Truths I Never Told You (ARC)

by Kelly Rimmer

  and work and the boys…and to be honest, I kind of assumed

  you’d come to me if you needed to talk.” It’s obvious from the

  way her voice drops as she says this that she’s hurt I haven’t. I

  don’t know how to explain to her that she’s the last person on

  earth I could have talked to about my current situation—Ruth

  Turner, the very concept of The Perfect Mother, in human

  form. “So anyway, I just thought we’d have coffee and a chat

  while Gus and Harry bust past that monster lock Dad installed.”

  I dump my bag on the table and don’t quite manage to hold

  back the sarcasm as I ask,

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  “So the door wasn’t jammed?”

  “Sorry,” she says ruefully, glancing back at me as she makes

  my tea. “But you have to admit, it doesn’t make much sense.

  Why on earth would he install a lock like that? It’s a dead bolt

  designed for an external door. I’m a little nervous about what’s

  in that attic now, to be honest.”

  “Me, too,” I admit. “I was up half the night thinking about

  it.” At least it was partly Dad’s mystery attic that kept me awake.

  I’ve been sleeping less and less and the insomnia isn’t always so

  easy to explain.

  “How did we miss it, Beth?” Ruth sighs suddenly. I look at

  her in alarm, thinking she’s referring to me, but then I realize she’s still talking about Dad.

  “I don’t know,” I admit. “I think we were so focused on the

  heart issue, we didn’t realize there was another condition at play.

  We noticed he was different after his retirement, remember?

  You even asked me about it—you all did. I just thought it was

  him coming to terms with the changes in his physical health…

  adjusting to the new stage of life.”

  Dad founded Walsh Homes when he was a single father with

  four young children. He worked with his hands and built houses

  and eventually a business that supported our family in a com-

  fortably middle-class lifestyle. Given that I’m struggling to keep

  my head above water with one kid, I just have no idea how he

  managed. He outsourced the cleaning every now and again and

  we had help from Aunt Nina and a part-time nanny until Tim

  was old enough to supervise us after school, but for the most

  part, Dad handled every aspect of our household on his own.

  I hope he thinks it paid off. I never doubted that we’d made

  him proud, but lately I’ve been feeling so guilty. The result of

  all of Dad’s nagging about school is four grown children with

  solid educations, two of us health professionals, yet not one of

  us smart enough or at least aware enough to notice that it wasn’t

  just his heart that was failing; his mind was going, too.

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  Kelly Rimmer

  “I feel so guilty,” Ruth admits, her voice husky. “We took

  the kids to see him yesterday and he’s completely lost. I just wish

  I’d pushed his doctor to do some more tests after the heart at-

  tack. I suspected something was up then. It was hard to put my

  finger on what was wrong.”

  The heart attack came out of nowhere. Dad was swinging

  a hammer with the team on a job site when he collapsed, and

  at first, it seemed he’d just need medication and some lifestyle

  changes. It soon became apparent though that his heart was dam-

  aged, and we were all in for a second fright because the cardi-

  ologist soon determined that Dad was in heart failure. Still, the

  doctor seemed optimistic that we had years and years left with

  Dad if he looked after himself. Dad had been cleared to go back

  to work and he seemed excited to do so. His sudden retirement

  came as yet another shock.

  I still remember that day. I’d just arrived home from work

  to the phone ringing, and when I ran to pick it up, Ruth was

  sobbing on the other end. At first, I thought the worst—maybe

  another incident with Dad’s heart…maybe a more serious heart

  attack this time. Instead, Ruth told me he’d given her the busi-

  ness and had decided to paint full-time.

  “Paint?” I’d repeated. “As in, paint houses?”

  “No, Beth. Paint. As in, paint abstracts or landscapes or… I

  don’t know. Something like that.”

  “But… Dad doesn’t paint.”

  “Well, apparently he does now.”

  Dad loved his job and he loved his company, and that’s we

  tried to talk him out of retiring, even Ruth, who stood to gain

  ownership of the family business. But Dad he was adamant. He

  said he needed a quieter lifestyle, and that giving up work would

  mean less stress on his heart. This was what he needed for the

  next chapter of his life, and in the face of such determination

  and logic, who were we to argue? He’d certainly worked hard

  enough to be entitled to rest if that’s what he wanted to do.

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  And it actually seemed Dad had been hiding an extraordi-

  nary talent. He’d never been trained in visual art, but soon he

  was prolific . He was painting all kinds of things—abstracts, por-

  traits, landscapes—his talent seemed endless. Hunter even has a

  series of Dad’s artwork on the wall at his law firm, a collection

  his boss commissioned. They are vivid and clever and layered.

  That commission seemed to represent the start of a whole new,

  if somewhat unlikely, career for Dad.

  But the reality is, Dad’s sudden interest in art was an early

  symptom of a neurological condition rather than a long-hidden

  talent, and it was just the start of his decline. Ruth’s right—it

  was hard to identify exactly what was wrong, but his presence

  and his world just seemed to shrink. He slowly disconnected

  from his friends, and while he’d always liked to keep the house

  tidy, cleanliness gradually became an obsessive focus. I remem-

  ber Jeremy telling me that when he’d come for a visit, before

  he’d even set his beer glass down after the last mouthful, Dad

  took it right out of his hand, washed it and put it away. Tim

  expressed concern about Dad’s weight gain. Ruth was still con-

  fused about Dad’s sudden retirement, convinced it wasn’t an

  empowered, smart way to live out his later years, but a sign of

  an irrational impulsivity and an indication that something was

  drastically wrong.

  I’m the psychologist in the family, so it was me they called

  when they were concerned, and I dutifully assured them Dad

  was fine. He’d gone from sixty-hour weeks at the helm of his

  own company to endless days with no set agenda. And Dad was

  facing a terminal diagnosis—despite the excellent chance he’d

  survive for years, the confirmation of his mortality was likely

  still playing on his mind. Of course these things were going to

  have a ps
ychological impact. Of course he’d need some time to

  adjust. I tried to help my family focus on the positives, not the

  negatives. I even remember telling Hunter that it was nice to see

  Dad talking less and listening more now that his life had slowed

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  down. Dad and I have always been particularly close, but after

  his retirement, he seemed to have endless time to listen to me,

  gazing at me with patient, quiet wisdom.

  In hindsight, I was seeing what I wanted to see.

  He started forgetting words, which was easy enough to ig-

  nore at first. It wasn’t as if he wasn’t communicating—he’d just

  pause midsentence and often ask, “What’s that word again?” Or

  he’d wave his arms vaguely while he talked about the “thingy”

  or “you know, the whats-it.” But it got worse and worse over

  time, and soon he was confusing nouns—saying chair when he

  meant table, tiger when he meant cat. But he seemed happy,

  so much so that he’d developed this adorably innocent laugh.

  It’s hard to accept that someone might need some kind of ad-

  ditional medical intervention when they are utterly delighted

  by every aspect of life. And Dad really was so smiley…so quick

  to joy and laughter.

  Then one Tuesday evening he came to visit me and Hunter.

  Five minutes after he left to go home, I opened the door and Dad

  was there on my doorstep again, overjoyed to see us, completely

  unaware that he’d only just said goodbye. When we explained

  that to him, he chuckled at himself and insisted he was just hav-

  ing a “senior moment.” He didn’t seem concerned about what

  happened…and he didn’t seem embarrassed. But Hunter and I

  were nervous, and so we drove Dad home and then I called Tim.

  We made plans to get Dad over to Tim’s hospital for a checkup

  later that week, but Dad’s health crisis couldn’t wait that long.

  The very next day, the straw house of explanations we’d built

  around Dad’s personality changes collapsed entirely.

  I was six months pregnant with Noah and I was having a bad

  day. I’d had a series of awful appointments with my clients—a

  child who was developing an eating disorder, then one who’d

  been abused by a parent, then one who was self-harming. Such

  a lineup wasn’t unusual, but something felt off in the way I en-

  gaged with each child. I was already becoming uncomfortable

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  as the pregnancy progressed and I knew I was increasingly dis-

  tracted. I wasn’t giving my patients my best—something I’d al-

  ways prided myself on. I wondered if I should think about going

  on maternity leave early and I called Dad for his advice.

  But when he picked up my call, I could hear that something

  was wrong. He wasn’t calm or wise, he was confused—the pat-

  tern of his speech sounded fluent, but the way he was using the

  words made almost no sense. I wondered if he was having a

  stroke. I left work and went right to his house, but Dad was in-

  explicably beside himself, babbling and crying, and and as hard

  as I tried, I couldn’t calm him down.

  I called Tim again, and he met us at the Overlake Medical

  Center. Tim broke all the rules that day—not just the speed

  limit, but by insisting that the staff at the hospital let him do

  Dad’s cognitive assessment. By the time he’d finished, I knew

  Dad was in serious trouble. Even if my own training as a psy-

  chologist hadn’t given me just enough understanding of neu-

  rology to interpret some of the results, the look on Tim’s face

  would have said it all.

  From there, it was days of more formal testing before the con-

  sultant neurologist sat us down and confirmed what we’d finally

  figured out for ourselves. The dad we knew and loved was al-

  ready leaving us, brain cell by brain cell. His language skills were

  in significant decline, and what I’d thought of as patient listening

  was actually Dad disconnecting from our conversations. What

  we’d thought of as him becoming house proud was actually ob-

  sessive behavior. That stubborn change in his diet was a symp-

  tom, too, and we soon came to suspect he’d been existing on

  that one roast meal with us for Sunday dinner, supplemented by

  endless caramel ice cream over the rest of the week—his freezer

  full of dozens of tubs of the same brand and flavor.

  Even the overnight emergence of artistic skill was no late-life

  crisis brought on by the heart attack. It turns out that sudden

  visual artistry is a recognized symptom of his particular type

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  of dementia—and this particular type of dementia is known to

  happen sometimes in patients suffering heart failure.

  We’d all missed it, even as Dad walked through years of de-

  cline alone, right in front of our eyes.

  “I should have listened to you guys,” I say suddenly. “I

  shouldn’t have been so quick to justify the changes in his be-

  havior—” I trail off at the sound of footsteps in the hallway.

  Two young men appear, one carrying a toolbox.

  “Excuse me, Ruth,” the taller of the two says. “The door is

  off.” He shifts, then scratches his neck and stares at the floor.

  “So is there anything else?”

  Ruth sits up straight and clears her throat.

  “No, thanks, Harry,” she says, then she nods. “I’ll see you

  boys back at the office.”

  We sit in silence until the front door closes behind them,

  then I stand.

  “Let’s go check out—”

  “Just wait a second first, Beth,” Ruth says, her voice coolly

  professional. I bristle a little, but remain standing. I was very

  much hoping to avoid the intervention Ruth seemed to be build-

  ing up to, and as awful as the detour was, I was relieved to focus

  on Dad’s illness for a few minutes, instead of letting her focus

  on me. But she gives me a pointed look, and I know distracting

  her isn’t going to be easy.

  “Aren’t you curious?” I ask, giving it one last shot. I even go

  as far as to take a step away from the table and add, “I’m dying

  to see what’s up there.”

  “Of course I am, but it can wait a few minutes.” When I don’t

  move, she gives me an exasperated look and points to the chair.

  I guess lifelong training at the hands of a bossy older sister has

  left me with some ingrained habits, because I sit heavily. “What

  is going on with you? Are things okay with you and Hunter?”

  “Everything is fine,” I say impatiently, and I motion toward

  the hallway. “Let’s—”

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  “Is it Noah, then?”

  I
shake my head, and give her a desperate look.

  “Don’t you remember what it’s like with a newborn? I hardly

  sleep, I’m basically a walking milk machine. It’s hard. It’s sup-

  posed to be hard.”

  “Sure,” she says, shrugging. “It’s hard, and I had days here

  and there with each kid when I felt like it was too hard. But I

  didn’t disconnect from you, did I?”

  “I haven’t disconnected from you.” It’s a complete lie, and an

  unconvincing one at that.

  “It’s like you’re here, but you’re not really here,” Ruth mur-

  murs. “You come to family dinners, but you don’t say much,

  and you’re dragging Hunter out the door as soon as we finish

  eating. You’ve been doing more than your share of the heavy

  lifting with Dad, but as soon as anyone else arrives to help, you

  leave. Jesus, Beth. You even left Noah’s baptism early.”

  “Well, he was crying—”

  “And Chiara and half of her family and Tim and Ellis and I,

  and Fleur and Jez and even damned Alicia all offered to help

  you, but you wouldn’t let us. It was like you were looking for

  an excuse to leave.”

  I scowl at her.

  “Come on, Ruth. It wasn’t like that. It was hot that day and

  he was miserable. We had to get home so he could sleep.”

  “Chiara locked herself in her bedroom and cried for an hour

  after you left. You hurt her.”

  “Well, that certainly wasn’t our intention—”

  “Stop talking about that day like Hunter wanted to leave,”

  Ruth interrupts, exasperated. “He was trying to talk you into

  staying right up until you snatched Noah up and put him in

  the car. Hunter left with you, but only because you gave him

  no choice.”

  I pause, frowning as I try to remember.

  “That’s not how it was at all.”

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  “That’s exactly how it was, Beth.” Ruth doesn’t exaggerate,

  and I can see she’s telling the truth. I remember feeling so re-

  moved from the festivities that day, watching myself through a

  thick pane of glass, so tired and frustrated I could barely force

  myself to sit through the ceremony at the church. “And what’s

  really happening with your job?” she adds now, apparently not

  done yet. When I’m feeling better, I’m going to give my sister

  a few tips on how to guide someone through a psychologically