Killing Her Softly

Killing Her Softly

A Story by JBDWrites
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A daughter aids her mother, diagnosed with advancing Alzheimer's, in assisted suicide challenging her family, her husband's run for office, and her own moral code.

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Chapter 1

 “I won’t let you take him!” A ball of white cotton soars through the air and lands at my feet. It is a pair of underwear: large, full bottomed, high waisted ladies underwear. Old lady underwear. What my teenage daughter would refer to as, “granny panties.” As I bend to pick it up my mother throws herself in my path: one hundred and thirteen pounds of gin fueled fury. The gin is watered down, I started doing that two weeks ago after someone left an AA pamphlet in our mailbox, the result of a nosy neighbor and/or a recycle bin full of empty gin bottles. The fury is real.
     She stands before me naked and shaking with rage. The white panties her final line of defense against which ever monster I am today. Behind her steam billows out from the en suite bathroom and begins to curl around her narrow frame. She throws her arms wide, and I notice how the soft flesh falls off of them like the skin of a peach before canning. My mother used to be large. Her heavy breasts a shelf on which to rest a tired head or the two fingers of gin she had while watching the nightly news. Her hips were wide and her butt stuck out. “Junk in the trunk,” my husband says, as he playfully slaps my rear. I looked that phrase up once and Urban Dictionary informed me that it was, “a little more than a badonkadonk but less extreme than having an SUV in the pants.” Glad I cleared that up.
          “It’s time to get in the shower mom.” I take a tentative step towards her, my hands held up and out to my sides like a police officer approaching a gun holding convict.
     “You can’t take him! I won’t let you!”
      “I’m not here for him, I’m just here to get you in the shower.” I speak calmly, advancing again with slow careful movements, the hours of Law and Order finally paying off.
     “Liar!” She begins to cry, hysterical and comes at me fists swinging. It’s in this moment I wish someone would walk in and take a snapshot. I’d sit down later with a glass of chardonnay, hold it up, and laugh at its absurdity. The little old woman, naked, breasts hanging deflated to her navel, white hair curling with perspiration and steam throwing herself at her middle aged daughter like Mike Tyson at the MGM Grand. I would Google it to see who the art director was, make a mental note to forward a copy to my best friend Lisa, and maybe, just maybe, post it to my Facebook page which would embarrass the hell out of my daughter but be just so, so funny. And I wouldn’t feel guilty laughing, not in the least, because things like this don’t happen to real people. 
     “Mom,” I grab her fists as they thump against my chest, and even though we’ve done this dance before, I’m still surprised at how light they are, how little impact they make. “Mom,” I say again, more firmly this time, “He’s not here.”
     “What?” She pauses just for a second, recognition flickering in her eyes.
     “He’s not here, dad’s not here. He died six months ago.”
She stares at me, holding my gaze, unblinking and I can almost see the neurons firing, the memories desperately trying to find their way into her mind from the void where they are circling the block but haven’t quite moved in. And then she folds. Her eyes leave mine, her fists unclench ,and she literally folds into me.
     “I’m sorry.” It’s a murmur. “I’m sorry.” Over and over.
     “It’s ok mom.” I hold her and I stroke her head as she continues her mantra. I lean against the wall and slowly sink to the floor until we’re both sitting, her back against mine, my arms around her waist.      “Tell me again.” She leans into me and I can feel her heart beating through her chest and onto mine. “Tell me again how it happened.”
     “He was sick.” And so I began the story of my father’s demise. A story I had told so often in the last six months it threatened to knock even my most creative princess/pirate/talking unicorn bedtime story from my daughter’s childhood off its pedestal. Of course like every good story I embellished a bit, and left some things out. Perhaps the only benefit of my mother’s dementia was my ability to rewrite history for her. Six long weeks of hospice care: gone. Death at home alone while we all went to Denny’s for pancakes and stale coffee: erased. The feeling of absolute helplessness I felt sitting there dabbing his cracked lips with a small pink sponge praying that he’d hold on, hoping that he’d let go. I’ve heard all the warnings and ethical ramblings about toying with someone’s memories that I’m ‘robbing her’ of her life, that I’m cheating her, that I’m lying. F**k that. Lisa says that once you can check the 35­-44 box you’re allowed to say ‘f**k’ more. F**k. F**k. F**k.
     “So he didn’t suffer? He wasn’t in any pain?”
     “No mom,” the lie slides out of me oily and thick, “he wasn’t in any pain.”
She nods and her body stiffens, as if she is trying to absorb the memory of my father’s death, each muscle contracting it into its very fibers. Her body trying to hold onto what her brain will forget. Then she sighs, long and slow.
     “I think I’d like to shower now.”
      “Okay mom, okay.”
 I help her into the shower, turn on the overhead light and leave a fluffy pink towel on the hook beside the plexiglass door. I watch as she stands, head bent, letting the stream of hot water wash over her. I wait until she lowers herself onto the white plastic shower bench, her back to the water so it can beat against her shoulders. Then I walk to the kitchen and fill a glass tumbler with equal parts Tanqueray and tap water. I add a couple of ice cubes and return to the bathroom, the glass clinking merrily as I walk. She’s still sitting there, eyes closed, her back bright red from the water’s heat. I open the door and hand her the glass. She takes it from me without a word, raises it to her wrinkled lips, and drinks. Then she closes her eyes and leans her head back into the spray.
     Drinking in the shower is the Taylor women’s preferred form of therapy. While other women spend thousands to projectile puke their feelings onto a fifty something shrink with tortoise shell frames and a pleasant expression the Taylor women prefer to swallow them like bitter medicine chased with steam and alcohol. The alcohol to numb the pain, the steam to soothe the ache it leaves behind.
      “Mom?” The voice, high and sweet, calls tentatively from the bedroom, “Is everything okay?” It’s Margeaux, my daughter. She’s fifteen and more mature than I’ll ever be, warm and wise far beyond her years. She’s solid, like I am, like my mother once was, with chocolatey brown hair that falls in loose waves all the way to the middle of her back and brown eyes so dark and deep I find myself getting lost in them. I walk into the bedroom, closing the bathroom door behind me, and she’s standing there in her pajamas, hair pulledback in a messy knot, Maya Angelou’s “I Still Rise” dangling from her right hand, her index finger marking her place.
      “Is it grandpa again?”
 I nod and sink onto the bed, she comes and sits beside me and rests her head on my shoulder.
      “She was good today. Up till now.”
     “Yeah, today was a good day.” And it had been, a perfect spring day. The weather was warm, unseasonable warm for Michigan in early April, and we had driven the forty five minutes to the lake. We had taken off our shoes and watched our toes turn bright red from cold as we walked along the shore. Margeaux and I had played the game where you run as close as you can to the water and then retreat as the waves break and chase you up onto the beach. Over hot chocolate and cinnamon scones we had discussed school, friends, and Rob, the junior boy who had asked Margeaux to the prom, by far the biggest event of her high school career. My mother had smiled, and listened, and asked questions and to anyone looking on we were just a happy family enjoying a beautiful Sunday afternoon.
      “What happened?” Margeaux’s face is clouded with worry. My mother’s dementia has been hard on all of us, but especially on her. They always shared a special bond: a love of poetry and language, and an unassailable bullshit detector.
     “I don’t know sweet heart. I wish I did.”
     “She’s not going to get better, is she?” Those big brown eyes look up at me and oh how I want to take her in my arms, hold her close, and tell her that everything is going to be ok. But I can’t because we both know it’s not true, so we just sit there on the bed in silence.
      “This f*****g sucks.” Margeaux grabs a turquoise throw pillow and hurls it at the wall. It bounces off noiselessly and lands on the floor.
     “Yeah,” I sigh, “it really f*****g does.” The water stops running and I hear the shower door open and close. “I better help grandma get ready for bed. I’ll be out in a minute.”
      “No it’s ok,” Margeaux carefully dog ears a page to mark her place and sets her book on the dresser, “I can help.”
      I go into the bathroom and when I return Margeaux has pulled back the blankets on the bed and stands there holding my mother’s light blue cotton nightgown. I watch while my daughter helps my mother get dressed and into bed. She leans down and whispers ‘Good night grandma’ gently kissing her on the lips and my heart explodes.
     “What is this?”
     My mother is asleep, Margeaux, book in hand, has retreated to her room, and I am officially ready for a drink and some mind numbing reality tv, something with battling housewives in tiaras. My husband, who now stands in the kitchen holding the bottle of Tanqueray, apparently has other ideas.      “It’s a handle of Tanqueray.” I take the half empty bottle of chardonnay out of the fridge, pull the cork out with my teeth, spit it on the floor, and take a long drink. “Though it doesn’t really have a handle, which is funny if you think about it.”
     “Please don’t do this Nina.” He is still wearing a white dress shirt, though the top two buttons are undone and his red tie hangs loosely around his neck. “Can you ever just answer a question without the sarcasm? You know I can’t tolerate it.”
     “Can you ever ask a question like I’m your wife and not one of your aides?” The thing about having a husband that’s running for office is that during election season he tends to forget that you’re not his employee. He tends to forget anyone isn’t his employee.
     “Fine.” He sets the bottle gently on the counter between us and gives me a winning smile, the famous Jack Barlow smile, full of teeth: straight, white,honest. “I was just wondering what this very large bottle of gin is doing in our kitchen when two weeks ago we agreed it would be best, for her health and for our family, if your mother stopped drinking.”
      I love my husband. I really do. He is a good man, a good father, and, it has to be said, dashingly handsome. He’s tall and lean with dark hair just kissed with silver. He has a strong jaw, high cheekbones, and full lips. The camera loves his face and, as he is currently ahead in the polls by a significant margin, so do the voters. I believe he would make a great governor of our state. He is hard working, and he really, truly wants to change things for the better. But he is, it has to be said, delusional.
      “I seem to remember it being best for the campaign if my mother stopped drinking. I don’t think it was ever what was best for her.”
     “Yes, it’s good for the campaign.” I can see the thin veneer of his patience starting to crack. “But it’s also for her health, we both know that the alcohol isn’t helping her.”
     And then I lose it. I don’t know if it was my mother’s episode, or my realization that my little girl is growing up, or just the fact that my husband is standing in our kitchen on a Sunday night still in that damn shirt and tie, a constant reminder that’s he’s working hard, that he’s someone important.           “The alcohol is the only thing that’s helping her! My mother is seventy five years old Jackson, and she’s dying. She isn’t going to get better. This isn’t going to get any better! And if having a drink makes her feel a little less hopeless then by God I am going to get her that drink, your spotless reputation and the campaign be damned.”
     “We are less than six months from the primary Nina, and I am not going to ruin everything I’ve worked for, everything we’ve worked for.” He runs his hands through his thick hair and clasps them behind his neck. “We already have the neighbors thinking we have a drinking problem, what do you think would happen if the press found out? I am a conservative for God’s sake. My platform is built on family values.”
     “F**k your family values.”
     “Ok Nina.” He turns to go. It’s his signature move. Nina is flying off the handle again so Jackson takes the high road and walks away.
     “Don’t walk away from me.”
      “I don’t think that anything productive is going to come of this conversation Nina. You’re not going to see my side, and I’m not going to see yours, so lets just leave it.”
     “No. I’m not going to leave it. You talk about family values, why don’t you value your family for once.”
     “You think I don’t value my family?” He turns toward me, a flush of red rising out of the pristine white collar of his dress shirt, spreading like a forest fire. “Everything I’m doing is for my family. I am killing myself with this campaign so I can make a better life for you and Margeaux. So I can have a say in what kind of world she will live in. And you would throw that all away so your mother can sit in the shower and get drunk.”
      “F**k you.”
     “Have another glass of wine Nina.” He stalks out of the kitchen and I hear the door to our bedroom slam.
     Twenty minutes later as I’m sitting on the shower floor there’s a knock at the bathroom door. He walks in sits on the edge of the tub across from me. Through the steam I can see him, now in grey sweats and his favorite Columbia Law School t­shirt. His shoulders are slumped and he doesn’t look at all like the man smiling on our neighbor’s yard signs. He looks older. Tired. We sit there as the minutes pass. Finally I stand up, turn off the water, and open the shower door.
     “I’m sorry Nina.” I grab a towel from the rack on the wall and wrap it around myself, leaving my hair wet, then I go and sit beside him.
     “Me too.”
     He takes my hand and raises it to his lips. “This is all so much harder than I thought it would be. This campaign, it’s what I want, it’s what I’ve always wanted, but I didn’t think it’d be this hard.”
      I nod and water runs down my shoulders pooling in the crook of my elbow.
     “I haven’t been here for you, or for Margeaux, and you have to know how much that kills me. Your mom, and your dad, and everything, it’s just, it was just…”
     “Piss poor timing,” I finish for him and he smiles. “I know. I know you love us.”
    “If you want to talk about your mom we can. We can talk about anything you want.”
     “Lets just go to bed.” I stand, leaving my hand in his, and lead him into our bedroom. I turn off the bedside lamp and wrap my arms around him in the darkness, letting the damp towel fall to the floor. I pull him closer into me, feeling the soft, worn cotton of his t­shirt against my cheek, and exhale.
     Later, when I can hear the rhythm of Jackson’s breathing steady with sleep, I crawl out of bed and slip out of our room letting the door close quietly behind me. I walk quickly down the hall to my mother’s room, my bare feet slapping the floor gently, waves lapping against the sand. The room is dark but I know my way and I recognize the small bundle that is her body curled tightly, taking up barely half the bed. I pull back the blankets and climb in beside her, wrapping my body around hers, feeling the sharp blades of her shoulders against my chest.
    “Nina,” she exhales, more breath than word, but doesn’t turn to face me.
     “Hi Mom.” I wrap my arms around her, nuzzling her neck, inhaling the scent of clean linen and lemon soap.
     “I know where I am, but I don’t know how I got here.”
     “I know, Mom. Me too. Me too.”

                                   Chapter 2

“Nina!”

My sister Christine calls to me as she walks through the door of The Blackbird, a downtown cafe, where we’re meeting for lunch.  She twists and turns, her legs, made even longer by the three inch heels she’s rarely seen without, gracefully navigating through the sea of navy suits and polished black briefcases.  All blonde curls and curves, Christine looks like a supermodel before breasts and muscle tone went out of style: Cindy Crawford circa 1992.  Like Cindy, Christine was a big hit in the 90’s, well actually, Christine has always been a big hit.  

A year my senior, almost to the day, we grew up like siblings do: secret keepers, fierce competitors, sworn enemies, best friends.  We both ended up at the University of Michigan where I majored in journalism and Christine double majored in business and biceps.  She welcomed me to campus by taking me to a house party where the walls were papered with Bud Light boxes.  We drank vodka spiked punch out of giant trash cans and I ended up in a broom closet kissing a boy whose name I can’t remember.  

What followed was a lifetime of memories, from a life I have rarely shared with Jackson or Margeaux.  I imagine sitting down with Margeaux when she’s older, sharing a bottle of wine, and telling my daughter about the days before I was her mom.  Before I was Mrs. Jackson Barlow, the future first lady of Michigan.  When I was just Nina Taylor who’d climb up on the roof of the Phi Psi house to sunbathe topless and smoke a joint.   

“I’m sorry I’m late, my flight was late getting in and then the meeting ran long,” Christine hugs me, the smell of expensive perfume lingering longer than her arms do.

“It’s fine,” I smile, “I think we’re next on the list.  It’s good to see you.”

“You too, Nina.  You look great, well you always do, but still.”

I look down at my straight leg khaki pants and navy cardigan: conservative, smart, sensible.  This woman rarely has sex, but when she does it’s in the missionary position.

“So how long are you in town?”  My sister is a sales rep for a medical device company based in Chicago, Grand River is part of her territory so she comes into town every couple of months.

“Just until tomorrow.  Meetings with United Health in the morning and then I’m back on the road,” she says, referring to the medical behemoth that’s based in Grand River.

“Come over for dinner.  You could see Mom and Margeaux would love it.”

“I wish I could but I have a dinner thing,” her phone buzzes, she pulls it out of her Kate Spade bag and glances at the screen a smile spreading across her face.  I know that smile.  God, I miss that smile.

“Sorry,” she quickly types a return message and pops the phone back into her bag.

“Oh don’t apologize.  I didn’t think you were seeing anyone.”  

“It’s new,” a blush, knockout rose pink, spreads across her cheeks, “Good so far, but I’m sure he’ll have a fatal flaw.”

“Maybe not.  There are a few good ones out there.”

“That’s easy to say when you’re married to Jackson Barlow.”  

I open my mouth to respond but before I can the pint sized hostess with a pixie cut and a diamond stud in the side of her nose calls our names.  We follow her to a booth in the corner overlooking the river, on the opposite bank a string of once abandoned buildings known as The Beat, have been turned into affordable housing for low income residents.  I watch as a little girl in a pink windbreaker rides her tricycle round and round in the parking lot.  A group of women sit on a nearby stoop, keeping a watchful eye between sips of iced tea and bites of hot gossip.  “Don’t go too far,” I can’t hear the words but I know what they’re saying.  I’ve said the same thing to Margeaux: don’t go too far, stay where I can see you.  A mother’s greatest fear is losing her child, forgetting where she is even for a second.  I wonder if my mother is afraid of losing me.  

My first assignment at the Grand River Gazette was an article about The Beat, a piece on drugs.   I remember standing on the street looking at the barred windows and caving roofs, a favorite canvas for Grand River’s graffiti elite.  On one particularly broken facade ragged black letters spelled out a warning, “Don’t Open, Dead Inside.”  Standing beneath the letters was a young man, maybe twenty.   He stared at me straight on, his face expressionless, his eyes wide even in the bright sunlight.  I tried to ask him a question, get a quote for my article, but he just looked at me then turned and walked away, shoulders hunched, the soles of his worn sneakers dragging along the hot asphalt.  ‘Don’t Open, Dead Inside,’ I’ve always wondered if the warning was about the building, or the people who called it home.  

The first time Jackson ran for office it was for the County Board of Commissioners.  He was 28, just out of law school, and working for a firm specializing in real estate law.  The Beat was slated to be demolished and replaced with a parking structure for the ever growing medical mile of hospitals and health care centers.  Jackson decided to run and built his platform on saving the buildings and repurposing them as a way to combat the epidemic of homelessness  in downtown Grand River.  He argued that people were more likely to find a job, stick with a rehab program, and meet with their caseworker if they had a roof over their heads.  I was assigned to cover his speech announcing his candidacy.

I can still remember how his words filled the air like smoke: billowing around me, seeping into my clothes, my hair, making my eyes sting with their intensity.  Days later I could still smell them on me.  I called Jackson’s campaign manager and arranged to meet with him for an interview.  We walked along the river, passing ideas and dreams back and forth until the sky turned orange and our shadows grew tall.  It wasn’t until that night, alone in my apartment, still basking in the glow of Jackson, that I realized I hadn’t written anything down.  

“So, how’s my girl?”  Christine asks, referring to Margeaux.  Christine loves my daughter.  They share the bond of love-at-first-sight and fairy tale endings which both delights and frightens me.  

“She’s good, doing really well.”  

“Is she still liking Sacred Heart,” Christine asks, referencing Margeaux’s switch from public high school to the private christian academy.  Tuition rivaled that of an in-state university but Jackson thought it was important to show that he lived his word as a conservative Republican who valued his campaign donors above all else.  I mean Jesus, Jesus above all else.  

“I think so.  There’s a great drama program, which she loves, and she was asked to the prom by a junior.”  

“Whoa.  Big time.”

“Biggest time.”  

“What does Jackson think about that?”

“He loves it.”  

“Really?”  Christine raises a suspicious eyebrow, “The man who won’t let his teenage daughter wear nail polish because it attracts boys is loving this?”  

“Well, the boy is William VanDyke’s son.”  

“William VanDyke, like VanDyke Children’s Hospital, William VanDyke?”  

“One and the same.”  

“Who I’m sure is making a huge contribution to the campaign?”  

“Well, he hasn’t yet, but that’s what Jackson’s hoping.  We’re attending some big gala event next week as their guests.  Anyway, I don’t want to talk about the campaign, I wanted to talk to you about mom.”  

“What about her,” the waitress brings menus and we order ice teas.  Christine picks up a menu, perusing the list of salads and sandwiches, “Frisee, mizuna, this place is out of control, whatever happened to lettuce?”

“They’re in the lettuce family.”

“Frisee sounds like the wealthy aunt from Connecticut who has twin Corgis and three ex husbands.”

“Mizuna lives in a trailer by the beach.”

“Yeah,” Christine nods, “But a cool trailer, a silver airstream with a hot pink awning and lots of wind chimes made of old forks.”    

“Like Lola,” I say, referencing my family’s former home on wheels.  In the summer of 1986 my dad decided to spend two months driving coast to coast.  “It’s time for you girls to see this great country, from sea to shining sea.”  All we’d wanted to see was Molly Ringwald in ‘Pretty In Pink’ and the inside of the Eastwood Mall, but a week after school ended we loaded our lives into a 30 foot Pace Arrow motorhome my dad named Lola, and headed west.  

“No.  Nothing like Lola.  Lola was a w***e who stole our summer.”  

“Dad loved Lola,” I laughed, “Remember how we spent a week in that cow town in Nebraska while he tried to fix the ac?”  

“Benkelman,” Christine spits the word in disgust, “Not even a movie theatre.  Not even a JC Penny’s.”  

“It was a good trip though.”  

“Yeah, I guess it wasn’t so bad.”  

“I’d do it again.”

“Me too.”

Silence settles between us: I stare out the window, Christine studies the menu.  Both trying to figure out how to fold the memories so they fit back into their carefully labeled boxes.  The waitress brings our teas, we ignore her recommendation of the, “Frisee and Endive Salad with Prosciutto and Poached Quail Eggs,” and order club sandwiches on sourdough, a united front against gourmet lettuce and the passage of time.  

Christine opens her straw, places it in her tea, then ties the white paper wrapper in a knot.  It’s a ritual we had as kids.  You made a wish, then tied the wrapper in a knot, pulled the ends, and if the knot came undone your wish would come true.  My wish was always the same: to be a famous journalist.   I imagined receiving the invite to my high school’s ten year reunion and having to regretfully decline because I was in Washington DC interviewing the President for the New York Times.   Christine’s wishes centered around whichever boy the Grand River Middle School elite had deemed crushworthy that week.  As Christine pulls the ends of the wrapper I close my eyes and make a wish, and this one doesn’t include a Pulitzer.  

“So who’s the new guy?  Did you meet him at work?”  

“God no.  Sales guys only have one open seat in their BMW’s and it’s reserved for their egos.  He’s a biology professor at DePaul.  Seems normal but he’s probably crazy.  I always attract the crazies.”  

“You are a bit of a crazy catcher.”

“A bit?  They come at me like moths to the flame.”  

“Well at least you don’t keep them around for long.  What’s the record, a week?”

“Nine days.  Kyle.  Met at the gym,” she stirs a packet of sugar into her tea, “Great abs.”  

“You deserve an award.”

“Well, I knew he wasn’t the one.  And once you figure that out, what’s the point of staying?”

“You knew after nine days that he wasn’t the one?  You do deserve an award.  I wish I had said goodbye to my ex’s after nine days.  It would have saved me a lot of trouble.”

“And money.  You’re the only person I know who chooses to have a break up binge over her college boyfriend with a two hundred dollar bottle of vodka.”  

“It was a birthday gift.  I was saving it for something special.”

“Well if you and Jackson, God forbid, ever get divorced I’d hate to see that bar bill.”  Our sandwiches arrive in all their mundane glory.  Christine pulls the tomato off hers and places it on the edge of my plate, a ritual we started as kids.  

“So, how’s your sex life?  Is the campaign ruining it?”

“Sex,” I generously salt her tomato slice and pop it in my mouth, “What’s that again?”

“That’s what I thought.  You need to be careful Nina.  Your vagina is going to get depressed.  My vagina is getting depressed just thinking about your vagina.”  

“Thanks for that.”

The conversation lulls and we focus on our sandwiches, which are delicious.  

“Nina,” Christine looks at me seriously, “You know I love Jackson, I do, but are you sure this campaign is the best thing for you?”  

“It’s his dream, and I’m his wife, so I’m supporting him.  I know it seems crazy, it is crazy, but Jackson has worked for this every day since we met.  The first time I heard him speak, I didn’t even know him, he was so passionate, so…” I pause, searching for the right word.

“Egotistical?”  

“Intoxicating.  He’s worked so hard.  He deserves a shot at this.”

“And that’s great for him, but what about you?  Are you even writing anymore?”

“Reporters need to be unbiased.  And it’s hard to do that when you’re married to one of the candidates.  I’ll get back to it.”  The lie slides out so easily I almost believe it.  

“Good.  You’re so goddamned talented.  It would be a shame if you didn’t.”  

“Don’t worry.”  

“Ok,” Christine tosses her napkin over the uneaten half of her sandwich and leans back in the booth, “I give.  So how’s mom?  I’m sorry I haven’t called more, things have just been crazy.”  

Her tone is nonchalant, like the answer couldn’t be anything other than, “Oh you know mom, bridge club, and golf league, and still insisting her peach cobbler is better than mine.”  It pisses me off.  I suddenly want to tell her the truth, something I have yet to do fully.  Christine thinks of our mother as “forgetful,” and she knows she misses dad, but she doesn’t know the full extent of the situation, she doesn’t know anything, really.  It’s her fault for not being there and it’s my fault for not asking her to be.  

I told myself I could handle it.  I’ve always been the strong one, the stable one.  There is a land surrounded by high stone walls and I am it’s queen.  I am the walls.   I thought if I could keep my mother firmly locked inside my home, my heart, that she wouldn’t be able to leave, that at least what’s left of her would be mine.  So it’s my fault that Christine doesn’t know the truth.  That yesterday afternoon I found our mother passed out drunk on her bedroom floor covered in her own urine.  That when I looped my arms under her shoulders and dragged her into the bathroom her body swam in clothes small enough for a child, emaciated from months of eating nothing but grief.  That when I removed them she woke up, smiled, looked lovingly into my eyes and said, “Thank you Lizzie.”  That I have no idea who Lizzie is, but I f*****g hate her.  

“Honestly, things aren’t great.”  

“What do you mean?” Her phone beeps.  She takes it out and quickly send a message, manicured fingers flying over the keyboard, a well practiced dance.  

“The forgetfulness, I swallow hard, “I think it’s something more than just getting older.”  

“Like what?”  

“Like dementia,” the words stick to the roof of my mouth like peanut butter, “or Alzheimer’s.”  

“Mom does not have Alzheimer’s, she’s only sixty seven years old.”

“She’s more and more forgetful lately.  And she’s lost weight,” an image of my mother’s vertebrae poking through the thin skin of her back, the mountainous ridge of a deserted island, flashes before my eyes , “A lot of weight.”

“Well she’s sad.  Dad’s hasn’t even been gone a year.  People handle grief in different ways.”   

“It’s more than that.  If you’d spent any time with her, you’d know.”

“Well, if you’d asked me to, I would have.”

“I thought I just did.”  

“That’s not fair Nina,” her blue eyes flash in anger, “I’m here for one day, for work, you can’t just expect me to drop all of that.”

“You’re right,” I take a deep breath and feel my lungs expanding, a life raft buoying up my battered body, “I’m sorry.”

“It’s ok,” she glances at her watch, a chunky, gold band with a tortoise shell face that I’m sure cost more than my entire outfit, “I should go.  I have a meeting in twenty minutes.”  

“Ok.  Go ahead.  I’ll get the check.”  

“You don’t have to do that.”

“I’m not, Jackson is,” I winked at her, “And I hope we can count on your support in the upcoming election Ms. Taylor.”  

“Thanks Nina,” she hugs me, tighter than last time, “It was good to see you.”  

“You too.”

“Let’s plan a weekend, no working or campaigning.  We’ll take mom to the spa or something.”  

“That sounds good.”  She turns to leave when my own phone buzzes in my purse.  I dig through the mess of tissues and Post It’s and business cards of very important people that I promised to pass along to Jackson and never did.  When I find it I don’t recognize the number and almost ignore it, probably a telemarketer or something to do with the campaign, but then I think it might be about Margeaux.  

“Hello.”

“Is this Nina Barlow?”

“Yes, who’s calling please,” Christine is half way across the restaurant, talking to a heavy set man in a navy suit.  She smiles, gently placing her hand on his forearm as she speaks, and I can tell he’s someone she’s trying to impress.  From the look on his face I’d say it’s working.  She laughs, and tosses her hair and I’m so wrapped up in watching this corporate mating dance that I’m not listening to the caller.  

“I’m sorry, I didn’t catch that.  Who is this?”

“M’am, this is Officer Michael Kennedy calling from Metro Health’s emergency department, your mother has had an accident.”  

I hear him this time.  I hear him and as I swing my purse over my shoulder and bolt for the door I knock over our iced teas which spill all over the table and fall to the floor with a crash, glass and ice everywhere.  

“Are you ok?”  The elderly man next to me.

“M’am you need to pay your bill.”  The waitress, black leather bill fold in hand.  

“Is she alright?”  The heavy set man in the navy suit.  

“What happened?”  Woman in a yellow sweater.  

“Get the manager.” Pixie cut hostess with the pierced nose.

“Nina!” Christine.  

And I don’t turn around for a single one.  







© 2015 JBDWrites


Compartment 114
Compartment 114
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Author's Note

JBDWrites
Thinking of expanding on this story into a novel detailing Nina's mother's request for assisted suicide when faced with advancing Alzheimers and Nina's battle to help her mother and not lose her marriage.

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Reviews

J.K. Beach, thank you so much for your review and your kind words. I will let these characters marinate and maybe they will find a way into a longer story. I aspire to write things that touch people, and I will keep at it!

This review was written for a previous version of this writing

Posted 9 Years Ago


JBD,

I try regularly to explore what new writers here in the Cafe have to offer. Not often do I find writing so suddenly engaging... brimming with pathos, reality, and humor in equal measure... as this story. I think that the way you transition from each encounter... from mother to daughter, to husband, to husband, and back to mother works very well... The trick, in converting this to a novel, might be maintaining these transitions with longer vignettes, but with the wit you display in your writing, I doubt this will be a problem.

Your story stands on its own, though, and has made me laugh and cry and mull my own family history in equal measure. Well done! I do encourage you to keep writing... maybe by first publishing more stories of this family before formatting them into novel form. I would love to read them!

Regards,

JKB

This review was written for a previous version of this writing

Posted 9 Years Ago


JBDWrites

9 Years Ago

J.K. Beach, thank you so much for your review and your kind words. I will let these characters marin.. read more

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430 Views
2 Reviews
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Added on March 10, 2015
Last Updated on July 21, 2015
Tags: dementia, women, family, love, assisted suicide, alzheimers

Author

JBDWrites
JBDWrites

Grand Rapids, MI



About
An aspiring women's fiction writer, full of ideas, problems with commitment. more..