The weather forecast wasn’t in our favor a couple of days later, and since Benji’s girls wanted to do some back-to-school shopping (they were only ten and eight at the time, but they’ve always appreciated a cute outfit), we decided that an afternoon at the nearby outlet mall might be good for everybody. Since there were too many of us for one car, Alex hopped in Paige’s SUV with all his cousins, and I jumped in the car with Chox and Joe. We had barely turned out of the condo entrance and onto the main road when we realized Joe had interpreted the fact that he was riding in a car as a sure sign that his wish was finally coming true.
“Choxie? We going to Prayer Meeting, Mama?”
“No, Joe,” she replied. “I told you earlier. We’re going to the outlet mall. The one at Foley.”
“Foley?” Joe answered. “Not Myrtlewood? We’re not going to Prayer Meeting?”
“No. We are not going to Prayer Meeting.” Chox laughed. “We’re going to the outlet mall.”
Joe tried to put the pieces together for a second or two before he decided to be agreeable.
“Oh. Okay, then. If you say so.”
Chox’s eyes met mine in the rearview mirror. She just shook her head.
Joe was quiet from Orange Beach to the toll bridge, but as soon as the toll-bridge arm went up, it was like a lightbulb went on in his head. Maybe he remembered that they’d stopped to pay a toll on the way to the condo, or maybe the sight of the toll arm moving triggered a memory from years before. Regardless, Joe determined that Chox wasn’t telling him everything, and he intended to get to the bottom of the situation.
“Choxie, are we going to Myrtlewood?”
“No, Joe. I told you. We’re going to the outlet mall.”
“Well, is that in Myrtlewood? Because I want to go to Prayer Meeting.”
“Joe. We’re not going to Myrtlewood. We’re not going to Prayer Meeting. We’re going to the outlet mall to look for some clothes for the girls.”
“Will we be finished with that in time for Prayer Meeting?”
Chox’s fingers tightened around the steering wheel as she dug deep for an extra measure of patience.
“Joe. We’re at the beach. In Alabama. Myrtlewood is in Mississippi. We’re not going to Mississippi. We’re not going to Prayer Meeting. We are going to the outlet mall—the outlet mall that is here, at the beach, in Alabama. Got it?”
Joe shrugged and looked out the passenger window. His aggravation enveloped the car like a fog.
We’d been riding in silence for a mile or two when Chox noticed that her low-fuel light was on. Joe was presumably still steaming about Prayer Meeting and had been ignoring us, so it didn’t even occur to Chox to mention the low-fuel light to him. She just offhandedly asked, “Hey, Soph—do you know if there are any gas stations around here?”
We assumed that Joe had tuned us out, but he snapped to attention like he was still in the Marines and was about to receive orders from a commanding officer. Really, Chox and I shouldn’t have been surprised.
You see, even as he battled Alzheimer’s, Joe maintained unwavering affection for a number of things in his life. God and country, certainly. Chox, Paige, Benji, and their families, absolutely. Next on his list was the business he and Chox had built together, followed closely by the Boy Scouts and the Ole Miss Rebels. And I believe his devotion to Prayer Meeting has been well documented.
But that list would be completely incomplete without mentioning the care with which Joe maintained his vehicles. Before Alzheimer’s had set in, he washed his and Chox’s cars almost every weekend, and he always made sure everything was in order: plenty of air in the tires, plenty of oil, plenty of gas. He was the same way about his boats, and there were many weekends when he’d run up to their lake house just outside of town to inspect the boat covers, crank the motors, and double-check that everything was docked securely. After his doctors told him he shouldn’t drive anymore, he couldn’t handle the maintenance duties quite like he used to, but oh, he could keep an eye on a gas gauge. And for the most part, he did.
So when Chox mentioned the need for a gas station, Joe was on the case—Barney Fife in the flesh. He leaned waaaay over toward her side of the car, just as far as his seatbelt would allow, and said, “Hmph! You need some gas! You’ve got to get some gas! Why don’t you have enough gas? Is Mr. Grant’s place around here?”
Mr. Grant ran a full-service gas station in Myrtlewood from the ’60s through the ’90s. But we knew exactly what Joe meant.
Chox and I thought there were a couple of convenience stores a little closer to Foley, so we kept driving down the same highway, all the while listening as Joe wondered aloud why in the world Chox’s car was almost out of gas. Every thirty seconds or so he’d lean over again to check the fuel gauge, and then he’d shake his head and grumble about whether we were going to make it to Mr. Grant’s since Chox’s tank was almost empty and the light was on and everything.
I believe with everything in me that, at that point, the Alzheimer’s had almost nothing to do with Joe’s reaction. Sick or no, Joe never would’ve let a fuel tank get below half full; that kind of reckless behavior was irresponsible, as far as he was concerned. So while he was fuzzy about Mr. Grant’s role in the refueling process, he was totally true to character in his reaction. We might as well have been in Chox’s wood-paneled Oldsmobile Custom Cruiser station wagon, traveling to Atlanta to see Sister’s new apartment back in 1979. And if we had been in Chox’s wood-paneled Oldsmobile Custom Cruiser station wagon back then, I probably would have been hanging out with Paige on the rear-facing vinyl seat, sporting some sweet Luv-It jeans with satin appliques and showing off the brand-new kelly green comb I liked to tuck in my back pocket. Chox would have been riding shotgun, turning around occasionally to snap her fingers at us, while Joe barreled down the interstate with one eye on the road and one eye on that fuel gauge. Just as the good Lord intended.
When Chox was driving that day in Foley, though, she grew increasingly weary of the constant fuel-gauge scrutiny from ole Eagle Eye over in the passenger seat. Finally—mercifully—we spotted a Texaco a little ways down the road, and when Chox pulled up to the pump and turned off the engine, she exhaled with all the force of a hurricane, it seemed. I jumped out of the car to fill ’er up while Chox dug through her purse for a credit card, and when at last she found her American Express and turned to hand it to me, Joe opened his door and bolted out of the car like a shot.
“Joe! Hold on, Joe! Where are you going?” Chox yelled.
“It’s all right, Mama,” he replied, waving her off. “I’m just gonna run inside and sign the ticket for Mr. Grant.”
Chox started to stop him but thought better of it. No harm could come from Joe going inside a convenience store to sign a nonexistent ticket, so she let it go. A few seconds later Joe emerged from the store grinning like a kid with a pocketful of lollipops. He gave Chox a big thumbs-up.
After I finished filling up the car and settled back in my seat, Chox exhaled one more time and cranked the car so we could head over to the outlet mall. She was just about to put the car in drive when Joe leaned over to check the gas gauge one more time.
“Well, it looks like you have plenty of gas!”
Then: “So. Are we going to Prayer Meeting, Mama?”
And that, my friends, was the proverbial straw that broke the Choxie’s back. She leaned forward and rested her head on the steering wheel, and when she sat up again, I could see the frustration and sadness from the previous three or four days all over her face.
“Joe,” she said in a calm, measured tone. “Look at me.”
Their eyes met across the leather console that ran between their seats.
“We’ve covered this over and over again. We are not going to Prayer Meeting. We are NOT going to Prayer Meeting. Because, Joe? Where are we?”
Joe thought long and hard about her question. And after about fifteen seconds, he gave her his best, most honest answer.
“Heck if I know!” he exclaimed,
and then he puckered up like a guppy, leaned over, and kissed her on the cheek.
There are certain times in life when you’re not sure whether you should surrender to laughter or tears, and that was one of them. Within seconds, though, the bittersweet hilarity of the situation struck a collective nerve. All three of us guffawed until we hurt, and while tears were definitely simmering beneath the surface, that afternoon was a perfect reminder of the best parts of Chox and Joe’s marriage. They had faced all sorts of difficulties together—including Alzheimer’s—but I can’t recall a single instance when they didn’t trust each other completely, adore each other openly, and entertain each other to no end. And even though Joe’s memory was failing him more and more by the day, it was obvious that his love for Chox wasn’t anything he had to remember. It was a part of him that lived way down deep in his soul.
Anyone who has been married knows that the whole “for better or for worse, for richer or for poorer, in sickness and in health” thing is all fine and good and easy when you’re twenty-four and wearing a pretty dress and fit as a fiddle and your hair is just like you like it and your direct deposit kicks in twice a month. But the character of a marriage is forged in the difficult times, when you’re grappling with heartbreak or illness or disappointment or maybe even betrayal. So while, yes, the happy parts of Chox and Joe’s marriage gave our family all sorts of wonderful memories, the way they loved each other in the hard parts? In the middle of an agonizing diagnosis?
You just can’t underestimate the power of that example.
Later that night, after we’d recovered from our outlet mall adventure and nearly made ourselves sick on a supper of spicy boiled shrimp, green salad, and a feast o’carbs that we lovingly refer to as “beach taters,” Chox and I were sitting at the table, running through the genealogy of Myrtlewood and cackling like crazy as we connected long-forgotten dots between families. About that time Joe opened the door to the balcony, looked outside, and said, “Come here. That, that . . .”—and he pointed to the sky in frustration as he searched for the word he needed, for the word that would not come.
So Chox and I walked outside, and we looked up at the sky, and Joe said, “Looka there. It’s shining right down on that water.”
Sure enough, there was the moon. In fact, it was the most stunning full moon I’d ever seen, hitting the Gulf like a spotlight. So we stood there, and we stared, and we sighed. It was beautiful. Joe couldn’t take his eyes off of it. And finally, after several minutes, Chox broke the silence.
“It’s the moon, Joe,” she whispered, as she patted him gently on the shoulder.
Joe’s eyes crinkled into a smile when he turned to look at his bride.
“Well, I’ll be doggone,” he said, with awe in his voice. “I’ll be doggone.”
CHAPTER TWELVE
Because Nothing Says “Welcome” like Rifling through a Handbag
ONE SUNDAY AFTERNOON Mama, Daddy, and Martha came to Birmingham so they could go to Grandparents’ Day at Alex’s school the next morning. Within five minutes of their arrival, I was driving Martha to Stein Mart, a totally unsurprising development considering that the only thing my mother-in-law loves more than going to Stein Mart is talking about what she’d like to find when she gets there. On that particular day the like-to-find was a pair of clip-on earrings with a purple stone in the center. Only not a real purply purple! More of a smoky purple! And it needed to be a round stone. A round stone!
So Martha and I went to Stein Mart. She found two jackets on the sale rack, and would you believe that one of the jackets was in a shade of green she does not own?
It’s true!
The only possible reason for this phenomenon is that someone in a lab somewhere must have invented a new shade of green. There’s just no other explanation.
Martha wanted to try on the jackets for me before she bought them, which basically means I held her purse and nodded while she pointed out the various features of the closures and the collars and the sleeves and the fit. After she’d covered the mechanics of the jackets, she moved on to creating a hypothetical list of all the places she’d be able to wear each one: “I think this one would be wonderful if I went out for a nice dinner or if we had a little Sunday school party or if I went somewhere fun with the girls! And I think this one—well, I could just throw this one on with my black pants or my taupe pants and it would be good anytime, really, because it’s lined and casual but more of a coat! More of a light coat!”
And then my eyes rolled in opposite directions and I completely lost consciousness right there in the middle of the handbags.
After we left Stein Mart, we ran by a fast-food place so I could pick something up for supper because, well, I don’t think there’s anything quite like a family pack of spicy fried chicken to make guests feel right at home. While we were waiting at the window for our food, I asked Martha if she’d ever tried a milk shake from that restaurant. I explained that the milk shakes were absolutely delicious—the closest thing to homemade you can get at a fast-food place—and she said that she hadn’t tried one but would absolutely love to because, after all, she was trying to gain some weight and I just had no idea, NO IDEA, how hard she’d been working to gain eight pounds! She really needed to gain eight pounds!
And she was right, of course. I don’t have the foggiest idea what it’s like to have to work at gaining weight. Because while I’m not good at much, gaining weight is something that I seem to be able to do fairly effortlessly. Perhaps I’m just gifted in that area. In fact, maybe I should volunteer to be Martha’s weight-gaining mentor. I feel that I could be of some service.
Blessed to be a blessing!
After supper (and by the way, Martha agreed that the milk shake was delicious! just absolutely delicious! perfectly delicious!) we only visited for an hour or so before everybody agreed that they were ready for bed. It couldn’t have been later than nine thirty when we all decided to turn in for the night, and let me tell you: I was borderline giddy at the thought of climbing into my bed and just anticipating sleep. The prospect of nine glorious hours of slumber filled my heart with joy. I was ready to SHUT ’ER DOWN and rest, oh, hallelujah.
Well.
About 2:40 on Monday morning, our dog woke me from a sleep so deep I wasn’t entirely sure where I was when I opened my eyes. The dog needed to go outside, and it was no small feat that I managed to stumble out of our room without sustaining some sort of injury. I opened the front door, and as I watched the dog walk across the driveway, I noticed there was a light on inside Martha’s car.
It was an unexpected middle-of-the-night complication, to say the least.
I walked over to the car in hopes that the doors were unlocked, but they weren’t. That would have been way too easy. In my groggy state I tried to calculate how long the light must have been on—there were visions of dead car batteries dancing in my head—and I realized that it had to be at least six hours. I figured I’d better find Martha’s keys sooner rather than later, but in all honesty, the part of me that was fully aware that it was 2:45 in the morning—and that I was about to execute a search for a set of keys—was not at all pleased.
I looked in the foyer, the kitchen, and the den, but there were no keys to be found. Then I remembered seeing Martha put her keys in her purse when we got home from Stein Mart, so I figured the purse was probably a critical component in the key quest. The problem, however, was that the purse was in the room where Martha was sleeping.
You can appreciate my dilemma.
With my phone in hand, I carefully opened the bedroom door, and then, using my phone as a flashlight, I tippy-toed over to Martha’s purse. I grabbed it, backed out of the room, and hurried to the kitchen so I could pilfer through the contents of my mother-in-law’s sensible black bag. I would try to explain just how awkward this whole scenario was except that awkward really isn’t strong enough a word. There’s no kind of premarital counseling that can prepare you for the day you’ll be digging through a purse owned by you
r husband’s mother and sifting through her stash of tissues and a small collection of mints.
I looked through every part of that purse at least three times, and after about five minutes I realized I was going to have to wake up Martha to ask where I could find her keys. At that point it was around three, so I knew that it was essential to keep the whole need-your-keys conversation as brief as possible so she’d still be able to go back to sleep once I left the room. It was a small key-finding window, if you will.
So. I took a deep breath, walked back to her bedroom, eased over to where she was sleeping, and said, “Martha?” very softly, hoping I wouldn’t scare her out of her wits by standing over her bed at, you know, THREE IN THE MORNING.
At first she didn’t answer, so I said, “Martha?” one more time, and oh my goodness, she sat up in that bed like a jack-in-the-box and said, “Is it time? Is it time to wake up? Time to get ready? I’m up! I’m up! I’m about to get ready!”
Using my very best Calm Voice, I tried to explain the situation: “No, it’s not time to get up. I just need your keys. There’s a light on in your car, and I want to turn it off. But you don’t need to get out of bed—just tell me where your keys are.”
“My purse! My purse! They’re in my purse! Will you hand me my purse? I think they’re in my purse!”
So I handed her the purse, and she dug around and moved stuff and pulled out tissues and dug some more. In my best, most even-tempered whisper, I reminded her that she could just tell me where the keys were, that she didn’t need to wake up all the way or get out of the bed, but she just kept on digging in that purse.
A Little Salty to Cut the Sweet Page 10