Our New Normal (ARC)

by Colleen Faulkner

  Ten minutes later, she calls. “He’s not here,” she says when I answer, and then she goes on without letting me get a word in. “I’m not surprised. He was a pip all morning and I didn’t have the patience for it. You know what he did before seven a.m.? Before I was even out of bed? He mowed the neighbor’s roses down with the lawnmower. And Jessop came out and yelled at him. Last time he was on the mower he knocked over Jessop’s mailbox.”

  I hadn’t heard about the mailbox, either, and I wonder what else the two of them have been keeping from me. When Dad first started suffering from memory loss three or four years ago, Mom covered for him. She covered for him for almost a year before I finally realized my father was suffering from something more than absentmindedness due to aging.

  “What was Dad doing on the lawnmower?” I ask. “I thought Oscar disconnected the starter so he couldn’t drive it anymore.” We have a lawn service that comes now that my father is no longer able to care for it himself.

  “Good question,” Mom says. “I guess he hooked it back up again. He kept going out into the garage. He told me he was looking for a screw. Maybe to replace the one loose in his head.”

  Again I crack a smile in spite of myself.

  “He went out several times,” my mother continues. “He wasn’t bothering anyone, so I let him look. Liv, I know you don’t want to hear this. I know you think he’s perfect, but I’ve had it with him.”

  It’s on the tip of my tongue to inject that I don’t think my father is perfect, that I never thought that, but she’s wound up now, and no one is going to stop her, least of all me.

  “It’s day and night he’s into something. I tell him to sit, why don’t you. I tell him to play his game on his iPad. I offer to put the TV on for him. There are movies he could watch on Netflix. And if he’d leave the remote alone and stop pushing buttons, he might find that he could enjoy a movie once in a while. Now he’s mowed down Jessop’s fancy roses and Jessop isn’t happy with us. He—”

  “Mom,” I finally interrupt. “You said you were lying down. Are you having a bad day?”

  “I was having a bad day before your father went AWOL. I had to take a painkiller and lie down.”

  Which meant she couldn’t drive if she wanted to. Even if she wanted to go look for him. Which doesn’t sound to me like she does right this moment. “Mom, I had to go to New Hampshire to pick up something for the house I’m remodeling. I’m still two hours away. Can you call Beth?”

  “I hate to bother her, Liv. It’s her day off and she likes to rest on her day off. Do something fun. Her job can be very stressful, you know, dealing with everyone else’s stress.”

  She makes it sound as if my sister is a social worker or maybe a psychiatrist. She’s actually a massage therapist who goes to people’s homes to give massages.

  “Mom.” I try not to sound annoyed because I know she’s got to be exhausted. Dad hasn’t been sleeping much and he keeps her awake at night pacing and talking. Or he gets it in his head he wants to do something at two a.m. like start a pot of spaghetti sauce, one of his specialties when he had all of his faculties and still cooked for us. And this isn’t about Beth right now or about my lifetime resentment of her. I know it’s not Beth’s fault that she was always our mother’s favorite. That she was born of my mother’s DNA and I wasn’t. Actually I don’t think Mom even liked her better because I was adopted and Beth wasn’t. Mom just liked her better, pure and simple. No matter how many ways she screwed up, how many cars she wrecked, how many times she had to be bailed out financially. How irresponsible she was practically every day of her life. Mom gave her a pass at every turn. She held me up to a nearly impossible standard and those standards never applied to my sister.

  But this isn’t about that.

  This is about Dad. And my mom. I sigh. “It’s okay, Mom. I’ll figure it out. Why don’t you just lie back down? I’ll find him.”

  “And exactly how are you going to do that, Olivia?” she responds, taking a little attitude with me. “You’re in New Hampshire.”

  “I’m back in Maine now. I’ll give someone a call. I’m sure he’s okay. Make sure the door is unlocked. Someone in town has probably spotted him by now and he’s on his way home.”

  “Wish the police would spot him. Do him good to let him sit in the pokey overnight.”

  I laugh. I’ve never thought of my mother as funny, but she does say some funny things about my dad. “I don’t think an elderly man with Alzheimer’s is going to the pokey, Mom.”

  “I can’t believe he mowed Jessop’s roses,” she says, talking over me. “Do you know what those are going to cost to replace? They’re some fancy hybrid from England. Your father wants me to use the same Ziploc bag three times. Just wash it out! he tells me. Wash it out, Bernice. Thrift comes too late if it’s at the bottom of your purse. That’s what he tells me, but then he wants to buy the neighbor new roses?”

  “I’ll call you when I find him, Mom.”

  She hangs up. Without saying good-bye. Something that’s annoyed me for . . . for as long as I can remember. Now it’s starting to amuse me. I dial my sister. I get her voice mail. “You know what to do,” says her recording. Then there’s a loud beep. “Call me back,” I say. “Dad’s missing.”

  As I hang up, I try to decide who to call next. If Beth doesn’t pick up when I call her, the likeliness of hearing from her in the same day goes down significantly. Now who do I call? I speed up again, now going more than ten miles an hour over the speed limit. I can’t call Oscar. (A) He doesn’t pick up when he’s at work and (B) he and I had an argument this morning. Over the lack of coffee creamer in the refrigerator. He was really angry with me. Disproportionally angry. I did recall him asking me to stop for some yesterday, but there was an issue with a load of lumber I’d ordered and I completely forgot. And I don’t even drink it. Why am I stopping by on the way home from work for something he needs? Why couldn’t he stop for vanilla-flavored artificial creamer with aspartame in it on his way home from work? Oscar has adapted well to our daughter’s obsession over healthy foods in our house, but he drew the line on his fake-milk creamer. She poured it out once while going through the refrigerator, ejecting anything that didn’t meet her quality standards, and he threatened that if she ever threw away his creamer again, he was going to string her up by her thumbs in the barn. They both laughed about it. Hazel also never touched his creamer again, though.

  So not Oscar. Not after Creamergate.

  Amelia? I could call Amelia. Either that, or call the police. The Judith police force consists of six guys, three cruisers, and an old church turned station house. I’m pretty sure the donut-eating, coffee-drinking stereotype began at the Judith police station. I know four of the six guys. One I dated briefly while in high school. It wouldn’t be a big deal to call them. They help old ladies get into their houses when they lock themselves out. They return bicycles left in the park by absentminded middle schoolers. I know they wouldn’t mind taking a spin through town looking for him. It shouldn’t be hard to spot an eighty-five-year-old man in red plaid boxer shorts, with or without his L.L.Bean barn coat.

  But who wants to call the cops on their dad? Especially if he’s walking around town in boxer shorts?

  I auto-dial Amelia. She’s at work, but I call anyway, on the outside chance she’s available. Voice mail. I don’t leave a message.

  I consider Oscar again.

  If I can’t get him on his cell, I can call the ED and leave a message for him to return my call. I could apologize for the creamer and ask him to take off early and look for Dad.

  I think I’d rather call the police.

  But I don’t want to call the police any more than I want to call Oscar.

  I groan out loud and reach for my cup of mint tea that was cold an hour ago. I know I’m being petty about the creamer, but he’s not being very respectful of my time. When I started playing with the idea of going into the restoration business a year ago, he was supportive of the idea, but he
never really seemed into it. Maybe he didn’t think I could do it. And now that I actually have a client, he doesn’t seem to understand that time I spend working, contributing to our children’s college fund, takes away from time I could be spending picking up vanilla creamer for him. And making pasta. The other day he complained about boxed pasta. He probably meant it as an offhand compliment when he said he liked my fresh fettuccine noodles better, but I felt like it was a dig. I felt as if he was saying that since I started working again, I don’t have time to make my family fresh pasta anymore.

  My list of who to call has gotten pretty short. In fact, short of calling Maureen back and asking her to look for my dad, I can only think of one person.

  I pass two more vehicles, get back into the right-hand lane, and auto-dial Hazel. She’s in class so I know she won’t pick up, but I’m hoping she’ll call me back between classes.

  She answers. “Mom? What’s wrong?”

  “Why aren’t you in class?”

  “Bathroom. I had to pee. Again.” Her voice is echoing. Sounds like she’s actually in the bathroom. “What’s wrong? Why are you calling me?”

  “Your grandfather.” I groan. “He’s missing.”

  I hear her peeing. “Missing?” She’s immediately alarmed.

  “Well, not missing, missing. But your grandmother doesn’t know where he is and the neighbor thinks she saw him headed into town in his boxer shorts sans pants.”

  “Did he have shoes on?”

  I hear the toilet flush. “I don’t know, Hazel. She was mostly concerned about him not wearing pants.”

  “Jeez,” she mutters. “I don’t ever want to get old. I start forgetting my pants, I want to be cryogenically frozen and brought back to life when we have the capability to reverse aging.”

  I shake my head at that one but don’t respond to it. Definitely a conversation to be saved for another day. “I went to New Hampshire this morning to get that mantel. I was telling you about it last night. So, I’m still two hours from home. I’m sorry for calling you while you’re still at school, but didn’t know who else to call, hon.” I’m feeling a little out of sorts now. I’m so used to being in control of things. I know logically I can’t be in control of my father’s disease, but it still makes me uncomfortable realizing I can’t stop these things from happening. And that they’re probably going to start happening with more frequency. “Gran’s not feeling well enough to be driving around looking for him.”

  “That’s probably not a good idea anyway. If he doesn’t have any pants on, she’s going to be pissed,” Hazel says. Now I hear water running. She must be washing her hands. “Gran’s gonna lose it with him.”

  “Aunt Beth won’t pick up,” I continue. “Amelia must be in a meeting. Hazel, if I called the school office and said you had permission to leave early, would you mind going out and looking for him?”

  “You call Dad?”

  I feel myself stiffen. I know Hazel knows things have been tense between her father and me over the last two months, but I don’t want to draw her into our . . . into whatever is going on with us. “I didn’t want to bother him,” I say.

  “I’ll call Dad.”

  “Don’t,” I say.

  She hesitates and then says, “No problem, Mom. I’ll find Granddad. You don’t need to call the school office. I’ll go to the nurse and tell her my baby hurts.”

  “You’ll what?”

  My daughter laughs. “It’s a joke, Mom. Adults act crazy when they see a pregnant teenager in school. All I have to do is put my hand on my belly and every adult within a two-classroom radius asks me if I’m in labor. I can sign myself out. I’ll just say I have an appointment. I’m pregnant. Everyone thinks I’m a loser now, anyway. No one cares if I leave school.”

  There’s something in her tone that makes me think she’s not joking about being a loser. I debate whether or not to say anything, but decide against it. Like the cryogenics, it’s probably a conversation better left to discuss face-to-face. And right now, my dad is walking around town in plaid boxers, so we’ve got that to deal with. “Thank you, Hazel.” My voice is suddenly full of emotion. “Thanks so much for doing this for me.”

  She’s quiet for a moment. “You okay, Mom?”

  I hear teenaged voices now: talking, laughing. She must be out in the hall.

  I adjust my sunglasses. “Yeah, I’m fine. Just . . . worried about your granddad.”

  “His boxers, huh? That’s pretty nuts. Okay, I’m going to get my stuff in my history class and then I’ll go to the nurse’s office. Do you know which way he was headed?”

  “The neighbor thought toward town, but she wasn’t sure.”

  “I’ll find him, Mom.”

  “Call me when you do? Or if you don’t,” I add quickly. “It’s getting dark so early now. If we need to call the police—”

  “Mom, I don’t think we need to call the police just yet.”

  Her tone makes me feel like she’s the mother and I’m the daughter. “Call me?”

  “Ayuh,” she says, imitating her father. “Be careful driving home. I don’t want you to be one of those statistics for road fatalities on the billboards, Mom.”

  I smile as I hang up.

  16

  Hazel

  I call Aunt Beth as I get into Sean’s car, which is my car now even though no one is actually saying so. And I didn’t even have to pay him for it. Which of course I wasn’t going to do anyway. Dickwad.

  “Hazel!” Aunt Beth says when she answers, sounding way too cheerful. The fake kind. “How’s my favorite niece?”

  I buckle up. “I’m your only niece.”

  I’m annoyed with her. I know Mom is a pain in the butt, but most of the time Aunt Beth isn’t a very good sister. Mom worries too much about Granddad and Gran, but I feel like that’s at least part Aunt Beth’s fault because she doesn’t worry enough about them. “You’re supposed to answer the phone when Mom calls.”

  I adjust the rearview mirror, moving it one direction, then back into place. I know it’s right where I want it because I drove to school this morning, but it’s gotten to be a habit in the last few weeks since Mom and Dad started letting me drive to school. It’s like . . . a pilot’s checklist used before takeoff. I always check the position of the seat, too. I move it forward, then back.

  Aunt Beth groans. “She’s such a drag.”

  “I don’t think anyone has used that phrase since the sixties, Aunt Beth.” I bet she’s been watching Mad Men again. She watches a lot of TV. “She needed you. Granddad ran away and he’s naked.”

  “Naked?” she says.

  “Well, not naked, but some neighbor called Mom and said he was walking around town in his boxer shorts. Gran doesn’t know where he is but she’s not feeling good, so I guess she won’t go look for him.”

  My aunt laughs.

  “It’s not funny.”

  “It’s not funny, I know, but”—she giggles—“my dad walking through town without pants, even if he is wearing boxers? That’s funny.”

  “Mom went to New Hampshire so she can’t go look for him. I’m coming to get you.” I check the rearview mirror, then look to my left and then my right over my shoulder. Then in the rearview mirror again. “We have to find Granddad.”

  “What do you mean you’re coming to get me? What if I’m busy? What if I’m not home?”

  I hear her take a drink of something.

  “What if I’m on a date or something?”

  I back slowly out of my parking space, which I pulled into perfectly, with an even amount of space on both sides. “You’re not on a date, Aunt Beth.”

  “It’s my day off,” she argues. “I could be.”

  I look at the clock on the dashboard. It’s two thirty-five in the afternoon. “You’re not on a date,” I repeat. Once I’m in a position to move forward, I brake and then shift the car into drive. I press down gently on the gas pedal. “Bet you’re sitting in your ugly pink robe that’s like a hundred years old, w
atching reruns of Little Women: Atlanta and drinking white wine out of a juice glass.”

  When she doesn’t come up with a snappy answer right away, I know my guess is right. I’m afraid my aunt, besides being a TVholic, is an alcoholic. I’ve talked to Mom about it a couple of times, like if it’s time to sit down with her as a family and have an intervention or something. The kind of thing where we all sit around in someone’s living room, basically holding her captive, and telling her why we love her and why we don’t want her to die of cirrhosis of the liver. Mom says we need to mind our own business on this one. That there have been discussions and there’s no point talking about it until Aunt Beth is ready to talk about it. The good thing is that she doesn’t drink and drive. Although I know for a fact she drunk texts because a few months ago I heard her and Mom talking about it. Aunt Beth was boohooing over a big glass of red wine because Mom only drinks red, and Mom was telling her he wasn’t the right guy for her anyway. Apparently, whatever she texted him while she was sitting home alone in her robe, drinking her boxed wine in the middle of the night, made him decide he didn’t want to go out with her anymore.

  “I’ll be at your place in ten minutes,” I tell my aunt. “I’m going to take a quick run through town, and maybe call Granddad’s friend Mr. Dugan. Granddad used to walk over to his house to have coffee.”

  “Didn’t he die?”

  “I don’t think so. I’d have heard about the funeral. You know how Gran loves a funeral.” I ease to a stop before pulling out onto the road behind my high school. “See you in ten minutes.”

  “Hazel—”

  “If you’re not dressed, you’re coming with me wearing that ugly robe,” I warn her. I disconnect before she can say something back. I call the Dugans’ house. Some lady answers and says Mr. Dugan is napping. I get the idea maybe she’s a nurse or something. When I pull up in front of Aunt Beth’s town house, she’s standing out front on the sidewalk talking to some guy with a black Lab on a leash. She’s wearing sweats and a jean jacket, a ball cap, and big dark sunglasses. She’s flirting with the guy with the dog. I beep the horn and she gives me a really dirty look. She takes her time walking to the car. She waves to the guy as she gets in.