I Don't Forgive You

by Aggie Blum Thompson

  My mother received a diagnosis of early-onset dementia about eight years ago. For a while, I just attributed her cognitive problems to her drinking, and I overlooked her increasingly strange behavior. When you grow up with a mother who shows up at school in smeared lipstick and a leopard-print cocktail dress, it’s easy to dismiss her twenty years later when the neighbor calls to inform you she’s watering the roses in a negligee.

  But then Sharon fell.

  She was outside Westfair Fish & Chips, a three-table joint in a strip mall just outside Westport. Her version was that she went to say hello to a large dog, who jumped on her and knocked her down. But according to the dog owner, Sharon was teetering on high heels, clearly drunk, and collapsed of her own accord.

  Sharon ended up in the ER with a concussion, a broken elbow, and a shattered shoulder. And most important—after a battery of tests—a diagnosis of early-onset dementia, alcohol-related.

  A social worker and a neurologist got involved. We put together a “team.” But her health degenerated from there.

  She refused to allow aides to enter the house, locking them out and calling the police when they tried to get in. But she couldn’t feed or bathe herself. She became paranoid, withdrawn. That’s when I moved her into assisted living, but it only accelerated her deterioration.

  “That witch was here, Alexis,” Sharon insists. “She was in my room last night. Please come get me.”

  From the corner of my eye, I see Cole, in his little chef’s hat, swatting Mark’s bottom with a spatula.

  “No one was in your room. You’re perfectly safe, I promise.” I plug my earbuds into the phone and turn the volume way down so I can use my hands to help get breakfast on the table while talking.

  “Oh, really?” And just like that, my mother has traded the little-girl wheedling for cold sarcasm. “Since when are you such an expert?”

  “Sharon, be nice.” My mother has never let me call her Mom; it’s been Sharon since I can remember. “It was probably just one of the aides checking on you.”

  “Don’t you think I know the difference between an aide and an assassin?” I can imagine the spittle flying from her cherry-red lips. Revlon’s Fire & Ice, of course, the same lipstick she’s worn my whole life. “You’ve always been naive. Book-smart yes, street-smart no. Now your sister. She’s another story.”

  The internet is filled with articles on how to gracefully handle parents whose dementia has transformed their lovable, sunny personalities into cauldrons of paranoia and vitriol. But what about when your mother has always been this way? What if you don’t have reserves of good memories to call upon?

  “If you’re rude to me, I will hang up. You know the rules.” I read that tip in an article called “When Anger Follows Dementia: Establishing Boundaries.”

  “The rules. That’s a good one.” Sharon lets out a sharp laugh that would make Cruella De Vil wince. “I don’t remember agreeing to these rules, Madame.”

  Growing up, my mother and sister used to joke that I was like a fussy old lady. They called me Madame as in Madame doesn’t think we should park in the handicap spot or Madame doesn’t think we should throw cigarette butts out the car window.

  Oh, are we offending Madame?

  But I also knew that it made my mother proud that I was pulled out in middle school for the gifted-and-talented program. I once overheard her bragging about me to the old lady who lived in the apartment below us. Even if Sharon thought it was hysterical that I didn’t want her using my library books as coasters for her evening whiskey sour, she was the one who pushed me to apply for the scholarship at Overton.

  My mother launches into one of her tirades about how she doesn’t deserve to be locked away like a criminal, and I turn my attention to Cole, who is crouched like a baseball player, hoisting his spatula over his shoulder. “I am ze bum smacker!” he howls and gives Mark’s behind a good whack. “Smack! Smack! Smack!”

  Mark recoils in mock pain and limps over to me, a cup of coffee in one hand and a plate in the other. “Les pancakes?” he asks in an exaggerated French accent. “And your cappuccino?”

  Cole climbs onto the stool beside me.

  “Get off the phone, Mommy.” Cole grabs at the phone. I twist away.

  “Sharon, I have to go. We’re having breakfast.”

  “Are you coming to see me? I’d love to see you, Alexis. I haven’t seen you in months.” Her tone has shifted again. Now she is needy, cloying. I can picture her in front of her vanity, batting her eyes at her reflection.

  “I saw you last weekend. I come every Sunday. I’ll be there later today.”

  “But what time? What time exactly?” She lowers her voice to a whisper. “They try to hide me when you come, make up some malarkey about having to see the nurse so I’ll miss your visit.”

  Only after making assurances that no one is going to keep us apart am I able to hang up.

  She wasn’t always this bad off. But the move from her assisted living facility in Connecticut to one in Maryland has triggered a precipitous decline in her mental state. I’d wanted her closer to us so that I could visit her more frequently and also to maintain her warm relationship with Cole.

  I never knew any of my grandparents. My mom’s parents died when she was a teenager, and after my father died, we moved away from the small Massachusetts town where my father’s family, the entire extended Healy clan, had resided since James Healy took a boat over from Connaught in 1845. I have a few photos of me as an infant, sitting on my father’s mother’s lap, but no memory of her. Sharon maintained that she was never welcomed by the Healys and had always felt trapped living in a small town. I don’t blame her for leaving—she was barely twenty-five when widowed, with a toddler and a baby, and staying in that small town must have felt suffocating.

  But it’s hard not to fault her for cutting ties with my father’s family. Norwalk is less than a two-hour drive from that Massachusetts town. I remember Krystle and I received a few cards and gifts at Christmas over the years and then the news that my father’s parents had passed. Essentially, Krystle and I grew up with no extended family.

  So I suppose moving Sharon down here was competing in my own way with Mark’s large family, which has tentacles in every suburb of Washington, D.C. Krystle opposed the move from the beginning and blames me for our mother’s subsequent decline.

  The worst part is that my mother’s relationship with Cole has soured. The first time we visited Sharon in her new place, she barely acknowledged him. And two weeks ago, she flew into a rage while we were there and threw a bottle of L’Air du Temps at one of the aides, striking her in the shoulder. That episode terrified Cole and gave him nightmares. Mark, his sister, Caitlin, and their mother insisted that I stop bringing Cole to see Sharon until she settled down.

  I peer into my coffee cup and smile. Mark has managed to create a delicate fern in the foam. He knows I love when he does that. “You’re getting good at this foam art thing.”

  He bats his eyelashes. “Why, thank you. If this lawyer thing doesn’t pan out, I might look for work at Compass Coffee.”

  “Mine are Mickey Mouse pancakes.” Cole holds one up to show me. “I eat the ears first.”

  “Is that right?” I pour the syrup and swirl it on my own pancakes. Mark cleans the griddle, half-watching a soccer game on TV that he’s recorded. Last night’s drama seems far away. We are a portrait of domestic contentment.

  Suddenly, my phone starts vibrating.

  Ping. Ping. Ping. A cascade of text messages, one after another.

  I look at the phone and realize quickly that I am the third in a three-way text conversation involving Daisy and Leah.

  What’s with the yellow police tape on Arleigh? Leah has typed. Saw it walking dog this a.m.

  Didn’t you see the ENFB? Daisy responds. It takes my groggy brain a moment to translate that as the Eastbrook Neighborhood Facebook page. I haven’t looked at it since I woke up, hours ago now. There was a break-in!

  Cops a
re EVERYWHERE!

  Whose house?

  5005 Arleigh Rd. Who lives there?

  Averys. Daughter in fourth grade, I think. Parents divorced?

  From across the room, Mark’s phone emits a buzz, too. He frowns. “What the heck is going on?” he asks.

  I glance at Cole, not wanting to freak him out with news there’s been a break-in. “I think there’s something police-related over on Arleigh Road. Apparently, the whole neighborhood is abuzz.”

  “What’s police-related?” Cole asks.

  “Buddy, go get dressed for church,” Mark says, and after the obligatory whining, Cole heads upstairs.

  Mark comes around the counter and kisses the top of my head. “How you doing this morning? Any better?”

  “I guess I’m okay. Just groggy.” I stand up and take my plate to the sink. My phone and Mark’s both ping at the same time.

  “What now?” he asks and grabs his phone.

  I look up to see his expression turn sour.

  “What is it?” I ask, but he does not look up from his phone. “Mark, you’re scaring me.”

  “Apparently, it wasn’t a break-in. The police thing over on Arleigh—somebody died.”

  The word hovers in my mind for a millisecond before clicking into place.

  Someone in our neighborhood has died. I wonder if it was the older woman with the long, gray braids around the corner who feeds the raccoons. She always looked so frail.

  “Oh my god,” I say. “That’s awful. Did we know the person?”

  “Actually, yeah.” Mark turns the phone toward me so I can see the screen. “You did know him.”

  I squint at the image. It’s small, but I can easily make out the familiar face.

  I’m looking right at Rob the Wine Guy.

  8

  “Robert Avery,” Mark says, pulling the phone back and staring at it intently.

  His tone is even and cool. I can’t read his emotions at all. Inside, my thoughts swirl as I try to piece together everything I know.

  “That is so crazy,” I whisper. I am frozen in place, not sure what I am supposed to think or feel. I barely know the guy, and what I do know of him is not positive. But he’s dead. And that means shifting my frame of mind. Whatever happened last night is irrelevant now.

  “At least now we know the guy’s name,” Mark says.

  “Do you know what happened?” I ask. “Was it natural causes? An accident?”

  He squints at the phone. “Nope. That’s all the message says. But I’m sure as soon as Daisy and Leah find out, we’ll all know.”

  The doorbell rings, a tinny ding-dong-ding that echoes through the house. A small shriek escapes me.

  “You okay?” Mark asks.

  “I’m freaked out, honestly. I mean, aren’t you?”

  The doorbell shrills again. “We should get that. It’s probably Caitlin.”

  I step over Cole’s pink hoodie with the faux fur collar and five mismatched shoes. My son’s penchant for pink has exploded in the past few months, bourgeoning from an occasional splash of rose to an all-out obsession. At first, it was just a preference, but lately, he gets hysterical if he doesn’t have at least one pink thing on. We’ve decided on a more hands-off approach, chalking his demands up to possible anxiety caused by the move. That means bits and bobs of bubble gum pink all throughout the house, as if a Disney princess exploded into tiny pieces in our home.

  I open the front door to Caitlin and immediately position my body to block her view of our dining room.

  “Oh! You’re still in your pajamas. Are you sick, Allie?”

  “Nope.” I cross my arms over myself, realizing I am still wearing Mark’s old T-shirt. “Just lazy.”

  “Well, happy Sunday!” Caitlin says.

  “You, too!” I force myself to put Rob Avery’s death out of my mind and plaster on a big smile.

  Cole runs past me, clutching a poker, and thrusts it at Caitlin. “Aaargh, matey,” he says.

  Caitlin throws her hands up in mock terror. Cole takes the poker and leaps onto the lawn, stabbing at the air.

  “So I see you’ve been putting my housewarming present to good use.” When we first moved in, Caitlin presented us with a monogrammed set of hand-forged brass-and-iron fire tools. “I mean, they’re sort of an heirloom, not really a toy. But hey, whatever works for you.”

  Caitlin adjusts her wide, navy-blue headband, which matches her navy-blue dress. Over it she’s wearing an unbelted trench coat, looking every bit the female lead of an Alfred Hitchcock movie.

  “As soon as it gets chilly enough for a fire, I am sure we’ll put them to good use,” I say.

  She bends down and picks up the poker, where Cole has abandoned it for a try at climbing the dogwood tree. Caitlin traces a manicured finger over the R on the handle of the poker. Caitlin would brand the whole world with an R if she could. Lucky for her, she married Charles Robideaux and did not have to change any of her monogrammed belongings. I wonder if his initials played a role in her accepting his proposal.

  “I’ll take it inside.” I take the poker from her. “Do you want to come in and wait? Cup of coffee?”

  Caitlin turns to look at Cole, who is a blur of pink and khaki as he jumps up and down trying to grab hold of the dogwood’s lowest-hanging branch.

  “He really does love pink, doesn’t he?” Above, the sky is a milky-white, threatening rain.

  “Nothing wrong with that,” I say, keeping my voice light. Cole’s preference for traditionally “girl” things seems to rankle Mark’s side of the family. A few weeks ago, Mark told them in no uncertain terms to butt out, but clearly Caitlin has trouble doing that. “In France, pink is a boy’s color,” I add.

  “Oh, Allie. You’re silly. We’re not in France, we’re in America.” I’m not sure whether Caitlin is being precise or purposefully obtuse. I give her the benefit of the doubt and decide it’s precision, a quality that runs in her family. Like her brother, Caitlin is a lawyer. Whereas Mark works in arbitration, Caitlin is at one of the D.C. area’s top divorce firms. “Anyway, I thought it might be nice if he wore navy. Like Mark and me.”

  I don’t ask how she knows what color her brother will be wearing to church, because I’m not sure I want to know. St. Edmund’s, a gloomy Gothic building less than a mile away that straddles the line between D.C. and Maryland, is one of the few remaining Episcopal churches in the region that won’t consecrate gay marriage or allow women priests.

  The fact that his family made a point of staying in this particular congregation after many left for more liberal Episcopal churches was something I laughed off in Chicago. But what was fodder for amusement from afar has become a source of tension up close.

  Mark’s family expects us to attend this church, and I flatly refuse. I don’t go, and I do nothing church-related. Cole goes for now. When he decides he’s had enough, as I’m sure he will, we’re going to respect that. I know I am kicking the can down the road, but I can’t take on his entire family. Besides, I need these mornings to visit my mother.

  I tell her I’ll go find Mark. I locate him in the family room, remote control in hand, setting a recording for the Nats game.

  “Your sister’s waiting. She made a comment about Cole’s shirt. Apparently, you were all supposed to wear navy.”

  Mark grunts. He didn’t hear me, not really. I grab a tote bag I’ve filled with goodies that Sharon likes. Or at least used to like. Fire & Ice nail polish. Copies of the latest gossip magazines. A huge box of Dots candy.

  Mark clicks the power off and tosses the remote into a wicker basket next to the sofa. He turns to me.

  “You look very handsome,” I say. And he does, in his chinos and blue-and-white checkered shirt. His temples have gone gray, but I think it only makes him more attractive. He could easily play the president in some B-movie, with his square jaw and easy smile. But it wasn’t really his looks that drew me to him. It was his unflappable confidence. The café I worked at in San Francisco was a magnet for the
homeless, crazies, and anarchists, and I used to watch how Mark navigated the sometimes-tricky terrain like a diplomat, treating everyone with respect and dignity. He used to come in every Saturday morning, lugging his laptop and files on whatever case he was working on, and park himself at a table near the window. He’d spend all day nursing one scone but drinking coffee after coffee, tapping away. Turned out he had wandered in one day randomly and had been returning every Saturday since to work up the nerve to ask me out, even though it meant taking a twenty-minute Muni ride from his apartment.

  “And you look lovely in my old shirt.” He kisses the top of my head.

  “Yeah, I need to change.” We’re halfway through the dining room when he stops and pivots. “Allie, is there anything you want to tell me?”

  “Uh, no. Like what?”

  “I don’t know. About this whole Rob Avery thing. About last night.”

  “No. Why?”

  “I just, well, I noticed that he follows—or followed, I should say—you on Instagram.”

  “Wait, you noticed that?” I am taken aback. Mark is not on Instagram, or any social media. “What do you mean?”

  “You left your Instagram page up on the computer.”

  “No, I didn’t.”

  “Yes, you did.” He sounds so confident that I start to question myself.

  “Fine, maybe I did. But that guy Rob, he just started following me. Like last night. I told him my Instagram info at the party.”

  “Then how did he like pictures of you from August?”

  I inhale through my nose and smile. Mark knows nothing about social media. “You can do that, silly. You can go back and like people’s posts from months ago.”

  A dark cloud crosses his face. “I’m not being silly, Allie. I have to be honest, I think it’s a little odd.”

  “Mark, are you serious? It means nothing.” A swell of panic surges in my chest.

  “Nothing? The guy you say attacked you last night, who is now dead, has been following you on Instagram. That’s not nothing, Allie. That’s weird.”