Love Is a Rebellious Bird

by Elayne Klasson

  “I knew something was going on when you moved in. I just couldn’t understand what you were doing here. So, who is he, Judith? The sales office says he isn’t a relative.”

  “A friend, Dolores. Just a friend. We’ve known each other since we were kids.” I couldn’t look at her, but rocked back and forth nervously in her chair. In the past few months, Dolores and I had become friends. She hadn’t seen the divide between us being quite as insurmountable as I had when we first met. Now she frequently joined me in my apartment for tea at the end of a long day. I kept her favorite ginger biscuits there for her.

  “I see,” she said. “Just a friend. Seems like you’ve gone through a great deal of upheaval for this friend. He must mean a lot to you.”

  “Dolores, I’ll admit this may be difficult. We’re going to need help. He’s going to need help. He’s forgetting things. It’s progressing.”

  “Dementia?” Dolores asked, completely professional now, but caring, too. “How far is he into it?”

  I told her what the doctors had said, how the symptoms were inconsistent, but that there was noticeable decline each month.

  She sighed. “What can I do for you both?”

  “It’ll be such a radical change in our relationship,” I said, rocking more slowly. “You can’t imagine what he was like before. So brilliant. A real powerhouse of a man. It will be awful to see his decline. I visited him in New York earlier this year. But now it’s more than a visit. He’s moving here and won’t be leaving. I know it’s going to get bad. I’m terrified.”

  “Dementia is frightening,” she said. “You’re right, of course. It will get bad. But you won’t be doing it alone. I’ll help. The ladies will help. You’re strong, Judith. You’re a brave woman.”

  I wanted to tell Dolores that if one more person in my life called me brave, I would have to do them great bodily harm. Instead, I pushed myself out of her comfortable rocking chair and said, “I guess I’ll tell them tonight. Mrs. Rosen’s table. I have to—he’ll be here in a few days.”

  Dolores nodded. I realized I was glad I had a social worker.

  I joined the group that night, conscious that they had changed me more than I’d changed them. Adelle Rosen’s pressure to dress appropriately for meals made me glance at the clock each afternoon and go through the ritual of changing for dinner. I no longer allowed myself just a quick swipe of the hairbrush before I went out the door. I never went to the dining room in jeans and whatever shirt I’d started the day in. No flip-flops. Instead, I applied makeup. I rummaged through the closet for clothes that in my former life I would have worn to dinner in a restaurant. I had kept only seven or eight such outfits, a navy pantsuit, several skirts, long and short, a few good dresses. However, worn in rotation with a variety of scarves and pretty pumps, they sufficed. I’d learned the acceptable topics for dinner conversation—the book the community book club was reading, the menu, who was ill, who had recovered and who had not, and the most ubiquitous topic of all—grandchildren. I even started sprinkling my conversation with the occasional Yiddish word I remembered from childhood or learned at the table. I’d grown fond of Adelle and Vera and Louise, and it seemed they liked me as well.

  Louise Block had become noticeably brighter, and even found a remnant of her former appetite. Perhaps our friendship was part of that recovery. I’d like to think so, but I think it was due in greater part to the unfortunate decline of our table’s fourth member—Mrs. Saperstein. Lately Vera Saperstein was no longer her same sprightly self. It is like that when you age, I’d observed. First you are old, but still mostly yourself and able to do most things. Then, and it can be sudden, people become older old, not just old. Vera and her machatunim, Mrs. Block, had reversed roles. Mrs. Block was becoming the caretaker, reminding Vera to finish her soup, to brush the crumbs from the front of her dress. This was sad to note, but it seemed to give Mrs. Block purpose. Vera Saperstein had finally begun to look her age and no longer told lively, spicy stories about acquiring her jewelry and the trips to Vegas with Mr. Saperstein. She sat more quietly, looking into each of our faces, speaking less, listening more.

  I missed her stories, especially her dirty jokes. “So did you hear about the woman who was getting married for the fourth time? She went to her dressmaker and asked her to make a white bridal gown. ‘My dear,’ said the dressmaker, ‘this is your fourth wedding. Are you sure you ought to wear white?’ ‘Sure,’ said the prospective bride. ‘See, my first husband, Al, was a gynecologist. All he wanted to do was look around down there and examine me. My second husband, Harold, was a stamp collector. Well, you can imagine what he wanted to do down there. Boy oh boy, do I miss Harold! My third husband, David, was a psychiatrist. All he wanted to do was talk about it. But my next groom, Jerry, he’s a lawyer. So you know I’m going to get screwed!’” We all roared with laughter, even Adelle.

  Vera still wore her jewelry for dinner, but one night I noticed there was tape wound and rewound around the back of her dazzling lapis lazuli ring, distracting from its magnificent beauty.

  I lifted Mrs. Saperstein’s hand, the one with the lovely blue ring on it, and stared at the tape with a questioning look.

  Her hand remained limp in my own, but Mrs. Block answered for her. “I stopped by Vera’s apartment to pick her up for dinner, and I noticed her ring had fallen off. It was lying on the carpet. I’m glad I noticed it before we left. She might have lost it on the elevator or somewhere else on the way. I found masking tape in her kitchen drawer and wound it around the ring. It’ll keep it from slipping off her finger again.” She turned to Mrs. Saperstein. “Now do you believe me, Vera? You’re losing weight. When your rings fall off, you’re losing weight. Believe me, I know.”

  Gabriel cleared the salads, jovial as usual, and I realized I’d have to warn him about our additional diner. I wondered how his flirty comments would change when a man joined us at the table. I picked up my water glass and took a swallow, then began.

  “Ladies, I need to speak about something tonight. It’s a special favor and very important to me, so I hope you won’t object.”

  I had everyone’s attention, although Mrs. Rosen’s face had already assumed a critical expression. But I knew what I needed to say to win her over and had rehearsed it.

  “Most tables at Loma Alta have four people. But I have a guest arriving next week. An old friend. And, as he’ll be here for some time, Dolores says I might have him join us. If you approve, that is, of having five people at the table.”

  Each woman reacted to a different part of my speech. Vera Saperstein came out of her torpor to smile at me and say with great animation, “He? A he is visiting you?”

  Mrs. Block replied sweetly, “Judith, if he’s a special friend of yours, then he’s a friend of ours. Of course he’s welcome at the table.”

  Mrs. Rosen asked, “Just who is this man?” She squinted at me and added, “Where will he be staying?”

  “Okay,” I said. “I’ll tell you everything.” Appealing to their desire for exclusivity, I lowered my voice and added, “But please, please don’t spread this around. Can we keep this just between us?”

  All three nodded. I could sense their excitement building.

  “His name is Elliot Pine,” I began, and the women leaned forward, closing in, ready for the story. I obliged. I told them how I’d known you since childhood and that I’d cared for you deeply all this time, but we’d always been either in a relationship with someone else or living on different coasts. This was quite a glossing over of the facts, but I thought it was all the information they needed.

  “How romantic,” Vera Saperstein said, and put her hand over her heart. “An unfulfilled love. Ships passing in the night.”

  “Wait,” I said. “You see, there’s more.” I explained about your increasing difficulties, that you now had a form of dementia. I told them how there was no one to look after you in New York, where you’d lived for many years. So, I’d invited you to live with me at Loma Alta for as long as
it was practical and then, well, and I trailed off. “Who knows?” I said. “None of us can know.” For Mrs. Rosen’s benefit, I described how you had been a brilliant lawyer in New York, an important trial lawyer, and for four years had even served in Washington as a clerk to the famous Supreme Court justice known as the scholar-athlete.

  “That judge?” Mrs. Rosen looked suitably impressed. “You mean from the US Supreme Court?”

  “Yes, that one. But sadly, my friend is not what he used to be,” I said. “He forgets things. He isn’t as quick or as funny as before, but I think you’ll like him.”

  Mrs. Saperstein shrugged. “So who’s as quick as they used to be?”

  Dear Mrs. Saperstein. I reached over and took her hand again. She herself was fading at an alarming rate.

  “No wife?” Mrs. Block asked quietly. I had forgotten I might be asked about this and hesitated.

  “Actually, the wife”—for what else could I call Lillian?—“bailed out on him. She couldn’t accept that he needed help, so she just left.”

  There was a moment of shocked silence before Mrs. Rosen sniffed and said, “But surely he doesn’t need to stay with you. You’re implying you’ll share your apartment?”

  I nodded. “It’s better this way. I need to help him. We’ve known each other really well for practically all of our lives.”

  “Adelle,” Mrs. Block said, looking sternly at Mrs. Rosen, “it’s none of our business where Judith’s friend stays. We’re not children here.”

  I believe this was the first time I’d heard Mrs. Block disagree with Mrs. Rosen and her opinions.

  Mrs. Block turned back to me and, almost with pleading in her voice, asked, “By chance, does your friend Elliot like the theater? Do you think he’s seen one of Artie’s shows in New York?”

  I told her that this was entirely possible as Elliot frequently went to the theater. He loved Broadway.

  Mrs. Block smiled happily. “Good,” she said. “It will be good to have another New Yorker here.”

  Vera Saperstein added, more enthusiastically than she’d sounded in weeks, “It’ll be good having a man at the table, to hear a man’s voice around here. Frankly, I’m very tired of all you ladies. Too many women. Is he a good-looking man?”

  I smiled. “Yes, I think we’d all agree that Elliot is good looking. Always was and still is.”

  “Then Judith, I hope you won’t be a dummy, like his bitch of a wife. I expect you to get something going with this Elliot fellow while you still can, and when you do, you’d better tell us all about it. Every detail. God knows, we need some signs of life in this place.”

  I laughed. “You know, Vera, I’d like that, too. But a romance doesn’t seem quite right. Elliot isn’t really in full possession of his faculties. Do you know what I mean?”

  “No,” Mrs. Saperstein said. “I do not know at all what you mean. He’s not dead, is he?”

  “Vera,” Mrs. Rosen admonished. “You are truly lacking in taste.”

  Gabriel arrived then with our dessert, vanilla ice cream again. Mrs. Rosen, as usual, took charge, and for once I was grateful. “Young man,” she said, and looked up at our waiter.

  Gabriel stiffened. What now? his look seemed to say. What had he done now to displease this impossible woman?

  “I want you to know that starting next …” She glanced at me questioningly.

  “Wednesday,” I said.

  “Wednesday,” Mrs. Rosen continued. “We’ll have five at the table. Mrs. Sherman here will be joined by her gentleman friend, Mr. Elliot Pine. He is from New York, so he is used to excellent service. We do not want any sloppiness, nor comments of the vulgar sort you usually greet us with. Is that understood, Gabriel?”

  Gabriel stared at her for a moment, then his gaze shifted to me and his face lit up. “You got a boyfriend coming, Mrs. Sherman? Good for you.” When he placed the bowl of ice cream in front of me, he winked.

  Well, I thought to myself after dinner, that hadn’t gone too badly. I hoped it would go as well with my three offspring. And, their spouses, for their practical mates would undoubtedly chime in with more serious matters that I had not, perhaps, even considered. I was on the defensive before I said a word to the children. Since when were things so reversed that I dreaded telling my children my private business? I steeled myself for what lay ahead, dreading their criticism.

  They were difficult, those conversations with Evan in New York, Joseph in Baltimore, and worst of all, Miriam down in Los Angeles. The twins remembered you from our long-ago Thanksgiving visit to New York, but I doubt that I’d said more than a few words to Joseph in his entire life about you. Isn’t it interesting that these central facts of who we are, we keep hidden from our children? It had been so crucial for me to keep Walt’s, his father’s, memory alive for the boy, that the name Elliot had barely been uttered.

  Miriam, as daughters will, had studied you the few times we’d been together, and she immediately understood what you meant to me and what my announcement was revealing. “Wait a minute, Mom, this is why you sold your gorgeous house and moved to that old people’s home? To have a place for this Elliot? Your old boyfriend?” Her indignation jumped at me from the telephone. So disapproving, why did she always have to be so disapproving?

  “Miriam,” I answered wearily, “this is not an old people’s home. I’ve reminded you of that many times. It is a retirement community and I wish you wouldn’t call it an old people’s home. I have a comfortable two-bedroom apartment. Plenty of room for an old friend who needs help.”

  “Friend? Right!” She wasn’t buying it and she quickly shared her views with her brothers. Mom was clearly nuts, she told Evan and Joseph. She’d given up her freedom, the beautiful house in the hills, and sentenced herself to living in an old people’s home for this, this … and Miriam apparently did not know what to call you. Miriam had always thought my having boyfriends was unseemly. She thought I had been flighty, irresponsible when her father and I had divorced, both before I’d married Walter and after his death. Perhaps she was right. Miriam was a devoted wife and mother, her marriage to Gray had been wonderfully stable and happy. I could not deny that she’d provided a much more stable life for her two sons than I had for my children.

  Joseph called me soon after speaking to his older sister. I could almost see the small, amused smile on his face. “Well, Mom. You’ve certainly got Miriam’s panties in a twist. I don’t even know the guy, but Miriam thinks you ought to be in another type of institution, one for lunatics. I’m working thirty-six hours out of every forty-eight here at the hospital. So, please give me a nice, easy way to defend you. I don’t have time to come out there and get you committed.”

  I was thankful for Joseph’s sense of humor. He was the only one who could diffuse his older sister Miriam’s righteous indignation. “Joseph, the last I heard, your specialty was emergency medicine, not psychiatry. So, you can’t commit me. And I don’t need you to defend me. Miriam, generally speaking, is outraged by everything about me. I’ll handle Miriam. You’re going to have to trust me on this. I’ve known Elliot since childhood. It’s going to be okay. I actually like it here at Loma Alta. So, don’t take time off work on my account. Just take care of yourself and Heidi. Okay?”

  “Okay, Mom,” Joseph said. “You know, I’m glad you’ve still got some surprises up your sleeve. We need you to stir things up. My life is pretty dull. All Heidi and I do is work.”

  “Thanks, Joseph,” I said. “For not judging. You’re your father’s son. Thank God. He was so good about not finding fault with people. You’re the same.”

  Evan also found humor in my plans. Ira had worked on him, and they both got on the phone when they called me. Ira started, “Now, Judith, I want you to be careful.”

  “Careful?” I asked, expecting a lecture on finances.

  “Yeah,” Evan said. “We hope you’ll practice safe sex. Getting pregnant or an STD might be embarrassing at your age.”

  It was going to be okay. Or, as ok
ay as living with a man with severe dementia could be. I’d run the gauntlets of my three children and my three table mates. Of course, there were others in my life and their reactions would be unpredictable. But, I’d found that in the last few years, even the most opinionated of my friends was mellowing. Everyone now had burdens: their own health, or their husbands’, even a few who still had needy parents, now in their nineties. Everyone had suffered losses and it seemed a terrible waste of energy to be worrying about other people. Ah, how much easier it seemed not to expend energy on deciding whether we approved of the choices our friends had made.

  You arrived on Wednesday, as expected. Before she left, Trina spent that day and the next sorting out your few possessions and helping me make the second bedroom and bath comfortable for you. When she said goodbye, I was surprised to see tears in her eyes. You were on the couch, immersed in a Cubs’ game. I’d recorded their game with the Giants from the week before. An advantage of the dementia was that you didn’t realize it was an old game, with an outcome you’d already read about in the newspaper.

  “How can I thank you, Trina?” I asked. “You made it all work.”

  “Elliot and I have gotten close these past few months,” she said. “He’s different than he used to be. When Lillian was still here.” She looked at me apologetically. “Sorry.”

  “No, it’s okay to talk about her. But different how?”