Anna
Thirteen months ago …
You know what I don’t miss? The doctors’ appointments. A year ago, when I was diagnosed, there were a lot of them. The geriatricians (I know, right?), the neurologists, the neuropsychologists. The memory clinics, the PET scans. An interesting fact about Alzheimer’s is that a definitive diagnosis can be made only through autopsy. For this reason, Dr. Brain diagnosed me as having “probable Alzheimer’s.” The “probable” part always made me laugh. It might be a bit macabre, but the idea that after you’re dead they might slice open your head and say, Well, looky here. She didn’t have it after all, struck me as funny.
It’s been six weeks since Young Guy accosted me in the hallway … and I’m still not dead. It’s unexpected, but life has been pretty good at throwing me curveballs lately. I haven’t forgotten about what I was planning to do that night, nor have I decided that I’ll never go ahead and do it. I guess, like a lot of callers on Beat the Bomb, I’ve simply decided that I am willing to take my chances hanging on a little longer.
Today, it’s pet therapy day. Not my favorite day of the week, given my dog phobia, but I’m inside and all the dogs are all outside, so I can’t complain. Young Guy, the dog lover, loves this day. Usually he spends the entire time outside with the dogs. He opted to stay inside today, but I can tell he’d rather be outside because his eyes are glued to the window, where a hairy fluff ball sits on Southern Lady’s lap, licking her face. I shudder.
“Myrna don’t like dogs neither.”
I look up, uncertain who has spoken. I notice the old guy, whom I’ve nicknamed Baldy, is looking at me. “What?” I ask.
“Dogs. Myrna don’t like ’em.”
Old folks can be so random. Baldy’s voice is gruff and irritated, like I am an inconvenience, even though he’s the one who started talking to me.
“Oh.” I sit back as a lady—Liesel, according to her name badge—arranges the world’s fattest rabbit in my lap. I call it Sumo Bunny. “Myrna and I have something in common, then.”
Young Guy grins. He’s been my right-hand man these last few weeks—where I go, he goes. I’m not sure if it’s because he’s worried I’m going to try to kill myself or if he just enjoys my company, but the result is the same—we’re always together. It’s actually pretty convenient. A couple of times when I’ve been disoriented, he’s been able to help me find my way. And one time, when we were both a little disoriented, we decided there was safety in numbers and just stayed where we were until someone came to find us.
I watch him now. He’s looking at the animal in his lap, his eyelashes dark against his pale face. The top two buttons of his shirt are casually undone and the sleeves are rolled up. I stare at his chest but when he notices me looking, I quickly look back at Sumo Bunny.
Young Guy generally doesn’t say a lot, and I don’t know if that’s because of his type of dementia or if he’s always been a man of few words. Either way, there’s something nice about the lack of chatter. When he does talk, he asks me questions. It’s funny the things he wants to know—my favorite films, the music I listen to. My answers are boring and predictable, but he listens with absolute attention, like there’s nowhere else he’d rather be. I ask about his favorite things, too, and he tells me a few, but I can tell speaking makes him tired. After a while, he starts to look frustrated, so I let conversation drift back to me.
“Can you turn that damn TV off?” Baldy shouts suddenly. Grumpy old bastard. He points to the arm of my chair, where the remote control is resting. I pick it up.
Just so you know, there are about a million buttons on a remote control. Some are green. Some are red. Some are gray. The writing below each button is all gobbledygook—INPUT, AUDIO, AV. I try a gray one. The room fills with loud static noise.
“Are you trying to burst my eardrums?” Baldy yells.
I quickly press another button, a green one. The noise remains, but the picture on the screen changes, then changes again.
I wish Ethan were here. Or Brayden or the other nephew. Kids are so good with electronics.
“What are you doing?” he asks.
“I’m trying,” I say, because I really am. I press a red button, but it just gets louder. I look at Young Guy desperately.
He grabs my hand. “Quick,” he says, standing. The animal on his lap jumps off and scampers away. He grabs my hand, and even through the noise, I feel a rush of energy at his touch. Sumo Bunny slides off my lap as he pulls me to my feet. “Let’s … go … out of h-here,” he says.
“Hey!” Baldy cries. “Where are you two going?”
We turn a corner, then another, and finally we stop next to a small table and a mirror and a vase of flowers. My eyes roll over his strong jaw, his dimple, his tea-colored eyes. A warm tingly feeling rises through my body. I’m so transported; I don’t even break his gaze when a woman in a green T-shirt enters the room. Her name badge says LIESEL.
“There you are, Luke!” she says. “We’re just feeding the dogs. If you want to see them, you’ll have to come outside now.”
“Not … t-today,” he says.
“You should go,” I tell him. “You love those damn dogs.”
He shakes his head firmly, definitively. And despite my protests, my heart begins to sing. “No,” he says again. “I’m h-h-happy right where I am.”
* * *
There’s a knocking sound, somewhere in my room. It sounds like a woodpecker. Knock, knock, knock. I glance at the window at the same time as the door opens.
Suddenly the manager guy is in front of me. “Anna? You have a phone call.”
“A phone call?”
I feel strangely untethered today, on edge, like I’m waiting for someone to sneak up on me, but they never do. I know I’m in my room, at Rosalind House, but when I look for the familiar, I don’t find it. It’s like I’m straddling the line between dementia and reality, and I can’t tell which is which.
“Yes,” he says, “a phone call. Follow me.”
I haven’t had a phone call since I arrived. Not that I’d remember, I guess. I don’t have a phone in my room—too distracting for people with dementia, they say. I’m okay with this. I find it hard, talking on the phone: no facial expressions to rely on, no rising eyebrows or conspiratorial glances. Still, it’s a little excitement, I suppose. A phone call.
As I weave my way to the manager’s office, it occurs to me that it could be bad news. A death? An accident? One of the nephews? By the time Eric hands me the talking end of the phone, I’m fluttery in the chest. I hold it next to my ear, but it takes me a few seconds to remember to say something. “Um … hello?”
There’s a deep throaty-noise, and then … “Anna?”
“Dad?”
There’s a pause. “Anna, it’s Jack.”
I feel a flash of humiliation. “I know. That’s what I said.”
I fight the urge to slap myself in the head. Dad? Seriously? Did I think after a twenty-year absence, he’d just call up and say hi?
“How you doing?” he asks.
“What is it, Jack?” I sound snappy, I know, but after my embarrassing slip, I just want to get off the phone. “Did something happen?”
“No, it’s about tomorrow. I have to take Brayden to Little League, so Helen is going to pick you up. Okay?”
I have no idea what he’s talking about, but the pause goes on and on, so I figure he’s waiting for me to say something. So I say, “Okay.”
“I’m really looking forward to seeing you.”
“Yep,” I say. “Me, too.”
I glance at the doorway. The manager is waiting there. I want to tell him he doesn’t have to wait, that I’ll be able to find my way back to my room, but I’m not so sure I will. Probably best that he waits right where he is.
I stand for a moment longer, and then I realize the phone is beeping into my ear. Jack must have hung up. The manager is still in the doorway, and I don’t want him to know that Jack hung up on me, so I say loudly, “All right—bye, Jack.” Then I put the talking end of the phone on its cradle and follow Eric back to my room.
* * *
At Rosalind House, people fall asleep a lot, but never in their beds. During the day, while sitting in armchairs, they drop like flies. One minute they’re chatting away, and the next, zzzzzz. Dreamland. But at night, when a comfy bed is at the offering, wham. Wide awake. In this, as with so many things these days, I sympathize with the oldies. I’m tired a lot, and all day I look forward to a nice, restful sleep. But the moment I slip between the sheets, my lids are on stalks.
Tonight when I can’t sleep, I get out of bed and walk into the hallway. Blondie is there.
“You okay?” I ask her. There’s a room at the end of the corridor designated for the nurse on night shift, and usually by this time of night, she is in it.
She laughs. “I was about to ask you the same thing. Couldn’t sleep?” Blondie sounds happy and cheery, as usual.
“Thought I’d walk around a bit,” I say. “That okay?”
“Fine by me.” She holds up her thick-cup by the handle. “Want a hot chocolate? I’m making one for myself.”
I tell her no thanks and she heads for the kitchen. I go in the opposite direction. Rosalind House is a beautiful building, but by the light of only a couple of floor lamps, anything can look creepy, especially when you are alone. In the dark, I feel agitated. What am I supposed to do? Turning on the TV isn’t an option, as the residents are light sleepers and I’d rather be captured by gremlins than wake up Baldy. He’s grumpy enough on eight hours’ sleep. So my choices are to stand here in the dark … or to walk.
My legs feel tingly, so I walk. A few times up and down the staircase. I vaguely remember Dr. Brain telling me exercise was good for Alzheimer’s. For some reason, this makes me laugh. What a diligent student I am!
After a minute or so, I stop walking. I’m tired now. It often happens this way—wide awake one minute, and the next, weariness hits like a train. I turn to head back to my room, then pause. Am I upstairs or downstairs? I glance around. I’m on a flat area of carpet. Right ahead is a corridor with doors leading off it on either side. I must be downstairs.
I turn to face the stairs, but instead of rising up before me, they fall away, like a hole. I look around again. Corridor, doors, giant hole. I must be at the … Nope. I can’t work it out.
I pace a little, staying well clear of the hole. I’m sleepy and I just want to go to bed. It’s like I’m in a box. A fucking box. Like that spooky room in Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory, the one with only one door that no one can find. What if I can’t find it? What if I’m stuck in this box forever?
“Damn.” I kick the wall. “Stupid. Fucking. Stairs.”
I hear footsteps. Blondie! She’ll save me. I turn and, before I can stop myself, gasp. There’s someone at the bottom of the hole, and it’s not Blondie. I feel a twinge of fear or excitement or something.
“What are you d … doing?” Young Guy asks.
“Just walking,” I say. For some reason, I’m too proud to tell him I’m lost. “I’ve got a dead leg.”
“Wanna see s-s-omething?” He points beyond me. “Up there.”
Before I can answer, he’s dropped to his hands and knees and is crawling up the stairs. Must be to do with the depth perception—ten points for creativity. At the top, he rises to his feet and grins at me.
I try to grin back, but it sticks halfway.
He’s wearing a white V-neck and thin, navy-blue sweatpants—so thin, I can make out the shape of his legs (muscular) underneath. He makes sweatpants look pretty good. He gives me a one-eye blink and walks past me toward the front of the house.
“Come on,” he says. “Walk copy me.”
I’m getting used to his funny use of words, even starting to find it charming. He doesn’t seem embarrassed by any of it: the crawling, the stuttering, the muddled language. The way he owns it; it’s inspiring. And dead sexy.
He takes me to another set of stairs and crawls up. I follow on two feet. Then, at the end of the corridor, he opens a door. My heart is thundering. What are we doing? Where is he taking me?
“A-a-after you,” he says.
“No thanks.” My voice trembles a little. “After you.”
He goes in and touches a thing on the wall, and the room lights up. It’s a big room, like the parlor, but empty, apart from a few irregular-shaped mounds covered in white sheets. At one end of the room is a huge floor-to-ceiling window.
“Wow,” I say. “How did you know this was here?”
“When it’s n-nighttime and there’s no one around, you … find all many … things.”
Young Guy does a lap of the room, past a lamp and a fireplace that is covered with newspaper. He stops just inches in front of me. My breath catches. Considering I’ve known Young Guy only a short time, I’ve been up close to him quite a lot. Enough that the slope of his cheeks and the faint smatter of stubble on his face are comforting.
Comforting yet, at the same time, terrifying.
I become aware that the silence has gone on awhile, so I open my mouth to fill it. But he shakes his head.
“Just…” he says, “don’t talk.…”
His arms find my waist and pull me closer. And he presses his mouth to mine.
His lips are soft and warm. And suddenly, it feels like I’m floating. Young Guy tastes like peppermint; smells like it. I breathe him in. And then, as fast as it started, the kiss is over.
“Wow,” I say.
He smiles shyly, then drifts over to one sheet-covered mound and flicks off the sheet. Underneath is an old-fashioned record player.
“You like Nat King Cole?” he asks.
“Sure,” I say, but my voice is hoarse. Did that just happen?
“G-good. Because that’s a-a-all there is.”
He slides the record out of the cover, parks it on the dial, and lowers the pointy bit. In the next breath, Nat King Cole’s rich baritone notes fill the room. Young Guy and I stare at each other, expressionless.
“This is a joke, right?” I say as the swell of tension gives way to laughter. “‘Unforgettable’?”
“No,” he says, even though he’s laughing now, too. “I’ve listened to this record before, but I don’t remember hearing this song.”
“You … don’t”—A wave of hysteria hits. Now I’m laughing so hard, I can barely get the word out—“remember?”
That sets him off, which sets me off again. Which sets him off again. And for the next few minutes, he and I are just two young people. Laughing. Kissing. And listening to Nat King Cole.