Eve
It takes a few weeks, but I get to know each of the residents. I even have a few favorites. Clara, of course, is easy to love, with her Southern accent and her penchant for calling everyone “honey.” Her husband, Laurie, is equally delightful, if only for the way he adores his wife. There’s May, quiet and so old, I often find myself checking her breathing when she falls asleep in her chair. There’s Gwen, stout and cheerful, and always knitting. Then there’s the perpetually grumpy Bert, who somehow is still a favorite. Perhaps it’s the fact that Clem has taken a shine to him? Or maybe it’s that he’s still head over heels for the wife he lost fifty years ago? Whatever it is, I get the feeling he’s a favorite of Gwen’s, too, if the way she looks at him is anything to go by.
I’ve been at Rosalind House about a month now, and there’s no denying that the place is starting to look shabby. The mirrors have little specks of God-knows-what all over them, and the carpets are covered in hair and dirt. And, as Eric has yet to hire a cleaner, it is my responsibility to do something about it. Still, I continue to find excuses to cook rather than clean. If the ladies notice, they don’t say anything. Bert, however, is a different story.
“You realize my bathroom’s not self-cleaning, right, girlie?” he says one afternoon within earshot of Eric. After that, I know I can’t dillydally any longer. And that’s where Eric finds me: on my knees, scrubbing Bert’s toilet.
“What’s that cooking in the kitchen?” he asks, hanging around the bathroom door. “It smells incredible.”
“Ground beef and spinach parcels,” I say. “There’s plenty if you’re interested.…”
“Better not.” Eric pats his stomach, which is hanging proudly over the top of his belt buckle. “Actually I just wanted a quick chat. I understand you’ve been doing the grocery shopping at Houlihan’s.”
I sit back on my haunches, cringing. He must have heard about the slap.
“The thing is,” he says, “the last bill was nearly twice our weekly food budget.”
This is not what I was expecting. “Oh. I’m sorry.”
“It’s not your fault,” Eric says. “I should have specified where we go to buy groceries. I just … didn’t expect you to go to Houlihan’s!”
He lets out a short laugh and I feel a pulse of shame. Clearly being married to Richard had left me out of touch. But twice the weekly food budget? Was that possible?
“You mean … your previous cook managed to feed everyone for a week on half that amount? All twelve residents, three meals a day, seven days a week?”
“She did.”
“Wow.”
“Going to a regular or discount grocery store extends the budget quite a bit,” he says pointedly. “And buying seasonal items, items on special.”
“Okay well.… where shall I go? Houlihan’s is … the only one I know in the area.”
“You could try Food Basics or Aldi,” he says. “Or Bent and Dent.…”
I laugh, assuming Bent and Dent is a joke. But Eric nods and smiles like it’s a done deal.
“Oh and I nearly forgot!” he says, handing me a letter bearing Clem’s school emblem. His frown, when it appears, bears a trace of curiosity. “This came for you yesterday. Sent to this address—”
“Oh!” I take it and drive it deep into my own pocket. “Sorry, I didn’t have a fixed address when I enrolled Clem, but this, uh … this is great.”
I smile. Eric continues to stand there. I start to sweat.
“Was there anything else, Eric?”
“Actually there is one other thing. It’s May’s birthday tomorrow—one hundred years old. Her family is planning a party for the weekend, but I’d like to do something with the residents tomorrow. Just some balloons and maybe”—he looks coy—“a cake?”
“I’m sure I can throw something together,” I say.
“Carrot cake is her favorite,” he says. “And I’d like it to be a surprise, if possible.”
“No problem,” I say. “But I’ll need to go to the store again for ingredients. Bent and Dent,” I add quickly. “I can come back tonight and bake it here.”
“I’d owe you one,” he says. His eyes rest on mine long enough to make me uncomfortable. “In fact, how would you like to check out one of the local wine bars, say Friday night? We can share a good bottle of red? My treat.”
I blink.
“Just two single people, hanging out,” he says, smiling. “No big deal.”
I imagine myself at Emilio’s with Eric. The redness of his cheeks, his teeth stained black, his belly peeking out between buttons. I’d almost certainly run into someone I knew. Andrea or Romy would be overjoyed. Karma, they’d whisper to each other, it’s a bitch.
Eric watches me, eyebrows raised. He thinks he’s a shoo-in. There’s a cockiness about him, I realize. He thinks that whatever he wants, he can take.
“I’m busy Friday,” I say. “Perhaps some other time.”
* * *
That afternoon, it’s time to work on the vegetable patch. It’s warm and still, and the sky is pale blue, mottled with cloud. A perfect planting day.
“Okay,” I say to the residents. “Who’s ready?”
Gwen and Clara stand before me in wide-brimmed hats and floral gardening gloves. Clara was an avid gardener, she tells me, with a thriving vegetable garden in her yard that used to win her plenty of prizes at the community fair. Gwen isn’t quite so experienced, but her enthusiasm makes up for it. Anna and Luke have also joined us, and while I haven’t been able to assess their level of enthusiasm, they certainly didn’t put up a fight.
Our patch is in a lovely sunny part of the garden. Angus has already loosened the soil and worked through the compost and limestone, not to mention built a retractable canopy that’s every bit as good as the ones in the stores. Now he’s in an adjacent garden bed, weeding and mulching and watering. Angus and I have made some headway since that fateful day at Houlihan’s. We’re not best friends, but the long cold stares, at least, are a thing of the past. He even gives me the odd wave if he sees me through the kitchen window, and the other day he showed me how to make a special nonchemical spray to keep the bugs off my vegetables.
“Clara,” I say, “since you are the expert, why don’t you take this quadrant of the bed and transfer the started plants. You can show Gwen what to do. Anna and Luke, we can take this section and scatter the seed.”
I’ve given this a lot of thought. Luke and Anna can follow simple instructions, so scattering seeds and watering will be perfect for them, and easy for Anna to do from her wheelchair. While Clara and Gwen get to work, I get out my packets of seed.
“Okay—Luke, Anna. We’re going to plant arugula seeds. The earth is all ready, all we need to do is open the packet like this … and then scatter it.”
I sprinkle a few seeds, then check to see if Anna and Luke are following. But Anna’s eyes are on Clara and Gwen, who are digging holes for the transferred plants. Luke is watching Anna. After a moment, they both look back at me.
“Try to spread them thinly and evenly,” I say, turning back to the garden. “Now, who wants to try?”
When I look back, Anna has wheeled herself over to Clara and Gwen.
“You need to go deeper or the roots won’t take,” she tells them, gesturing at them to dig. They do as she says. “There,” she says, nodding. “Like that.”
“She’s right,” Clara says to Gwen, “we were being lazy.”
“I didn’t know you could garden, Anna,” I say.
“Did you know I was a champion boxer?” she says, not looking up.
“No.”
“That’s because I’m not,” she says, and everyone bursts into laughter.
Anna tells us her mother was a gardening enthusiast and she had spent many summers with a trowel in her hand. As she talks, I notice she is so much more than her Alzheimer’s. She’s funny. Witty. Warm. And something else. A leader? Whatever it is, as we all move and shift and clamber around the garden bed, she always remains in the center of the group.
After a while, I pick up my packets of seeds. “Well,” I say, “how about I scatter these seeds?”
Anna looks up at me and gives me the biggest grin. “Go on, then,” she says. “Get busy.”
* * *
When everything has been planted, I head inside to make a jug of lemonade. I return a few minutes later and pour everyone a glass, then take one over to Angus. He’s wiping his forehead with the hem of his T-shirt, exposing a tanned, muscular stomach.
A flash of Richard, shirtless in Hawaii on our honeymoon, comes to mind. Richard’s body was nothing on Angus’s, but it was broad and taut. I remember watching him brush his teeth one morning, a crisp white towel at his waist. I thought to myself that one day, that body would be old and wrinkled and sagging at the elbows. I remember that the thought had made me smile.
“For me?” Angus says when he lets the T-shirt fall.
I shrug. “It’s warm out here.”
“That it is.” He drops his trowel, grabs the lemonade, and takes a sip, then wipes his mouth with the back of his hand. “It’s good.”
I know it’s good. My homemade lemonade is famous in these parts. Last year, the school practically begged me to run a stall at the fund-raiser, and I was told it was the most lucrative stall of the day.
This year Romy and Andrea were running an orange-juice stand.
“It’s a favorite recipe of mine,” I say.
Angus takes another sip. “So who taught you about cooking, then?”
“I was self-taught before the cookery school,” I say. “I became interested in flavors in high school, I guess. Were you always interested in plants?”
I wait as he drains his glass. “Nope. I wanted to be a professional football player.”
“You did?”
“Didn’t every guy?” He laughs. “Unfortunately, I wasn’t any good at football.”
Now I laugh.
“Eh, a guy’s gotta dream,” he says. “My grandmother loved gardening, though. I practically grew up in her garden. When I realized the football thing wasn’t going to work out, I thought … there are worse things than spending your life in the garden. As Grandma says, now I’ll never stop smelling the roses.”
Automatically, I glance over at the roses. They are pink and white, climbing up a trellis on one side of the house. “Except in winter,” I point out. “You won’t smell them then.”
Angus gives me a searching look.
“I just mean,” I say, “that nothing lasts forever.”
He holds his glass out to me. “Some things last forever, don’t they?”
I look over at Anna and Luke. “Honestly?” I say. “I have no idea.”
* * *
That night, after I’ve cleaned up dinner, I head to the store to pick up ingredients for May’s birthday cake. By the time I make it back to Rosalind House, most of the residents are in their rooms and the place is low-lit and quiet.
It’s strange being at Rosalind House at night. Usually, the place is bustling and alive. Now, apart from the bubble and swoosh of the dishwasher, it’s dead silent, which is vaguely unnerving.
Mother is watching Clem at our apartment and I call to say goodnight around 8 P.M. An hour later I’m grating lemon rind into my cream cheese frosting when a woman’s scream pierces the silent air. I drop my spatula and follow the noise to Anna’s door.
“Eve?”
Rosie appears beside me and I am flooded with relief. “I … I heard the screaming,” I say.
“Pretty hard not to.” She smiles, resigned. “I’ll look after her, don’t worry.”
As Rosie reaches for the lock, I’m struck by how unruffled she is. Unsurprised. Then I remember Eric’s words. “Sometimes they become upset at night.” I’d pictured sleeplessness. Nightmares, perhaps. Not this.
Rosie steps into the room, and instinctively, I shadow her. We find Anna sitting up in bed. Her blankets are kicked off and hair is wild around her face.
“What’s going on, Anna?” Rosie asks. “You sound upset. Can I help?”
“I want to go home!” Anna’s voice is a razor, intended to hurt. “Take me home.”
“Why don’t I turn on this light?” Rosie advances slowly but confidently. “Help you see a bit better.”
“No!” Anna shouts. “Where is he?”
A tingle runs down my spine.
“Is there someone we can help you find?” Rosie asks.
Anna nods. “Yes. Him.” Then her face starts to crumple. “I … want to go home.”
“All right,” Rosie says cheerfully. “I’ll take you home. But it’s pretty late for driving right now. How about a cup of tea first? Then, when it’s light, you and me will hop in the car? Sound good?”
Anna watches Rosie carefully. “Is Jack at home? And Mom?”
“Everyone’s there,” Rosie says. “But it’s nighttime; they’re probably fast asleep. We don’t want to wake them.”
“Okay,” Anna says, a little suspicious. “But in the morning, you’ll take me home?”
“Absolutely.”
Rosie’s voice is so soothing that I almost believe her. Except for the fact that Eric told me Anna’s mom was dead.
“Would you mind making us some tea, Eve?” Rosie says. “Anna likes peppermint and I’ll have chamomile. And would you mind checking that the other residents are still asleep? I’m going to stay here with Anna for a bit.” She produces a tissue and discreetly wipes Anna’s nose.
I nod. “Yes. I’ll do it now.”
I listen at the doors of the other residents, and miraculously, all I hear is snoring. They’ve all slept through it. Something to be said for poor hearing. The place is quiet, peaceful. All except for Anna.
“Everyone’s sleeping,” I say when I return with the tea. Rosie is sitting next to Anna on her bed, giving her a hand massage. I set the tray on the table.
“Thanks,” Rosie says. “Anna and I are going to hang out for a while. I love watching the late-night infomercials, and now I’ll have company.”
“Would you—?” I start, then wonder if it’s going to sound strange or presumptuous. “Would you like some more company? My cake is just out of the oven and it needs to cool a little before I ice it.”
Rosie shrugs. “What do you think, Anna? Would you mind if Eve stayed to watch TV with us?”
Anna’s eyes, narrowed and searching, settle on me. “Okay,” she says. “That’s okay.”
Rosie throws me a pillow and I wedge myself onto the bed. Anna is in the middle, leaning back against the pillows with Rosie and me, her bookends. She seems calmer now, but she jitters a little, whispering under her breath. “Where is he? Where is he?”
She’s talking about Luke; of that, I’m now certain. And after tonight, one thing’s for sure. If this is what her life is like—being locked up in her room, alive but not living—I understand why she jumped off the roof. If I were kept locked up, away from the ones I loved, I’d want to kill myself, too.
* * *
After Anna falls asleep, Rosie and I slip out of her room. We convene in the hallway, in a puddle of moonlight.
“I get the feeling that’s not the first time this has happened?” I say.
Rosie yawns. “Sadly not. Night-restlessness is common. It happens to Luke, too, from time to time.”
“That’s who she meant, isn’t it? When she said ‘Where is he?’”
“Probably,” Rosie admits.
“So why couldn’t we just take her to him?”
“The families have decided they don’t want them to be together, so there’s no point in entertaining it,” she says. “It’s better to just change the subject.”
“But they were … friends, weren’t they? Why wouldn’t the families want them to visit?”
Rosie says nothing.
“Do you think they—?” I start.
“Still have a connection?” she says.
I nod, relieved that Rosie has already considered this. “It’s a tough one,” she says. “No one really knows for sure what people with dementia are capable of.”
“But…?”
“But,” she says, “my guess is that they are capable of a lot more than people think. At the last place I worked, there were two residents with Alzheimer’s, Rodney and Betty. Every afternoon they sat together and watched soap operas and held hands. Their diseases were fairly progressed, and there was no way they could remember that they did this every day, so for them, every time was the first time. Rodney always made the first move, letting their hands touch a little, as if it were an accident. Then, when Betty smiled, he went all in, linking fingers and stroking the back of her hand with his thumb. It was exactly the same every day. On the odd occasion that one of them had visitors or an appointment at that time, they still watched the soap operas with the other residents, but they always seemed a little agitated. And neither of them ever held anyone else’s hand.” She smiles. “Dementia steals things—memories, speech, other abilities. But I don’t think it changes who you are, or who you love.”
“If that’s what you think … how do you feel about the door-locking?” I ask.
“Well, Anna did jump off the roof,” she says. I notice that Rosie is not meeting my eye anymore.
“Rosie,” I say. “What is it?”
She waves a hand at me. “Look, in an ideal world, of course the doors would be unlocked. There’d also be plenty of staff who could stay up with them all night, and they’d have a well-lit area where they could do activities. But even private facilities like Rosalind House don’t have the funding to staff twenty-four-hour activities. I do what I can. But Eric has told me in no uncertain terms that Anna and Luke need to stay in their rooms and that I am to lock the doors. I know it seems cruel. But instead of focusing on that, I try to focus on the things I can do to make life better for them. Every shift I have here, I have the power to make life a little better for them. That is my goal.”
“So why did you tell Anna you were going to take her home?” I ask. “And that her mom would be there? You know her mom is dead, right?”
“Yes,” she says. “But Anna thought she was alive. Did you want me to break it to her that not only was she in a strange place, but that her mother was dead, too?”
“No, but … surely honesty is the best policy? Aren’t you breaking the trust between you by lying?”
Rosie smiles, but it’s a sad expression. “Close your eyes.”
“What?”
She reaches for my forehead, then drags her fingers over my lids until I see black. “Now imagine that when you open your eyes, you’re in a completely unfamiliar place. You don’t recognize anything, you don’t recognize me, and you can’t find anyone you know. You’re scared and confused and disoriented. You ask to be taken home, and someone you don’t recognize tells you this is your home and you’re not going anywhere. Every time you ask for your mother, someone tells you she is dead. And because you can’t retain that information for long, you have to hear it again and again and again. How would that make you feel?”
Rosie speaks gently, without judgment, but still, the words feel like a sucker punch. When I open my eyes, they’re full of tears.
“In the morning, Anna won’t remember that I promised to take her home. All she will know is how she feels. And with any luck, she’ll be feeling safe, secure, and happy.” Rosie watches me, looking for comprehension in my face. “We can make each moment frightening for her with the truth. Or we can lie to her and make each moment happy and joyous. I know what I’d prefer if it were me.”