Between Darkness and Dawn

by Margaret Duarte

  Anne smiled, her radiance warming my heart as the tea and campfire warmed my body. “Your love is enough.”

  Her mood was hard to gauge. She appeared a bit down, which was unlike her. No matter what the problem, she always seemed to land on her feet. Had Cecil’s cruel words brought back memories difficult for her to shrug off? The past has a way of slipping back in when we least expect it, wreaking havoc with our lives.

  “Cecil scares me,” I said. He’s like an out-of-control bulldozer, about to destroy everything you and Adam have accomplished during your stay here. Adam appeared to be doing so well, as though part of him had accepted and made room for the next phase of his journey. Look how his mind extended to Antonia’s. That’s got to mean something.”

  Anne rested her elbows on her knees and stared at me. “Cecil stirs things up. That’s for sure.”

  “How could Adam have fathered such a son?”

  Anne turned her intent focus from me to the fire. “Actually, Adam and Cecil are like two peas in a pod.”

  Impossible. Unacceptable. No way.

  “You didn’t know Adam before,” Anne said, her eyes shifting back to me with a hint of the fire she’d been observing. “In his own words, he was an arrogant, bossy, pain in the ass. In a way, Alzheimer’s has made him a better man.”

  Anne wouldn’t make up something like this, but still... Adam arrogant and bossy?

  I shook my head. I was a planner, a doer. I wanted to press forward, get results. But that wasn’t Anne’s style, and she, more than anyone, had Adam’s best interests at heart. “What can I do for him, where do I begin?”

  “Visit him.”

  “That’s it?”

  “Unless you have a better plan.”

  I handed her my empty mug. Some would call Anne’s patience a lack of drive, but I suspected that she had found peace and, more than that, contentment.

  After rinsing and storing the mugs, Anne pulled a plastic container out of an ice chest and put it into an insulated backpack cooler. “My Popeye blend,” she said at my questioning gaze. “I mix it up special for Adam.”

  “What’s in it?”

  “Juiced apples, spinach, parsley, carrots, celery, and beets.” She pulled out another plastic container, which she added to the backpack cooler. “I also fixed him a memory mender. Since AD is believed to be caused by an accumulation of toxins in the brain, I try to eliminate all packaged and processed foods. Maybe if he’d been eating like this all along...” She shrugged. “Anyway, there’s no going back. The best I can do is try to prevent more of his autonomic nerve cells from being destroyed.”

  “Where’d you get hold of a juicer out here?”

  “They’re letting me make use of the kitchen at the Inn,” she said, handing me the backpack.

  I tested the pack’s weight—heavy—before sliding it onto my back.

  “You got the light one,” Anne said, grabbing another backpack cooler with contents unknown. She flexed her muscles in a body-builder pose before yanking the burden onto her back. “Beats going to the gym.”

  Weighed down by my backpack, the hike to Adam’s camp took more stamina than usual. I was out of shape and it showed. Anne, though, wasn’t even breathing hard when we reached our destination.

  We found Adam sitting as still as one of his sculptures. Buster sat next to him and whined as we neared.

  Anne dropped her backpack and placed a hand on Adam’s arm. “What’s wrong?”

  “I lost my keys,” he said.

  “Aren’t his keys rigged up with some kind of computer device,” I asked, “that beeps like a pager or intercom locater?”

  “Yep.” Anne pulled out her own key ring. From it swung a small black gadget that looked like a remote car door opener. She pressed a red button and a loud beep came from the direction of the grotto.

  I dropped my backpack and ran, following the beeping sound until I reached Adam’s grove of sculptures and located his ring of keys.

  On my return, I felt pleased with my small contribution to his peace of mind.

  “They’re heavy,” he said after I handed them to him.

  No wonder. At least five keys, a sapphire-and-diamond-encrusted BMW emblem, and a mini- computer hung from a thick, gold ring.

  Adam sat up straighter and peered at me. “I don’t need them anymore.”

  “That’s true,” Anne said. “Unless they make you happy.”

  Adam fingered the keys one at a time before holding the BMW emblem up to the sun. Sparks of light shot in all directions. “Kathleen bought this for me,” he said, before the light of illumination disappeared from his eyes. He handed me the keys. “They’re heavy.”

  I handed them back. “Yes, they are.”

  Adam stared at them and shook his head. “I don’t want them anymore.”

  “Marjorie will keep them for you until you need them, okay?” Anne said.

  “Okay,” he said, eyeing Anne’s backpack. “I’m hungry.”

  I was already keeper of Adam’s journal. Now I was also responsible for his keys, adorned with gold, diamonds, and sapphires, and no one seemed to want them.

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  I HARDLY HAD TIME to appreciate the purity of the next morning’s air or the sheer brilliance of the sun penetrating the canopy of redwoods, before Anne bore down on me with bad news.

  “Adam’s gone.”

  Why was I was not surprised? “Have some coffee,” I said through gritted teeth. “Nothing organic about it, but it’s fresh, and I can vouch for its rejuvenating qualities.”

  “Sometimes coffee is as sacred as holy water,” Anne said before accepting my offer and sitting on a log next to me. She lifted her face to the sun, her gray curls wafting in the breeze like a halo.

  “Bet Cecil took him,” I said.

  “Lord, yes. He even left a note saying his father was now in safe hands.” Anne lowered her head and peered into her coffee. “Adam went along without a fuss. There were no signs of a struggle.”

  “Struggle?” I dug into my coat pocket and pulled out his key chain and mini-computer. “Darn it, Anne.”

  Anne made no move to take the burden from my hand. “The computer wouldn’t have helped.”

  “But he might have been able to set off the alarm.”

  “I doubt he would have.”

  “What about the sensors in his clothing?”

  “Useless,” she said. “I found them in his tent.”

  My insides grew hard and unyielding. “I think I hate him.”

  “Who?” Anne asked. As if she didn’t know.

  “Cecil.” His name conjured up foul and poisonous feelings within me, the part of me that judged and pronounced guilt without a trial.

  Anne grunted, as if in agreement, but not as fighting mad about it. “I assume he feels the same about us.”

  “Us? What have we done?”

  “Let’s look at it from Cecil’s point of view,” she said. “He finds his arrogant, meticulous, and very rich father living like a bum and chumming it up with a couple of total strangers who are hiding him and selling off his sculptures. What would you do if Adam was your father?”

  “I’d freak out and place him in a care facility lickety-split.”

  So much for speaking my mind. I had just sided with the devil.

  Some kind of bird, maybe a blackbird, definitely not a Steller’s Jay, sang out as if to remind me, “Do not judge!”

  “Poor Cecil,” Anne said. “He’s grieving the loss of his relationship with his father.”

  It was hard for me to think of Cecil as poor in any shape or form, except maybe in manners and consideration, but yes, chances were that he was as devastated as Adam initially was about the ravages of AD. I looked at Anne’s kind face, struck anew by her wisdom.

  “Although Adam has deteriorated physically and mentally,” she said, “his condition hasn’t accelerated enough to put him in a nursing home. We could’ve put t
hat off for months, maybe even years.” She shook her head, signs of regret etched all over her face. “Now he won’t get the holistic diet I was providing for him, nor the individual attention.”

  Despair weighed down on me, not knowing what to do, even questioning my right to do anything at all. “I wonder where Cecil took him.”

  “I know exactly where.”

  “How?”

  “Brock caught Cecil leaving the park with Adam and followed them.”

  “Knowing Cecil, he probably selected a place that’s expensive, thus exclusive,” I said.

  Anne poured herself another mug of coffee. “That probably would’ve been the case if the best care homes in town didn’t have waiting lists of up to six months. Decisions made in a hurry usually end up in poor choices.”

  “Are you saying what I think you’re saying?”

  “Afraid so. The facility Cecil selected wouldn’t have been my first choice. That said, even the top-rated nursing homes have doctors who are responsible for hundreds of patients at numerous facilities. It’ll take vigilance and involvement on Cecil’s part for Adam to safely live where he’s been placed.”

  “Confined to a hospital bed or a wheel chair? Please say no.”

  The deepened frown on Anne’s face was my answer. “My guess is that he’ll be placed in the mental health unit of the nursing home. It’ll be traumatic for him after the independence he’s used to. He considered this his home, his paradise. He had his clay, us, and—”

  “Where’s Buster?” I asked.

  “At Adam’s camp, looking lost. Coyotes, in my opinion, should be kept wild. Adam didn’t do Buster any favors by feeding him. He’s become too dependent on handouts, and, I hesitate to say, on human love. I’m beginning to suspect that Buster is a coydog, the result of breeding between an abandoned dog and a coyote, but that doesn’t make domesticating him right. Anyway, I gave him something to eat and left him there for now.”

  “What are we going to do?”

  “Visit Adam and try to encourage the staff to see past his ailments to the man he is.”

  “Can we get him out?”

  “With the help of his lawyer, maybe,” Anne said, her expression tight. “Guess it depends on the shape he’s in.”

  I got to my feet and poured the dregs of my coffee onto the campfire. “Then what are we waiting for?”

  “I’m not sure Adam’s strong enough to withstand the ensuing battle,” Anne said. “We’ll need to talk to Cecil first.”

  “A lot of good that’ll do.” I took Anne’s mug and plopped it next to mine to wash later. How could she remain so calm?

  Anne stood and did a slow stretch. “It’s worth a try.”

  “What if I give Cecil his father’s journal, so he can read for himself what Adam has been going through and why he made the decisions he did?”

  Anne smiled, but her eyes didn’t join in. “Good idea. There are a few things I also need to share with Cecil.”

  ~~~

  We arrived at the care facility at 1:05 p.m. A staff member led us through several long corridors that opened into room after room of aged, sick, and shrunken people. Some sat slumped in wheelchairs, some shuffled along with walkers hooked up to IV’s, and others lay in bed with vacant stares. The crying, the moaning, and the occasional screams and mirthless laughter sent shivers over my skin.

  “Is this what it all comes down to?” I asked. Many of these people were spending their last days guided by bio-engineers rather than by caregivers trained to know the difference between curing and healing.

  Anne halted. “They ache for home.”

  I wrapped my arms around my chest to quell the shivers racking through me. “It smells so...so strange in here, like stale urine, greasy disinfectant...and death.”

  “Death awaits us all.”

  Not a comforting thought. “Jeez, it’s so degrading.”

  Our guide shot us an impatient look. We trailed behind her by at least six feet, probably a good thing, since our conversation wouldn’t be to her liking. “Ladies?”

  Anne smiled an apology, and we resumed our walk. “Are you beginning to understand, that during our short stay here on earth, we need to prepare?”

  “How can anyone prepare for this?” I asked.

  “We can’t, not fully,” Anne said. “Most of us won’t leave life in the exact way we choose. But we can eliminate one of its heaviest burdens…regret. During our lifetimes, we can resolve our conflicts, heal our relationships, and reach our potential. In other words, live each day as if it were our last. So, when it comes our turn, we’re ready.”

  “You mean die in peace?”

  “Our greater reality is untouched by change, decay, and death. The patients you see here are releasing their minds and their lives in preparation for a grand adventure. Death is like a reset button, a fresh beginning, a reacquainting with God.”

  “All I see is suffering,” I said, though I was beginning to understand where Anne was going with this.

  “The transformation can be painful. That’s why it’s so important for patients to participate in their own illness.”

  “How?”

  “By not attaching to a particular outcome, but allowing for what is most right.”

  We found Adam sitting in a wheelchair next to a sliding glass door that led to a courtyard exposed only to the overhead sky. His hair had been cut short, his beard shaven. He looked sleek and intimidating, not at all like the Adam I knew.

  “What the hell do you want?” Cecil demanded from his sentry position next to the door.

  “When it comes to Adam, probably the same thing you do,” Anne said, her voice calm, as if he hadn’t just startled her as much as he’d startled me.

  What was he guarding against? Entry? Or escape?

  Cecil’s bloodshot eyes flared. “You had him wired up to a computer like a damn dog.”

  Anne shrugged. “If you had bothered to ask, I would’ve told you that your father was participating in a remarkable study about which he was quite excited.”

  Cecil shot out of his chair. It hit the wall with a thud. “You had him living like a goddamn bum.”

  “That was his idea,” Anne said.

  “You expect me to believe that?”

  “You’ll find what you need to know in here,” Anne said, handing him a thick manila envelope. “It’s his advanced directive, otherwise known as—”

  “I know what an advanced directive is,” Cecil said.

  “The papers were written up between Adam and his attorney.”

  “Without telling me?”

  “It appears so.”

  “That son-of-a-bitch.”

  I stepped forward with Adam’s journal raised like a weapon. “That son-of-a-bitch didn’t want to burden you.” I jabbed the journal against his chest. “This will explain what the legal documents don’t.”

  Cecil blinked several times before taking the journal from my shaking hand. He let it fall open and drew in his breath. “It’s in his handwriting.”

  “Well duh, since it’s his journal. Although, in time, Anne had to step in and take dictation.”

  “Ce Ce?” Adam said.

  Cecil jerked and the journal nearly slid out of his hand. He managed to retrieve it and clutched it to his chest as though safeguarding a treasure. “He didn’t recognize me before.”

  “And he may not recognize you five minutes from now,” Anne said.

  “That bad?” Cecil asked, staring at his father.

  “We’ve been able to slow the progress of the disease down, but he’s had his bad moments.”

  Cecil looked like someone had punched him in the gut.

  I glanced at Adam. Our eyes met.

  “Antonia?” he said.

  “No—”

  “Let him talk.” Anne said.

  Adam stared at me as though I held a lifeline and he were drowning. “I can’t get out. The doors won’t open!”
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  “I’ll help you,” I said. “Like you helped me.”

  He smiled for the first time since we arrived. “Will you help me find my boy?”

  Cecil gasped.

  “I’ll try,” I said.

  Adam cocked his head and frowned. “He’s all alone and afraid. We have to find him.”

  I looked at Cecil. His expression was wide-eyed, as Adam’s had been only moments before. “We will,” I said.

  By the time I refocused on Adam, his face had the appearance of a blank plastic mask.

  I was the one to look away.

  “Go someplace quiet and read Adam’s advanced directive and journal,” Anne said to Cecil. “Then pick up Claudia and meet us back at Adam’s camp.”

  “Claudia?”

  Anne’s gaze didn’t falter. “You’re going to need her to help decide what to do.”

  Cecil took a ragged breath and drew his hand through his hair. “I suppose you want to take my father back to Pfeiffer State Park.”

  “Moving here was a shock for him,” Anne said, “a major setback. Hopefully by tomorrow, we’ll know what steps to take.”

  “Did you read his journal?” Cecil asked, addressing me.

  “Yes,” I said. “And it nearly broke my heart.”

  “I assume I’m not going to like what I’m about to learn.”

  “You’re right,” I said, “but it’ll explain a lot.”

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  ANNE AND I were in for another nasty surprise. During the short time Adam had been gone, someone had vandalized his camp. His tent and sleeping bag lay in shreds. Toilet paper waved from bushes and trees. Shaving cream and toothpaste formed graffiti-like markings on the flattened earth, and his belongings were scattered like party trash.

  Even his treasured deck of Tarot cards.

  “Adam’s sculptures!” I raced toward the grotto without checking to see if Anne followed; just charged ahead, leaping over gopher holes, exposed roots, vines, and duff, praying the vandals hadn’t found his precious sculptures.