Your mother still looks the same, don’t she?”

  “Yup. Same Mom.”

  “She don’t got a paralyzed face or twisted limbs or nuthin’?”

  “She’s suffering from a rare form of amnesia, Nana, not a session in Dr. Frankenstein’s laboratory.” I peered down at her, frowning. “Why do you want to know?”

  “’Cuz if she’s all bent over and gnarly like that creature from Beauty and the Beast, I gotta prepare myself. I’m old. The fright could kill me.”

  Etienne opened the door and held it wide, welcoming us into the room. “Come in, ladies. Margaret? You have guests.”

  Mom bustled across the floor to greet us. “Emily! You’re here, too?” She crushed me against her bosom. “Isn’t that funny how we’re all here together? How did that happen?”

  “Lots of planning, Mom.”

  She held me away from her and searched my face. “No, really, how did that happen? I don’t know what I’m doing here. I don’t even know where here is.”

  “We’re in Germany,” said Tilly, “touring the country with all our friends from Iowa, and you and Bob are traveling with us.”

  “Bob,” Mom recited with confidence as she wheeled away from me to scan the room. “Where is Bob?”

  “Band practice,” said Etienne. “With the Guten Tags. You’re on the Sounds of Music tour, Margaret.”

  “With all my friends.” She looked suddenly perplexed. “But where are we?”

  Nana shuffled up beside me and whispered out the side of her mouth, “She don’t know where she is?”

  I forced a stiff smile. “Did I forget to mention that?”

  “Ladies?” Etienne pulled on his sports coat and headed for the door. “With Margaret in your capable hands, I’ll excuse myself to attend to other duties. I’ll send out an email alert after I’ve spoken to Wally about this afternoon’s itinerary. And if you miss that, just check the whiteboard in the lobby.”

  “That man is so much more than a heartthrob,” cooed Mom as she watched him leave. “Impeccable manners. Nurturing. Organized. The only thing that could possibly make him any more attractive is an eye patch. So!” She clapped her hands together and nodded toward the chairs surrounding the coffee table. “Sit down. Make yourselves comfortable. I’m sorry Bob isn’t here to welcome you, but he’s”—she spun in a slow circle, her eyes scrutinizing the room—“he seems to be missing at the moment. Bob?”

  “He’s practicing with the oompah band,” I reminded her as I lowered myself into a barrel chair.

  “Bob’s in a band?” She seated herself opposite me, her eyes narrowing as she struggled to give the information some context. “Remind me what instrument he plays?”

  “He don’t play no instrument,” said Nana as she sank down beside Tilly on the sofa. “So you don’t need to remember nuthin’, which is a blessin’ considerin’ what I’m seein’.”

  Just an observation, but I suspected that Nana’s vow to lose the snark might require more practice than she realized.

  Mom shifted her attention to Tilly, her little moon face a complete blank. “So Tilly, would you like to introduce me to your friend?”

  seven

  “It’s Nana, Mom. Nana? You know. Your mother?”

  “My mother’s still alive?”

  Nana fisted her hands on her hips. “Do I look dead to you, Margaret?”

  Mom cocked her head slowly left and right as she studied Nana’s face. “How honest do you want me to be?”

  Nana stiffened up like an arthritic joint, a clever comeback apparently trapped behind her clenched teeth. “Ohhh, I get it. You’re havin’ a little fun with your old mother. Pretendin’ to remember everyone except me.”

  Mom continued to scrutinize Nana’s face. “Uh-uh!”

  “What’s that s’posed to mean?” demanded Nana.

  “Just a friendly observation, but if you don’t stop smoking, your skin is going to look like a slab of beef jerky.”

  “I’ve never smoked no cigarettes.”

  Mom pulled a face. “You can fool some of the people some of the time.”

  “Don’t make me come over there, Margaret,” warned Nana, spearing Mom with a look that would have silenced any normal person whose filter hadn’t been temporarily knocked out of order by amnesia.

  “I’m sorry.” Mom flashed a vacuous look. “What did you say your name was?”

  The word exploded from Nana’s mouth like a dart from a dart gun. “marion.”

  “Oh! Like Marion the Librarian? Remember that old movie with Shirley Jones and Robert Preston?” Hands clasped over her bosom, Mom suddenly burst into song. “Marian…Madam Librarian, la-la-la, dum-de-dah, something something, Madam Librarian…”

  Nana shot me a thorny look. “Not that kind of amnesia, huh?”

  Okay. So the downside of the situation was that Mom couldn’t recall Nana worth beans. But the upside was, she killed at almost remembering Academy Award-winning musicals from the sixties.

  A symphony of text alerts echoed through the room. Nana, Tilly, and I went for our cell phones while Mom sprang out of her chair and rushed into the kitchen. “Is that the timer on the microwave?
” She checked out the unit while we retrieved the message from Wally: meet in lobby in one-half hour to board coach for oberammergau.

  “The dinging isn’t from the microwave, Mom. It’s from our cell phones.” I held up my unit. “Text alerts.”

  “Do I have a cell phone?”

  “You bet. It’s probably in your pocketbook.”

  “Where’s my pocketbook?”

  “Uh…wherever housekeeping stashed it when they moved your belongings to your new room. Nana can help you find it.” I stood up, my mind racing at warp speed. “Okay, can you two ladies get Mom ready to go and have her downstairs in half an hour?”

  Nana looked at me as if I’d invited her to sip a refreshing glass of bleach. “I don’t wanna cause you no disappointment, dear, and I sure don’t wanna give the Good Lord no reason to turn his back on me, but I’m not up to this. If I was a little more hard a hearin’, I might have the stomach for it, but I don’t got no copin’ skills for listenin’ to your mother ask me what my name is every two minutes. It’s humiliatin’.”

  “You can count on us,” Tilly spoke up. “We’ll have Margaret there with time to spare, won’t we, Marion?”

  “Wasn’t you listenin’ to what I just told Emily?”

  “You don’t mean that.”

  “Yes, I do.”

  “I need to run down to my room and at least brush my teeth before I go anywhere,” I said as I hurried into the kitchen to corral Mom. I looked into her eyes and spoke slowly and emphatically. “I’ll see you in thirty minutes, okay? Tilly and Nana will take good care of you while I’m gone. Thirty minutes. Do everything they ask you. All right? Then we’ll join the rest of the tour group.”

  “We’re on a tour?”

  “Jesus, Mary, and Joseph,” muttered Nana.

  As I headed out the door, I considered the irony of Nana’s situation, from being smothered by the overreaching attentions of her daughter to becoming a nameless stranger.

  If allowed a choice between the two now, I wondered which one she’d choose.