I FOUND ANNE, no problem. Her brown and yellow skirt billowed and fluttered against the background of green forest like a butterfly. She looked up at the sound of my approach. “Thought you’d be packed up and hotfooting it home by now.”
I took a deep breath and exhaled into the shaded stillness. “Morgan stopped me.”
She handed me a mug of hot water with a tea bag steeping inside. “He must be a far-sighted man.”
“I’m very lucky.”
Anne nodded, but made no comment.
As I eased into a camp chair next to her, I caught the scent of turmeric, ginger, cinnamon, and honey rising with the steam from my mug. Anti-aging, anti-inflammatory, antioxidant, anti-everything that ails you. Just what I needed.
Silence, except for the ambient nature sounds that never grew silent.
“Marriage isn’t for the weak-hearted,” Anne said. “You’ve got to be strong. Hell, you’ve got to have guts. I mean you really stand naked when you marry someone. There’s not much you can hide.” She stared off into the distance, yet appeared to be looking inside. “You have to stand up for yourself, and at the same time be willing to compromise.”
Her words filtered through my mind, but I didn’t try to capture them. She leaned forward in her chair and set her mug on the fire pit ring. “With the right person, marriage can be heaven. It’s like a rebirth. You help each other develop in areas where you’re weak. But God help you if you marry the wrong person.” She shuddered. “It’s how I envision hell.”
A glimmer of pain in her eyes had me offering, “Love means letting go of fear.”
Anne blinked, but said nothing.
“Anyway, I can’t leave now,” I said. “I care about you and Adam. You’ve helped me mend some gaps in my worldview, making me feel better about myself and making me realize that my passage on this Earth isn’t an individual one, but a team effort. Observing Adam’s treatment of his son, and vice versa, has helped me understand Truus better, that her strict, even restrictive, parenting is done out of love and that I’ve been judging her too harshly. Plus, you’ve helped me open up to Antonia. How can I ever thank you enough for that?”
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.