by Lynne Gentry
“Tell me what?” Aria demands again.
Charlotte’s brief glance in my direction is one-part reprimand and two-parts warning for me not to say another word. “Ari, you’re to stay away from the river and all guns, hear me?” She hands her daughter a dish cloth and nods toward the spilled milk. “Clean that up.”
“What if she needs to run someone off her land someday?” I clench the spoon. “And let me be clear, it is still my land.”
“How many times do I have to apologize, Momma?” Charlotte snatches the dish cloth from Aria and tosses it into the sink. “I only talked to Sam Sparks because you were refusing to go to rehab. I was afraid you might never live here again. If you had remained in assisted living, selling the ranch would have been in your best interest.”
“Don’t try to pawn this off as my best interest.”
“How many above-market value offers do you think we could have gotten for your small sliver of Texas hill country?”
“It’s on the river, Charlotte. This land is worth something.”
“To you.”
“To me and your daddy.”
“You mean Grandpa?” Worry creases Aria’s face. “Why doesn’t anybody ever talk about my grandfather?”
I feel the fire inside me sputter. “I meant, your mother had no right to go behind my back.”
Charlotte’s hands fly up. It’s not a gesture of surrender, but more like someone has a gun pointed at her head. “Want to shoot me too, Mother?”
“Of course not.” Why must I always attack? Hurting Charlotte, or anyone for that matter, is not what I want. And yet, it keeps happening. “How many times do I have to apologize, Charlotte Ann?”
Charlotte’s mouth flies open, anger flashing in her eyes. With the agility of someone nearly half my age, she manages to rope her tongue into submission, but not the sigh the sneaks out. “You can’t help it, Mother.” She wears pity on her wrinkled brow like a scarlet letter.
Pity.
That must be what’s setting me off. Pity is what brought Charlotte home and it’s pity keeping her here now. Not devotion. And certainly not love.
I hate pity. Had crawled into a hole to escape the pity I’d seen in everyone’s eyes after I lost Caroline and Martin. Until Charlotte’s return, I’d escaped the pity-filled offers of assistance from my church, my employer, and even my friends.
I’d rather be dead than to allow pity to become my lot in life.
“We’re going to be late if we don’t get a move on.” Charlotte retrieves her keys from the lopsided ceramic bowl she’d made in her third-grade art class. She lets out a long sigh, her silent admission that she doesn’t want to fight either. She gently places a hand on my shoulder. “You calm enough to go?”
Charlotte’s sympathetic touch riles the multi-headed, fact-gobbling monster growing inside me into a frenzy. I try to wrestle this conversation from his jaws, but the details are already shredded.
All I can do is spit out, “Where did you say we’re going?”
Chapter 7
CHARLOTTE
To the doctor, Momma. For a checkup and an assessment.” I point to the big calendar on the fridge. “I’ve told you several times and wrote it on your daily calendar. See?”
Eyes squinted, Momma studies the writing as if the new glasses I bought her when she went to rehab aren’t the least bit helpful. She should be able to read the large words with ease. But from the confused expression on her face, either her eyesight is failing or she’s can’t discern the meaning of doctor reassessment.
“Momma, you okay?”
Her eyes refuse to meet mine. She lifts her teacup. “Can’t we just sit around and look at each other for a while longer?” Brown liquid sloshes over her trembling hands. “I haven’t finished my breakfast.” The fight of just a few moments ago is gone...no, it’s more like it never existed.
I refuse to waste energy worrying about how I’m going to pay for Momma’s long-term care if the medical tests confirm my fears. She’s losing it, but I can’t. According to the certified letter I received yesterday, I’m going to need every ounce of strength to fight James. My husband is refusing to sign the settlement agreement I proposed. His counter offer claims he is sole owner of all our properties and reduces his child support liability to pennies.
I don’t have the time, money, or patience for another crisis. “I’d love to sit, Momma. I haven’t sat down since I got here.”
Her cup rattles into place on the saucer. “No one is making you paint the house.”
I’m strangely relieved to hear the return of her sarcastic wit. “Dr. Ellis was kind enough to work us in. I think it would be rude to make him wait, don’t you?”
“Last time I saw that traitor, he sent me away.”
Yep, Momma’s still in there. I’m determined to find every bit of the medical help that will keep her wits as sharp as possible for as long as possible...no matter how it hurts when she slices me. “You left him no choice.” I dig through the stack of papers on the counter. “He tried to get you to cooperate after your hip surgery, but you refused.”
“That’s because Nana’s physical therapist was a sadistic brute.” Aria sucks the last of her milk from her upturned bowl then looks up when she realizes I’ve stopped pawing through paperwork to stare at her with an open mouth.
Aria shrugs. “What?”
“Did you tell her that before or after you told her I play the piano, Momma?” I cast a disbelieving glance at my mother, but she simply shrugs. “We’re going to have to set some boundaries.” Momma shrugs again, even more nonchalant this time, as if my threats don’t scare her. I give Aria a reprimanding tap on the shoulder. “Get Nana’s purse and let’s go.”
Aria doesn’t move. “I don’t want to meet the principal.”
Momma snaps to attention. “You’re subjecting my granddaughter to Wilma Rayburn? You know she’s sadistic.”
“Mrs. Rayburn is not sadistic, Momma. She’s a cutting-edge administrator who’s turned Addisonville’s little country school into a modern, exemplary school. And why are we suddenly so fond of the word sadistic?”
“Those ratings are subject to interpretation,” Momma growls. “I don’t see the point in subjecting my granddaughter to that woman and her unproven methods.”
“I’m not subjecting my daughter to anyone,” I say. “We’re merely dropping by the school for a tour and a counselor visit. Aria’s never attended a school that has Pre-K through 12th grade on the same campus. School starts in a couple of weeks and I want her to know her way around.”
“It’s not hard,” Momma says. “Go through the front doors. Turn left for the elementary classrooms. Turn right for the high school classrooms. Or go straight ahead for the Junior High.”
“I know navigating the campus is not hard, but coming early might give Ari a chance to meet some of the students.”
“There are only three hundred students in the whole place. She’ll know them all and everything about them within a week. And they’ll know everything about her as well. You remember how it is in a small school? How hard it is to keep your private life private.”
I graduated from Addisonville ISD just a few days before Caroline died. I didn’t come home the next summer. The excuse I used was that I had a job at a coffee shop near the college, but the truth was I couldn’t bear running into people who knew me before I lost my sister. But then Daddy killed himself a year to the day that Caroline died and I ended up having to come home. I returned for the funeral then ran from everything Addisonville.
I was so traumatized by those two back-to-back events, I’d never considered how tough it was for Momma to continue to live in the same community, work with the same colleagues, and walk the familiar halls knowing everyone knew everything about the catastrophic changes in her life.
“Why can’t Nana homeschool me?” Aria looks to her grandmother for reinforcement and I get the distinct feeling these two have had this conversation behind my back. “She’s already hel
ping me get ready for Juilliard.”
“Nana’s retired.” I grab a stack of papers and start flipping. “She deserves a break.”
“She doesn’t want a break,” Aria argues. “Breaks are for quitters. Right, Nana?”
Momma’s gaze rotates between me and Aria like the conversation is a tennis match too-close-to-call, so she remains silent.
“Homeschooling you would be too much for her,” I counter.
“If you taught my English and music theory courses, Nana would only have to tutor me in math and science.” Aria’s well-articulated logic doesn’t mask the real issue. She’s terrified. And it’s my fault. I’m the one who yanked her away from her home and friends.
Guilt steers me headlong into a conversation I’d really hoped to avoid. “Ari, I’m not going to let you hide out. You’re going to school.” I cup my hands around her angry face. “And you’re going to make new friends.”
Her face turns to stone in my grasp. “Because you say so?”
“No, because you’re brave, smart, and—”
“And you say so,” she challenges.
“Yeah. I’m your mother.” I remove my hands. “It’s my job to say so, whether you like what I say or not.”
“You were right, Nana.” Aria shoves back from the table. “Mom thinks she’s the boss of the whole world. She shouldn’t boss you, and she can’t boss me forever.” She stomps from the kitchen.
“Put Fig in your room then get in the car, Ari,” I call after her then I wheel on my mother. “I’m glad you and Aria are becoming so close, but she’s my daughter and I wish you wouldn’t undermine the decisions I have to make for her.”
Momma sets her teacup in the saucer and quietly says, “I can teach her more than the piano scales and theory I taught you, you know.”
“I didn’t say you couldn’t, Momma.”
“Not out loud.”
“Momma—”
“Whether you like it or not, Charlotte Ann, Aria is already learning a thing or two from you. Parents are a child’s primary teacher.”
It’s not a compliment she’s offered. But if I really wanted to fight over every single thing, I’d bring up some of the uglier things I’ve learned from her. Silence. Long-held grudges. Withholding love until someone is perfect.
I force the frustration to whoosh from me in a long, exhausted sigh. “Every eighth-grade girl needs friends.” I slid into Aria’s empty seat and do what I always do: try to put a Band-Aid on the wound I have inflicted. “Remember the big slumber party Caroline wanted when she turned twelve?”
“It’s my idea,” Momma pushes her tea saucer away.
“Was it?”
“Was? No is.”
I overlook her verb confusion and say, “You said Caroline could have her Little House on the Prairie party if I could be included.”
Momma’s gaze drifts beyond me. A tiny smile tugs at the corners of her mouth. “Your father and I have hauled hay to the barn loft all week. You and Caroline will catch your death sleeping in that old outbuilding, but Martin says it’s my fault for insisting that you two read Wilder’s entire series before puberty.”
It’s not just Momma’s gaze that has drifted past me, but it sounds like somehow her mind has left the present and is now wandering around in that long-ago weekend like it has yet to happen.
I experiment with trying to join her in those old memories and change my voice to that of a ten-year-old girl. “Will you make sourdough bread, Johnny-cakes, and homemade maple syrup, Momma?”
She chuckles and looks at me with so much love I actually feel like a little girl again. “I draw the line at making a black bird pie.”
The sensation of having the mother I once knew is so deliciously overwhelming, I’m tempted to ignore the ache of being a turkey wishbone pulled in opposite directions. I want to snuggle up beside her and stay in the fantasy. But Aria’s footsteps on the stairs tug me toward all of the adult responsibilities of today.
To keep my heart from snapping, I say, “You and your blasted birds, Momma.” I reach for her hand and give it a light squeeze.
She ignores my nudge to return to the present. “Caroline loves my birds.”
I can’t dwell in the presence of the dead any longer, so I change the subject. “You did so many things right. I want to be the kind of mother who’d haul hay for a week if it will make my daughter as happy as that party made me and Caroline.”
My mention of my sister yanks Momma back to the present. Her face scrunches in an effort to say something. I can’t help but lean in, my heart hoping for a breakthrough in this cold war of ours.
“Where did you say we were going?” she whispers.
I swallow my disappointment and pat her hand. “To the doctor.” I stand. “The nurse told me to bring the list of all your current medications. Where do you keep it?”
“On the counter. Behind the sugar cannister.”
“I’ve looked through this mess.” I wave toward the disheveled papers on the counter. “The list is not there.”
“It’s always there.”
“Maybe you moved the piece of paper, put it in your recipe drawer or something?”
“When would I have had the time? I’ve been too busy cooking for twenty pre-teen girls who’ve giggled and laughed all night in the hayloft.”
“That was thirty years ago, Momma.”
Her eyes dart from the calendar to me. My frustration sends her gaze flying back to the calendar again. She stares intensely at the numbered boxes then simply says, “Oh.”
“Don’t worry,” I say with an edge of guilt. “We’ll find your medication list and then I’ll transfer everything to my phone so we won’t have this problem again.”
“I’m not daft, Charlotte Ann.” She pushes back from the table. “It’s here somewhere.” She pads to the sugar cannister and begins her own search. “You’re just like your father. He can’t find the nose on his face.”
Picking my battles carefully, I decide her present tense reference of my deceased father is not worth the effort it would take to correct her thinking and tackle the issues keeping us from heading out the door. “Momma, where are your shoes?”
She continues rifling through the papers. “Where they always are...on my feet.”
“No.” I point at her thick, yellowed toenails. “They’re not.”
She drops the electric bill in her hand and glances down. She studies her feet then frowns as if the big bunion on the side of her left foot belongs to someone else. “I want my Dearfoams.”
“Your Easy Spirits are by the back door.”
“I must wear my slippers.”
My jaw clenches. “Aria!” My call summons my angry teen to the kitchen.
Aria tromps into the room with her nose glued to her phone. “What?” she snaps without looking up.
“Can you put your phone down for a minute and help us find Nana’s slippers?”
Aria glares at me then slaps her phone down on the table. “I’m helping Nana, not you.”
For the next twenty minutes the three of us tear the house apart searching for slippers and the sheet of paper with Momma’s medications.
By the time we uncover the prescription list buried under a stack of magazines, sweat drips from my face. We have yet to find the slippers. “I’m having central air installed next week, and I don’t want any arguments.” I march to the refrigerator for a bottle of water. “Oh. My. Goodness.” I reach in and pull out a pair of grass-stained Dearfoams wedged between two egg cartons. “Why are your slippers in the fridge, Momma?”
Momma looks to Aria.
“I didn’t do it, Nana.”
Momma’s gaze flies to me.
I hold them out to her. “I sure didn’t put them there.”
Momma’s chin lifts. “I put them there so I wouldn’t forget to take LaVera her eggs.” She snatches the slippers then drops into the nearest chair. “Besides, chilled slippers are good for bunions.”
I clamp a hand over my mo
uth to keep from laughing and flash a look to Aria to do the same. Embarrassing Momma further is not going to increase her cooperation. If I have any hope of stopping the unwieldy beast devouring my mother’s memory, I need her to be truthful during the doctor’s exam. Spewing the answers she thinks we want to hear won’t help her. Even though I’ve Googled the heck out of dementia and read every depressing research article I can find, I’m clinging to the hope that there’s some drug that will help. If there’s not, I don’t know what I’ll do because I can’t stand the hurt in Aria’s eyes as she watches her Nana deal with her confusion.
“Aria, can you get the eggs?” I dig the keys from my purse as Momma wrestles her feet into the Dearfoams. “We’ll drop them at LaVera’s on our way to town.”
Once Momma has her slippers on, she lifts her head. “There, that’s better.” Pride has completely replaced her earlier bewilderment. “Where are we going, Charlotte Ann?” She seems almost excited about the prospect of taking an unknown adventure.
“To the doctor,” I repeat for the millionth time.
Chapter 8
SARA
Charlotte pumps the gas on my sweet little Ford Escort for the second time. “We’ll have to drop the eggs by LaVera’s on our way home from the doctor.”
“They’re fresh now.” I clasp my hands tightly. Pushing Charlotte from behind the wheel won’t stop her from hauling me in for another round of humiliation. I can’t remember to take my meds, so why can’t I forget the real reason Charlotte came home? It’s bad enough she believes me no longer fit to live on my own. Must she have these totally bogus ideas medically documented as well? “I don’t want two dozen of my best eggs to spoil.”
“There’s plenty of ice in the cooler, Momma.” Charlotte looks at her phone and huffs. “We’re already ten minutes late.”
Gasoline fumes drift through the open windows. “Smells like you’ve flooded her.”
“Mother, I know how to start a car.” Charlotte hunches over the wheel and cranks the key again. The engine grinds but fails to ignite. Angry barn swallows swoop out of the carport to escape the increasing gas fumes. “Soon as I get my finances untangled, I’m buying us something more reliable.”