Evenings With Bryson

by Tina Martin

  “Oh,” Madeline said, frowning.

  After Kalina helped her sit on the bed, she went back over to the closet, threaded her mother’s coat onto a hanger, then sat next to her on the bed. She took a photo album from her bag to share pictures with her mother, an activity one of the nurses had recommended. Since there wasn’t a cure for Alzheimer’s, one way for patients to interact with their loved ones and possibly learn to remember things, was to look at photos of family and friends. It was a long shot, but every little bit of brain stimulation mattered.

  Flipping to photos of her mother when she was younger, in her thirties, Kalina pointed to a picture and asked, “Do you know who this is?”

  “Uh…yee…ye…” Madeline said.

  “That’s you, mom,” Kalina said as upbeat as she could, watching the confusion wash over her mother’s face. She turned the page, but before she could ask her mother who the baby was in the pictures, Madeline had stood up from the bed, stabilized herself, and stumbled back to the closet, taking out a pair of mismatched shoes. She returned to the bed with them. “Mom, we’re not going anywhere. You don’t need your shoes.”

  “Stanley…co…get…hmmm,” she said.

  Kalina frowned and shook her head. “No, mom. Stanley is not coming for you. You have to stay here today, okay.”

  “Oh.”

  “How about we go watch TV? You want to watch TV for a little while?”

  “TV.”

  “Okay.” Leaving the shoes by the bed, Kalina took her mother’s hand and guided her into the living room. When Madeline was sitting comfortably on the couch, Kalina took the remote from the coffee table and powered on the TV. “I’m going to get you a cup of water.”

  Madeline didn’t respond. She just sat there, motionless.

  Kalina stepped over to the kitchen, took a cup from the cabinet then filled it with tap water. As she did so, she watched her mother take the remote from the table and rub it across her hair in a brushing motion. She walked over to her, set the cup of water on the coffee table and said, “Mom, this is not a brush. This is the remote control that turns the channels on the TV.”

  Madeline attempted to take the remote from Kalina.

  Kalina placed the remote back on the table and said, “We’ll let it stay there for now.”

  “Stanley…co… get,” Madeline said.

  “No, mom. Stanley is not coming. He hasn’t been here since you checked in thirteen years ago, and he ain’t coming now.” Kalina hated her father. He left her mother seventeen years ago when she was first diagnosed with Alzheimer’s. Before she was diagnosed and the thought was that she had a case of amnesia, he was there, trying to help her. But when the doctor explained how she was losing her memory and would eventually forget who he was and Kalina for that matter, he left. Kalina overheard him telling Edith that he couldn’t take it. Couldn’t handle it. Said he refused to watch a woman he loved deteriorate into nothing and that his life, what little he had left of it, didn’t have to be over because Madeline’s was. He said it wasn’t fair to her and it wasn’t fair to him. But how could he leave a woman he claimed to love? How much of an oxymoron is it to say you love someone, but when they fall ill, you leave them while still claiming to love them? On what universe was that acceptable?

  And that’s the man Kalina had as a role model to use as the standard for all men. A coward. A man who abandoned his family when life didn’t go as planned. And now, he was living in Fayetteville, North Carolina with his new wife, like his past was nothing but a lost memory – as lost as the memories that were once stored in Madeline’s mind.

  “Here, mom,” Kalina said, taking the cup from the table. “Take a sip of water.” When she brought the cup up to her mother’s mouth, she watched her lips tremble.

  After Madeline took a sip, she swatted the cup away, causing Kalina to lose grip of it. The cup fell to the table, water spilling everywhere. Kalina jumped up, ran to the kitchen to grab some paper towels to clean up the spill, and when she turned around to come back to the table, she saw her mother with the remote control, brushing it against her hair again.

  Kalina shook her head and threw her hands in the air. She was frustrated, as she usually was whenever she came to see her mother. But how could she get frustrated with her sick mother? It was comparable to being angry at a baby because it was crying. Still, it bothered her to know that every week, she’d have to watch her mother do mindless things. It was enough to drive her completely insane, and that’s why she didn’t visit more often. In the beginning, she visited three times a week. Now, she could only tolerate once a week. It was difficult to visit someone who didn’t recognize you. Someone you had to introduce yourself to every time you saw them. Most of all, it was mind-boggling that her mother didn’t recognize her when she was the one who birthed her into the world and raised her from a baby.

  After she cleaned up the spill and threw the paper towels in the garbage can, Kalina took her mother by the hand and said, “Come on, mom. Let’s take you back to the bed so you can rest.”

  She gripped her mother’s arm and helped her walk back into the bedroom. Madeline could walk on her own, but not very far distances. In fact, the nurses had already instructed Kalina that, soon, she would need a walker.

  Watching her mother get into the bed now, she adjusted the pillows to help her get as comfortable as possible, then planted a kiss on her cheek.

  “Love you, mom.”

  Madeline suspired softly. She closed her eyes, then opened them wide and said, “Stanley…co—”

  “Shh. Just rest mom.”

  Kalina watched her mother rest, making sure she was sound asleep before she left the room. Once she was standing in the living room, she quietly closed the door, then closed her eyes tight and took a deep breath, willing herself not to cry. Watching her mother die this slow, mentally agonizing death was rough on her – taking little pieces of her soul away as she thought about the torture her mother was going through.

  A few minutes later, Kalina quietly opened the bedroom door, peeping in to make sure her mother was still on the bed and resting. She was. She closed it back, then opening the front door to the apartment, she called her mother’s nurse, Joan, to the apartment.

  “Hey, Kalina. Everything okay,” Joan asked.

  “As okay as it can be, I guess. Can you come in for a minute?”

  “Sure. I have a few minutes,” Joan said, walking in, following Kalina to the couch.

  “So, how has she been, Joan?”

  Joan shook her head. “Not too good, Kalina. She’s not eating like she’s supposed to. She’s lost a lot of weight. Did you make any progress with her today?”

  “No,” Kalina said. “I try to remain hopeful, but deep down, I know the days of her making progress are not coming.”

  “And that leads me to her need for a walker. I don’t know if you noticed, but she’s very unstable now.”

  “Yes, I noticed. Do I just go to a pharmacy and pick up a walker? How does that work?”

  “Well, you could pick up one from a pharmacy, or we could order it here and bill you for it if it would be more convenient?”

  “Yes, please do. My schedule has been so hectic, I haven’t had time to look into it.”

  “Okay. No problem. We’ll take care of it.”

  Kalina sighed. “She hasn’t been wandering the halls again, has she?”

  “No, not this week. With her limited mobility, I don’t foresee it being an issue going forward. She’s been asking for Stanley almost every day, though.”

  “Yeah. I know,” Kalina said. “She told me he was coming to get her or something.”

  “Stanley is her husband, correct?”

  “Was her husband. My father left us when mom was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s.”

  Joan shook her head.

  “You know what I find amazing and sad all at the same time?” Kalina asked.

  “What’s that?”

  “I’ve been coming here every week since she wa
s admitted and she doesn’t know my name, doesn’t know who I am, but she knows the name of the man who left her high and dry when things got complicated.”

  Joan shook her head again.

  Kalina sighed. That was baffling to her. It’s not like her father came to visit the woman he said he’d love forever. He cut Madeline and Kalina out of his life and didn’t have a problem with moving forward and starting his own life. The more Kalina thought about it, the angrier she became. If her father was worth anything, he would’ve stayed, helped his wife through the process and maybe he would’ve been what she needed to hang on to her memories a little while longer.

  Kalina rubbed her eyes. There was no need to ask herself why bad things happened to good people, or why this adversity had to strike her family. All she could do was cope with it the best way she knew how – by keeping herself excessively occupied so her mind couldn’t think on other things. Depressing things. It was her only coping mechanism at this point.

  CHAPTER 4

  When Kalina left the facility, she drove to her aunt’s house. Edith had hired a few college students to run the café on the weekends so she could have a break from working Monday through Friday.

  Kalina tapped on the front door and said, “Edith, it’s me,” turning the knob and pushing the door open.

  “Come on in, Kalina,” she heard her aunt say from the kitchen.

  She could smell chicken and dumpling soup, one of her aunt’s specialties. The aroma took her back to her teenage years, especially around the time when Edith had decided to take her and her mother in. For two years she struggled to assist Madeline. She cooked for her, helped her bathe and do simple personal care tasks such as brush her teeth, help her dress and comb her hair. But when it got to be too much for her to handle, she made the painful decision to place Madeline in an assisted living facility. Even though it was the right decision to make, it still broke her heart.

  “Smells good in here,” Kalina said, peeping around the door, watching her aunt work. Edith had on a flowery dress with a plain, white apron tied around it.

  “Have a seat so you can get yourself some of this soup, sweetie.”

  “I sure will. I need some comfort food right about now.” Kalina pulled out a chair, sat down and rubbed her eyes.

  “So I take it your visit didn’t go too well today.”

  Kalina blew a breath. “That’s an understatement.”

  “Was she asking for Stanley again?”

  “Sure was…all the while I’m thinking if she knew how much of a jerk her precious Stanley really is...”

  “Now, now, Kalina. He’s still your father.”

  “Father or not…I don’t claim him and I never will. I mean, how do you just pack up and walk out on your family? Are men really that selfish?”

  “People grieve in different ways, dear,” Edith said, placing a bowl of soup in front of Kalina before returning to the stove.

  With raised eyebrows, Kalina said, “Grieve? He deserted me and my mother, then had the audacity to marry another woman. How is that grieving? That’s not grieving. That’s called being selfish.”

  Edith joined her at the table with a bowl of her own soup. “Well, rest assured…not all men are like that.”

  “How can you be so sure?”

  “Because some people take their vows seriously.”

  Kalina took a spoonful of soup to her mouth, savoring it. “This is delicious as always, Edith. Thank you.”

  “You’re welcome.”

  Kalina shoveled a few more spoonfuls in her mouth and then asked, “You know, I’ve been wondering something about you.”

  “What have you been wondering about me?” Edith asked, giving Kalina an inquisitive stare.

  “Why didn’t you ever marry and have kids, Edith?”

  Edith chuckled. “That’s an easy answer. It wasn’t in my plan.”

  “Your plan?”

  “Yes. I never had the desire to have children or a family. Most people thought I was strange for not wanting that kind of life, but I didn’t want to go down that path.”

  “So what did you want?”

  “I wanted my own business. I wanted to be successful. Now don’t get me wrong…when you came along, not only was it one of the happiest days of Madeline’s life. It was one of the happiest of mine, too.”

  Kalina smiled.

  “When you were a baby, you had the biggest cheeks ever known to man, and that dimple of yours made people gush over you.”

  “I still have that dimple. See.” Kalina worked up an intentional smile so Edith could see it.

  “You sure do…and you grew up to be such a beautiful woman. Madeline would be so proud of you if she had the capacity to comprehend all you have accomplished.”

  Kalina’s smile turned to sadness as long streaks of tears ran down her cheeks. It had already been a rough day of seeing her mother so disoriented and out of it. All the tears she held in from earlier in the day were finally escaping her sad eyes.

  “Oh, Kalina, sweetie,” Edith said, reaching to place a hand on Kalina’s forearm.

  “It’s just not fair,” Kalina cried. “And I know it sounds so…juvenile to say something like that, but I struggle with this, Edith. I don’t understand why this had to happen to my mother. She doesn’t even know me.” Kalina dabbed her nose. “She doesn’t know who I am and she will die not knowing who I am.”

  “Trust me, Kalina. I know how you feel, honey. Over the years, I thought it would get easier, but it hasn’t. It has only gotten more difficult.”

  Kalina sniffled and wiped tears from her face with a napkin. “It’s like watching her die a little every day. Now, she needs a walker. Pretty soon, she probably won’t be able to walk at all, even with a walker…”

  Edith nodded.

  “I can’t wrap my head around this disease. I see what it has done to her, and it’s still hard for me to understand. And, for the life of me, I can’t figure out how mom still knows Stanley’s name, but not mine.”

  “Well, once upon a time, your father was special to her. And boy did she love that man.”

  Kalina dabbed her eyes. “Yeah…too bad he didn’t love her.”

  Edith shook her head. “Is that why you’ve chosen to stay single all of these years, Kalina? You’re afraid someone is going to do that to you?”

  “I wouldn’t say I’m afraid…I just don’t trust men and I promised I would never put myself in that predicament.”

  “But you can’t predict the future, honey, nor can you judge a whole gender of people by the actions of one person.”

  “But I can. How a girl is treated by her father is how she will view men in general. I can’t remember most of my childhood. I do recall some happy occasions with my father, but what I remember, as a teen, was him saying he couldn’t do it anymore….couldn’t live with her, which meant he also couldn’t live with me. I don’t even think he hugged me before he walked out the door. He just left. That’s what I remember about him…watching him walk away.”

  “But, Kalina—”

  “And,” Kalina interrupted, holding up her index finger. “Studies have shown that women tend to fall for men who have personalities and behaviors similar to that of their father. My father proved himself to be distrustful, unfaithful, disloyal and incapable of displaying real love. I don’t want to fall for a man like that. So, for my own sake, I need to avoid men altogether since I don’t know how to choose a man for myself. My father ruined that for me.”

  Edith shook her head. “You and that behavioral degree…”

  Kalina chuckled. Her tears had since dried up. “I’m serious though, Edith. Why would I fall in love with a man, only for him to walk out of my life? I’m perfectly fine being single. I like my life like this, and honestly, I don’t have room for a relationship. I don’t even have the mindset to think about a relationship. I have enough on my plate with my mother, her living expenses, medical supplies, medication…I have to focus on my job so I can to make the money requi
red to handle all of this. I have close to two-hundred emails to answer as we speak.” Kalina took a sip of water.

  “You should really try to get someone to help you with the emails, Kalina. You can’t be stressed out like this all the time.”

  “I know. I’m keeping my fingers crossed for this intern.”

  Edith took a sip of tea then said, “Hey, did Bryson ever get back to you?”

  “Bryson?” Kalina rolled her eyes. “Did you really just bring him up over dinner?”

  “Well, I overheard your conversation with him and was curious.”

  Kalina dropped her spoon in the bowl. “Edith, how…on…earth do you know that man?”

  “He answered that for you…he’s a regular.”

  “Well, he didn’t have to invite himself into our conversation. That was beyond rude.”

  “He was probably bored. He usually comes in and reads the paper or play around on his iPad. I’ve never seen him come in with anyone else. He’s always alone.”

  Kalina took her phone from her purse and checked her emails. She told Bryson to respond to her reader’s question by tonight, but she hadn’t given him a specific time. It was already after seven and she didn’t see an email from him. “And no, he hasn’t responded, not like I expected him to. He looked like he was nothing but talk, anyway. No action.”

  “Well, the night isn’t over yet, Kalina. He may surprise you.”

  “I won’t hold my breath.”

  “So you don’t think he’ll respond?” Edith asked.

  “I don’t. I think he butted into our conversation just to meet me for some reason. You know, you should probably start locking the doors to the café at night.”

  Edith laughed. “Honey, Bryson is harmless.”

  “To you, he is. You know him. I don’t. All I know about him is that he’s rude, nosy and he thinks he knows more about relationships than I do.”

  “Hmm…”

  “Uh oh…what was that for, Edith?”