“He was old,” Legs says when I don’t say anything. “And sick.”
Sometimes I really love Legs.
And Miranda says, “That’s not what my mom said,” Miranda says.
I frown. “What did your mom say?”
Everyone looks at Miranda. She takes a long time to answer. I want to grab her face and make her answer right away.
“She said he died because that bastard was too scared to face the music.”
Everyone goes really quiet. I don’t know what that means, but I do know that “bastard” isn’t a nice word. Also, I know it’s not true. Daddy wasn’t even scared of going into the basement at night or of Maleficent when she turned into the giant snake in Sleeping Beauty. He would never be scared of music.
“What music?” Legs asks.
“Don’t know,” Miranda admits. “Probably some really scary music.”
The bell rings and Miss Weber tells us to line up in two straight lines. Miranda runs to the front and seems to forget all about the music and how Daddy died, but I keep thinking about worms and Heaven and what was so scary about that music.
10
When I get out of class, Mom is waiting. She’s wearing a white shirt and jeans and flat shoes and she’s standing by herself instead of with the other moms. I remember how, before, Mom used to wear earrings and a skirt and shoes like Miss Weber’s. And she stood in the center of the group of moms.
I wave at her, and she pulls a gingerbread man out of her purse and puts it up to her face so it sounds like it can talk.
“Hello,” it says. “I’m First-Day Fergus. Please don’t eat me!”
“Of course I won’t eat you, Fergus,” I say—then I bite his head off. Mom and I giggle.
Usually after school, I stay and play for a while so Mom can chat to Legs’s mom, but today we leave right away. As we walk, I ask, “Was Daddy scared of music?”
“No,” Mom says slowly. “Why?”
“No reason,” I say, feeling relieved. Then I ask, “Are the worms eating Daddy?”
Mom stops walking. “What?”
“Miranda says if you’re in the ground, worms eat you.”
Mom says something quietly that sounds like cheeses. Then she says, “Daddy’s in Heaven, remember?” She gives me a little sideways cuddle. “I’m sure he’s watching over us.”
I hate it when people say this. I don’t want Daddy watching over me. I want Daddy here. So he can walk me to school tomorrow and do the funny voices of the witches when he reads Witches Wear Britches to me before bed.
“How did he die?” I ask.
Mom looks at me. “We’ve talked about this, Clem. It was … an accident.”
“Was Daddy a … bastard?”
Mom doesn’t say anything for a while. And then, “Did Miranda say that, too?”
“Yes.”
Mom squats down. “People might say things about Daddy, but they don’t really know what they’re talking about. Who knows Daddy the best in the world?”
“We do,” I say.
“That’s right.” She smiles a little. “Anyway, did Miranda even meet Daddy?”
“Once. At my fairy princess party.”
“Just that once?” Mom says. “Well, what would she know?”
“Yeah,” I say, smiling. “What would she know?”
Mom winks. Then she stands and we start walking and I don’t worry anymore, because I know that Daddy wasn’t scared of any music, and Miranda doesn’t know what she’s talking about.
* * *
I play outside for a while before Mom calls me for dinner. By the time I’ve washed my hands and got to the dining room, there’s only one seat left, next to a bald man. I wriggle onto it.
“Hey!”
I look up. He’s frowning.
“That’s Myrna’s seat.”
“Oh.” I slip off the seat quickly. The bald man is very cranky. “Sorry.”
Another lady puts her arm around me. She’s soft and has yellow hair and smells of flowers. “Why don’t you sit here, darlin’, right by me?”
I like this lady. She has a nice smile and a funny voice, slow and long, like the people in the The Princess and the Frog. I sit beside her.
“Now, let me see,” she says. “You must be about … six?”
“I’m seven,” I say. I do not look six.
“Ah, I apologize. I have a great-granddaughter who is six. Or”—she frowns—“maybe she’s seven? With twenty-seven great-grandchildren, it’s hard to remember them all.”
I agree that does sound like a lot to remember.
“I’m Clara,” the lady says. “This is my husband, Laurie.”
“I’m Clementine,” I say, forgetting to change it. Sometimes I like to pretend I have a different name. I don’t know why, it just makes me feel good to pretend.
Mom serves fettuccini with bacon, cherry tomatoes, and spinach. When she comes to our table, I sink in my seat because I’m supposed to eat dinner in the kitchen, but Mom just winks at me. She must be feeling happy today.
“My daddy loved this pasta,” I tell Clara. “It was his favorite. We used to pretend it was Rapunzel’s hair. Daddy would say ‘Rapunzel! Let down your hair.’ And I would hold the fork above his mouth and unwrap the pasta straight into his mouth.”
“It sounds like he was a good daddy,” Clara says.
“He was.”
“How was school?” she asks.
“Okay. I got to see Legs. My best friend. Allegra is her name, but everyone calls her Legs.”
“Well, these are my friends,” Clara says. She points her fork at some of the others at the table. “May and Gwen and Bert.”
Bert is the bald one that kicked me out of his friend’s seat. I notice that no one has sat in it yet.
“I’m not sure your friend is coming,” I tell him. “I can ask my mom to keep something hot for her, if you like.”
The man looks straight ahead as if he didn’t hear me. I know old people can’t hear very well, so I say it again.
“Thank you very much, young lady,” he says, “I heard you the first time.”
“Then why didn’t you say so?” I ask.
Clara says: “I hope you’re going to do some more Irish dancing for us tonight, Clementine. We really enjoyed it, didn’t we, everyone?”
Everyone nods and smiles and says yes, they enjoyed it. Not Bert. He just stares at the spot he saved for his friend. Like he can’t believe she didn’t show up.
“Maybe she’s not feeling well?” I suggest.
Bert keeps looking at the chair. “I don’t think it’s that.”
“Then why didn’t she come to dinner?”
Bert looks at me for a long time without saying anything. Sometimes grown-ups just need a little longer than kids to speak. Their brains are a bit slower, I think. Finally, he says, “She did.”
“She did?” I say, astonished. “I didn’t see her.”
“That doesn’t mean she wasn’t here.”
People are getting up now, ready to go to the front room. I get off my seat and climb onto the empty seat next to Bert. But he just stands up, too.
“Wait!”
Bert stops. He’s frowning, but not like he’s mad. More like he’s tired. “Yes?”
“Is your friend invisible?”
He smiles even though he looks like he doesn’t want to. He looks different when he smiles. He looks nice.
“She’s invisible to most people,” he says. “But I can see her.”
“That is so cool.”
He smiles again. “Yes, it is … cool, I suppose.”
Suddenly, I leap off my seat. “Was I just sitting on her?”
Now he chuckles. He likes me, I can tell. Though, if I was sitting on her, his friend probably doesn’t like me so much. “No. You’re all right.” Bert takes the handles of his walker and rattles it toward the door.
“Wait,” I say again.
He sighs. “Yes?”
“Why can you see her a
nd no one else can?”
Bert thinks about that for a minute. “I can see her because I really, really want to.”
“You mean … if there’s someone that I can’t see … and I really, really want to … I can?”
“You can try.”
“And I’ll be able to talk to them, too?”
He shrugs. “Why not?”
“Even”—I lower my voice—“if he’s dead?”
Bert frowns. I guess that was silly of me. Of course you can’t see or talk to someone who is dead! But Bert bangs his walker toward me and bends until he is around my height. It looks like hard work, the bending. I hope he doesn’t get stuck like that. “If I were dead,” he says, “and a pretty young lady like you wanted to talk to me … I sure as heck’d be coming back for visits.”
I’m so happy that my eyes fill up with tears and I throw my arms around his neck and almost knock him to the ground.
11
Eve
The day passes like a mile-long train. I change sheets with suspicious-looking stains. I almost throw out a set of false teeth with a half-filled glass of water. Now I wipe the last of the crumbs from the kitchen bench, then rinse out the cloth and hang it over the faucet. My back aches. I’d always fancied myself as being fairly fit, but housework is something else. I feel withered, broken, in pain.
Clem is in the front room, watching TV, waiting to be taken home. Emerson, the agency nurse, is in the parlor, reading a novel. The residents are in their rooms, readying themselves for bed, and I can’t wait to do the same. I wash my hands, pick up my manual, then head up the hall to say good night to the nurse.
“I’m off for the night, then.”
Emerson looks up from her book. “Okay. Shall I pop in and see the residents before bed, or are they best left alone?”
I have no idea. On one hand, I’m reluctant to disturb them, given the way I walked in on Clara this morning. On the other hand, after my conversation with Anna this afternoon, I’d like to check in on her again. Maybe she’ll remember what she meant when she said “Help me.”
“I’ll check on them before I go,” I say.
I come to Luke’s door first, which is ajar, and suddenly Eric’s words jump into my mind. “Luke’s and Anna’s doors need to be locked.” I make a mental note to remind Emerson and knock loudly. “Luke? It’s Eve. Just checking you’re okay.”
I wait, peering through the crack, but there’s no response and no movement.
“Luke?” I nudge the door. “Are you in here?”
When he still doesn’t answer, I open the door completely. Dear God, may he not be naked. Or worse, naked and disoriented. I slowly advance inside. His bed is made. Empty. “Shit!”
“Everything okay?”
I spin around. Emerson is in the doorway. “Luke’s not here,” I say.
My anxiety is mirrored in Emerson’s eyes. This isn’t good.
Emerson gets it together first. “The front doors are locked, so he must be inside. I’ll check the building. You check with the other residents.”
“Yes.” I nod maniacally. “The other residents.”
Amidst my alarm, I find myself wishing I were checking the building while Emerson woke up the confused, sleepy old people, admitting that we’d lost a resident.
I step out into the hallway and look at the closed doors. Light shines out the bottom of Anna’s and Bert’s doors; the other rooms are in darkness. I move toward Anna’s door. Pretty unlikely, I reason, that Luke would be visiting a grumpy old man at this time of night.
I tap lightly. “Anna, it’s Eve. Are you there?”
I wait a moment, my panic rising. Still there’s no response. Is Anna missing, too? Not waiting another second, I swing open the door. In my mind’s eye, I can already see it: Another made bed. Another missing resident. This whole thing spiraling out of control.
At the sight of Anna’s feet, I go limp with relief. Thank God! I continue into the room until the whole bed comes into view; then I gasp and quickly retreat.
“I’ve checked the building,” Emerson says, appearing beside me. “No sign of Luke.”
“It’s okay,” I tell her, even though I’m fairly certain that it’s not. “I’ve found him.”
12
Anna
Thirteen months ago …
You know what I don’t miss? The doctors’ appointments. A year ago, when I was diagnosed, there were a lot of them. The geriatricians (I know, right?), the neurologists, the neuropsychologists. The memory clinics, the PET scans. An interesting fact about Alzheimer’s is that a definitive diagnosis can be made only through autopsy. For this reason, Dr. Brain diagnosed me as having “probable Alzheimer’s.” The “probable” part always made me laugh. It might be a bit macabre, but the idea that after you’re dead they might slice open your head and say, Well, looky here. She didn’t have it after all, struck me as funny.
It’s been six weeks since Young Guy accosted me in the hallway … and I’m still not dead. It’s unexpected, but life has been pretty good at throwing me curveballs lately. I haven’t forgotten about what I was planning to do that night, nor have I decided that I’ll never go ahead and do it. I guess, like a lot of callers on Beat the Bomb, I’ve simply decided that I am willing to take my chances hanging on a little longer.
Today, it’s pet therapy day. Not my favorite day of the week, given my dog phobia, but I’m inside and all the dogs are all outside, so I can’t complain. Young Guy, the dog lover, loves this day. Usually he spends the entire time outside with the dogs. He opted to stay inside today, but I can tell he’d rather be outside because his eyes are glued to the window, where a hairy fluff ball sits on Southern Lady’s lap, licking her face. I shudder.
“Myrna don’t like dogs neither.”
I look up, uncertain who has spoken. I notice the old guy, whom I’ve nicknamed Baldy, is looking at me. “What?” I ask.
“Dogs. Myrna don’t like ’em.”
Old folks can be so random. Baldy’s voice is gruff and irritated, like I am an inconvenience, even though he’s the one who started talking to me.
“Oh.” I sit back as a lady—Liesel, according to her name badge—arranges the world’s fattest rabbit in my lap. I call it Sumo Bunny. “Myrna and I have something in common, then.”
Young Guy grins. He’s been my right-hand man these last few weeks—where I go, he goes. I’m not sure if it’s because he’s worried I’m going to try to kill myself or if he just enjoys my company, but the result is the same—we’re always together. It’s actually pretty convenient. A couple of times when I’ve been disoriented, he’s been able to help me find my way. And one time, when we were both a little disoriented, we decided there was safety in numbers and just stayed where we were until someone came to find us.
I watch him now. He’s looking at the animal in his lap, his eyelashes dark against his pale face. The top two buttons of his shirt are casually undone and the sleeves are rolled up. I stare at his chest but when he notices me looking, I quickly look back at Sumo Bunny.
Young Guy generally doesn’t say a lot, and I don’t know if that’s because of his type of dementia or if he’s always been a man of few words. Either way, there’s something nice about the lack of chatter. When he does talk, he asks me questions. It’s funny the things he wants to know—my favorite films, the music I listen to. My answers are boring and predictable, but he listens with absolute attention, like there’s nowhere else he’d rather be. I ask about his favorite things, too, and he tells me a few, but I can tell speaking makes him tired. After a while, he starts to look frustrated, so I let conversation drift back to me.
“Can you turn that damn TV off?” Baldy shouts suddenly. Grumpy old bastard. He points to the arm of my chair, where the remote control is resting. I pick it up.
Just so you know, there are about a million buttons on a remote control. Some are green. Some are red. Some are gray. The writing below each button is all gobbledygook—INPUT, AUDIO, AV. I try a gray one.
The room fills with loud static noise.
“Are you trying to burst my eardrums?” Baldy yells.
I quickly press another button, a green one. The noise remains, but the picture on the screen changes, then changes again.
I wish Ethan were here. Or Brayden or the other nephew. Kids are so good with electronics.
“What are you doing?” he asks.
“I’m trying,” I say, because I really am. I press a red button, but it just gets louder. I look at Young Guy desperately.
He grabs my hand. “Quick,” he says, standing. The animal on his lap jumps off and scampers away. He grabs my hand, and even through the noise, I feel a rush of energy at his touch. Sumo Bunny slides off my lap as he pulls me to my feet. “Let’s … go … out of h-here,” he says.
“Hey!” Baldy cries. “Where are you two going?”
We turn a corner, then another, and finally we stop next to a small table and a mirror and a vase of flowers. My eyes roll over his strong jaw, his dimple, his tea-colored eyes. A warm tingly feeling rises through my body. I’m so transported; I don’t even break his gaze when a woman in a green T-shirt enters the room. Her name badge says LIESEL.
“There you are, Luke!” she says. “We’re just feeding the dogs. If you want to see them, you’ll have to come outside now.”
“Not … t-today,” he says.
“You should go,” I tell him. “You love those damn dogs.”
He shakes his head firmly, definitively. And despite my protests, my heart begins to sing. “No,” he says again. “I’m h-h-happy right where I am.”
* * *
There’s a knocking sound, somewhere in my room. It sounds like a woodpecker. Knock, knock, knock. I glance at the window at the same time as the door opens.
Suddenly the manager guy is in front of me. “Anna? You have a phone call.”
“A phone call?”
I feel strangely untethered today, on edge, like I’m waiting for someone to sneak up on me, but they never do. I know I’m in my room, at Rosalind House, but when I look for the familiar, I don’t find it. It’s like I’m straddling the line between dementia and reality, and I can’t tell which is which.
The Things We Keep Page 9