Her mother was sitting in a chair by the window when Bree entered her room. Although the sun wouldn’t set for a couple of hours, it was cloudy outside, so not much light was filtering in. Even without it, though, Bree could see that her mother’s skin looked even more delicate and thin than usual, that her eyes were a little more vacant than the last time she’d seen her, and that her hair, which she’d once taken such pains to keep tidy, was even messier than it had been before. She was dressed, though, which was reassuring. Even if her sleeveless, lightweight dress was a bit inappropriate for the coolness of the facility, and even if her shoes didn’t match. The pale blue color of the garment complemented Rosie’s eyes and gave them a little more life.
Bree scooped up a hairbrush from the dresser as she passed it, took a moment to put her happy, carefree face in place, then greeted her mother with a breezy hello and bent to kiss her cheek.
Rosie Calhoun smiled when she saw her, but it wasn’t a smile of recognition. Some days, her mother recognized her just fine and the two of them could carry on conversations about things that stretched back to before Bree was born. But other days, like today, she had no clue who the woman was she’d raised for more than a quarter of a century. Sometimes, she thought Bree was one of the nurses. On especially bad days, when she didn’t even recognize her surroundings, she thought Bree was a waitress. Or a hairstylist. Or a bus driver. Or any number of other people she’d encountered in her life.
“How are you feeling today, Mom?” she asked in an effort to jog what she could of her mother’s memory.
Her mother frowned at the question, obviously confused about the Mom part. But she said nothing to reveal her confusion, still in that stage of Alzheimer’s where she often recognized that something was wrong, but was too embarrassed to let anyone think she didn’t know what was going on.
Bree attended occasional meetings of a support group for the families of Alzheimer’s victims. The woman running it had told them that the best way to describe Alzheimer’s to someone who didn’t have it was to think about what it was like to start a new job without the benefit of orientation. You went into a place you’d never seen before, knowing you had something to do. But no one had told you what your job involved, and they hadn’t told you where to find the tools you needed to perform that job, and they hadn’t told you any of your coworkers’ names or titles or how you were supposed to interact with them.
It was like one of those anxiety dreams Bree had from time to time where she was thrust into a situation for which she was completely unprepared and panicked when she didn’t know what to do. But where she eventually woke up from her nightmare and was relieved to realize it was all a dream, Rosie Calhoun lived it every single day. And every day, her plight got just a little worse.
“I’m fine,” she said now. “Never better.”
Although Bree knew that wasn’t true, she was glad to see that her mother was at least in a place today where she could have a conversation. Some of the other patients here never left their beds. Others sat in near catatonia in front of the TV in the common room or gazing out the window. Still others wandered up and down the hallways looking for a way to get out. Bree honestly wasn’t sure which state was worst. And knowing she would have to sit by helpless and watch her mother go through all of them was almost more than she could bear. Especially since most victims of Alzheimer’s didn’t suffer its onset until much later in life than Rosie Calhoun’s fifty-five. Physically, her mother was one of the healthiest people Bree knew. She could potentially linger with the disease for decades. And once her mother’s money ran out…
But that was still a ways off, Bree told herself as she always did when her thoughts began to venture down that path. She still had plenty of time to find herself a rich benefactor to take care of her and her mother. With any luck at all, she might even be able to give her mother in-home care and get her out of her bleak little room here. Bree had kept a few of her mother’s favorite things after Rosie sold off everything else to help pay for the nursing home. And she’d put those few favorite things in her mother’s room here, in the hope that it would make the tiny space a little more familiar, and a little more comfortable. But there was only so much comfort one could get from a flowered chair and hand-crocheted throw and milk-glass floor lamp. Bleak was a hard thing to disguise.
“Hey, how about we go for a walk?” Bree said brightly. “It’s cloudy, but it’s not raining. There’s a nice breeze. You want to go out to the courtyard for some fresh air?”
The courtyard was actually more of a patio on one side of the facility that abutted the parking lot, and not the most scenic place in the world. But there were two broad maples that canopied it, and someone had planted a few flowers in terra-cotta pots along one side. There were a couple of wooden park benches to sit on, birds to listen to, and clouds and some lingering spastic sunlight to enjoy. It would be better than sitting in here.
“That would be nice, dear,” her mother said, standing.
Bree went to the closet for a sweater and arranged it over her mother’s shoulders and, together, the Calhoun women strode down the hall to the courtyard at the end. They sat on one of the benches, and Bree did what she could to elicit memories from her mother’s murky thoughts. Mostly, they talked about what Rosie had had for lunch, and about the nice woman who had brought her a book to read, and who Rosie liked better in the upcoming presidential election, Reagan or Mondale. Bree sighed and said she was thinking about voting for the Independent candidate herself.
RUFUS LEANED AGAINST THE SIDE OF THE CRESTVIEW Nursing Home that faced the parking lot, and watched the two women sitting on the bench with their backs to him. He was close enough to hear their murmuring speech, but not so close that he could make out what they were saying. He knew one was Bree, and that the woman with her bore enough of a physical resemblance that she was almost certainly a relative. He hadn’t meant to intrude on something private, something that Bree didn’t want to share with anyone. The only reason he’d followed her home after her shift was to make sure she made it home. He’d been worried that her car might break down again somewhere along the way and leave her stranded. He’d been puzzled when she didn’t follow her usual route and confused when she’d pulled in here. Initially, he’d kept on driving and told himself to keep going, that Bree’s car seemed to be running just fine. But something had made him turn around and come back. Visits to nursing homes were almost never fun. And he’d thought maybe…
Well. He’d just felt like maybe he should be sure Bree was okay.
The woman she was talking to didn’t look old enough—or sick enough—to be in a nursing home. From where he stood, she looked to be maybe fifty or sixty, and she chattered with animation and smiled often. Bree, on the other hand, didn’t look nearly as happy. She smiled, too, but it wasn’t her usual smile, and there was a strain around her eyes that Rufus had never seen before. Whoever the woman was, Bree was worried about her.
He told himself to go, that he’d invaded Bree’s privacy long enough, that he never should have followed her, that doing something like this was skirting stalker territory, and God knew he wasn’t one of those. He loved Bree Calhoun, sure. But he didn’t want to be in her life where he didn’t belong. Certainly not where he hadn’t been invited.
When he pushed himself away from the wall and began to turn toward the parking lot, the motion, however small, must have been just enough to catch Bree’s eye. Before he was fully around, she was staring right at him, her mouth partially opened in surprise, her brows arrowed downward in what was obvious distress.
“Rufus?” she called out. And there was more than a hint of accusation in the word.
Lamely, he lifted a hand in greeting. “Hey, Bree.” Immediately, he launched into an apology. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to intrude. I was afraid you wouldn’t make it home with your car being in the shape it is, so I followed you. I’m sorry,” he said again. “I didn’t have any right. I’m a jerk. I know you can take care of yo
urself. I was just worried about you. I’m really, really sorry.”
She’d lifted a hand at the second apology, but he hadn’t been able to stop himself. He really did feel like a jerk.
“It’s okay,” she said, sounding very, very tired.
“I’m sorry,” he said again as he took a few tentative steps forward.
“Who’s this, dear? A friend of yours?”
It was the woman with her who’d spoken, and Bree’s shoulders slumped in defeat at hearing it. “This is Rufus, Mom.”
Mom? But Bree had told him her mother lived in Florida.
“He and I work together,” she added.
“Oh, at the copy shop?”
Bree shook her head. “No, Mom, I haven’t worked at the copy shop for almost ten years. I tend bar now.”
The woman, Bree’s mother, threw Rufus a rueful glance and blushed. “Of course,” she said a little unsteadily. “I knew that. You’ve been doing that since…Well, for some time now.” Then, very uncertainly, she looked at her daughter and said, “Right?”
And in that moment, Rufus knew the woman, Bree’s mother, had no idea who her daughter was. The bottom fell out of his stomach at the realization. Bree had never really talked much about her family in the past, even when Rufus had tried to pass slow shifts at the bar with her by asking the kind of bland getting-to-know-you questions people asked when they were trying to do things like pass slow shifts at the bar. She’d said something about being an only child and her mother living in Florida, and the way she’d said it, he’d gotten the impression the two of them didn’t get along. Nothing wrong with that. A lot of people didn’t get along with their folks. But he’d made a mental note to never ask her about it again.
“Rufus, this is my mom,” she said now. “Rosie Calhoun. Mom, this is Rufus Detweiler.”
“It’s lovely to meet you, dear,” Ms. Calhoun said.
A million thoughts were zinging around in Rufus’s brain, but he managed to cover the few steps left between them, take her hand, and shake it gently. She laughed at the gesture, clearly thinking it funny, and he supposed women of that generation probably hadn’t done a lot of handshaking in their time.
“He’s charming…” she started to say to Bree. Then she must have realized she couldn’t remember the name of the woman to whom she was speaking, and both her smile and her hand fell. She regrouped quickly, but the sparkle was gone from her expression. “I’m sorry, dear,” she said to Bree, “but I’m terribly tired. Would you mind walking me back to my room? I think I need to rest.”
She turned to say good-bye to Rufus, but something in her eyes told him she’d already forgotten who he was. He smiled and told her it had been nice to meet her, then turned to Bree to give her a reassuring look. But Bree wouldn’t meet his eyes, and instead focused all her attention on her mother. He watched the two women go back into the building, then watched through the panorama window as they walked down the hall not saying a word to each other. Then he strode slowly back to where he’d parked the Wagoneer next to Bree’s Honda.
And he debated whether or not to drive away.
Bree hadn’t seemed to want to say anything more to him. On the other hand, she hadn’t told him to take a hike. Going with his gut, he decided to wait for her. After about twenty minutes, she emerged from the main entrance of the nursing home, her head down as she looked for something in her purse.
She looked up again as she fished out her keys, and when she saw Rufus leaning against his truck, she halted in her tracks. For a moment, she only looked at him, then she began to make her way slowly forward again. He said nothing as she drew nearer, waited to see if she would get in her car and drive away, or if she would say something. For a minute, he thought it would be that first. She unlocked the driver’s side door of her car and stepped behind it, never saying a word.
Then she looked at him from over the car’s roof and said, “She was diagnosed with early onset Alzheimer’s a little over two years ago. She was okay living by herself until about nine months ago. That was when she started showing bad judgment in things—let some guy in the house for a”—she made quotation marks with her fingers—“carpet cleaning estimate, and he stole her wallet and checkbook while he was there. Then, in one day, she bought about two grand worth of jewelry she couldn’t afford from one of the shopping channels. Then she ran a red light and got broadsided by another car. Everyone was okay,” she hastened to add, “but it was strike three. I had to find a place where someone could watch her, because I can’t be there for her all the time.”
“Bree, you don’t have to explain any of this to me.”
He might as well have not spoken, because she didn’t seem to hear him. She just kept looking at him and kept talking. “You know, when you get past the tragedy of Alzheimer’s, it’s actually a fascinating disease. It attacks the most recently matured part of the brain first and then moves backward, so the sufferer kind of begins to age in reverse. They pretty much go from being a mature, responsible adult, to a less mature, less responsible young adult, to an immature, irresponsible adolescent, to a child you have to watch every minute, then to an infant where they can’t take care of themselves at all. Right now, my mom’s moving from stage four to stage five. She has the maturity and judgment of about a twelve-year-old. And her memories are disappearing pretty quickly.”
Rufus had no idea what to say. So he only said, “I’m sorry, Bree. I know it must be hard to see someone you love go through this kind of thing.”
Again, though, it was as if she didn’t hear him. “She goes in and out of recognizing people and things, too. The last time I was here, I had dinner with her, and she put salad dressing on her spaghetti and parmesan cheese in her iced tea.” Now she did focus on Rufus, meeting his gaze steadily. “The woman who runs the support group said you have to have a sense of humor about Alzheimer’s. You have to laugh when stuff like that happens, otherwise you’ll never get through it. But you know what, Rufus? That’s bullshit. You can’t laugh about this stuff.”
Her chin crumpled just a little, and her eyes grew damp, and she looked away when she spoke again. “Today wasn’t a good day,” she said, her voice coming out a little rougher now. “Some days, she does remember who I am. Some days she remembers all the way back to the day I was born. Some days, it’s almost like having my mom back the way she used to be. But those days are coming fewer and farther between.”
She swallowed hard and shook her head, a smile coming from out of nowhere. “I wish you could have met her before this. She was always so vivacious and funny. I mean, she had this crappy life full of hard work and she was saddled with a kid she had to raise herself, but she was never bitter or angry. She never raised a fist to curse fate. She always made do with what she had, and she squeezed as much out of life as she could.”
“She sounds a lot like her daughter,” Rufus said softly.
Bree shook her head. “No. No way. Mom was a way better person than me. Is a way better person than me,” she hastily corrected herself, a look of vague horror crossing her face when she realized she was speaking about her mother in the past tense. “She’s braver than me. And smarter than me. And more content than me.” She met his gaze again. “It’s not fair. It’s not fair that she had such a hard, crappy life, and now she has to spend what’s left of it like this. It’s going to get bad, Rufus. Really bad. And her money is going to be gone in less than a year. And then I’ll have to put her in a place where they don’t give a damn about what happens to her.”
He understood so much about Bree in that moment, realized so many things he should have realized way before now. “She’s the reason you want to find a guy with money,” he said. “You don’t want to tie yourself to some rich guy because you want an easy life and want to be taken care of. It’s because you want someone to take care of your mom.”
She folded her arms on the roof of the car and rested her forehead on them. “Don’t make me sound so noble,” she said. “Ask anyone. I’ve been s
aying since I was a little kid that I was going to grow up and marry a rich husband and do nothing but play tennis and eat bonbons and drape myself in jewelry.”
“Yeah, well, a lot of kids say they’re going to grow up to be something frivolous, Bree. I used to tell everybody I was going to play for the Celtics when I grew up. I’d make millions of dollars a year playing ball, make even more millions hawking aftershave and foot powder, drive a big Cadillac, and date a different Hollywood starlet every month.”
She lifted her head to look at him, then smiled. A real smile, too, not one of those brave ones she’d given to her mom. “So what happened?” she asked. “How come you’re not living the high life in Boston and sporting Lindsay Lohan on one arm?”
He smiled back. “Well, I’d like to say it was because I grew into a mature adult who realized he could contribute so much more to the world doing medical research or social work or volunteerism.” He shrugged. “Fact is, I blew an ACL my junior year in high school—for the second time—and that shot any chance I had for a scholarship, never mind the NBA.”
She studied him intently in silence for a moment, as if she were analyzing him from the outside in. But all she said was, “Bummer.”
He nodded. “Yeah. But you know what, Bree? I’ve done okay with what I have. I’ve managed. I’m happy. Maybe it’s a different kind of happy than Lindsay Lohan–happy, but I don’t feel like I’ve missed out on anything.” He toggled his head a little. “Well, maybe one thing. But I’m workin’ on that. And even if she doesn’t come around, it still feels good to be around her.”
She sighed at that, but said nothing for a moment. When she finally did speak again, it was to tell him, “You really are a good guy, Rufus.”
For some reason, it didn’t bother him to hear her say that as much as it used to. “Thanks, Bree.” He hesitated for a moment, then said, “So how about you come over to my place one night this week, and I cook you dinner?”
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