Rolling her wheelchair past the piano of death, Zoe looked away from the framed photograph of a white-haired man with an oval mole on his cheek and a long list of accomplishments and community memberships. She felt sad for the man’s grandchildren and didn’t want to think about the day Flo’s existence would be reduced to an 8 × 11 frame on that shiny wood surface. She’d read about Alzheimer’s on the Internet and knew Flo could live for years. Her body could, at least.
She took Jeremy’s hand. It was sweet of him to spend part of his Saturday visiting her grandmother. He said it was cool, that he really liked talking to Flo.
Next to the elevator, the activity room was being set up with booths and tables, for some sort of festival or fair. Hillside Helps, announced the banner over the double doors.
“Helps what?” Zoe asked.
Jeremy read from a poster on the wall. “Get involved with the organizations that work to improve our community.”
“Cool,” Zoe said. “Let’s bring Flo down. She’ll enjoy it.”
Flo was sitting by the window in her room with a book closed in her lap. Her face lit up when Zoe and Jeremy entered. “Finally, some fun,” she said. “I’ve been here a month and this place bores me to tears.”
“You’ve been here a week, Ma,” Sam said from his perch on the bed, computer on his lap.
Flo waved his comment away. “Feels like a month. I’ve been here long enough to hate it. The people here smell bad.”
Zoe rolled her eyes and wheeled close to hug her grandmother. “In any case, today will be fun. There’s a community fair downstairs.”
Flo made a face. “Bunch of silly do-gooders.”
Jeremy sat in the guest chair. “What’s wrong with doing good?”
“Do you know the difference between liberal and radical, young man?”
“Don’t get started, Ma,” Sam said.
“The fellow asked me a question,” Flo said. “He deserves an answer.”
Sam shrugged and turned back to his computer.
“I’m not sure I know the difference you mean,” Jeremy said.
Or that you really want to, Zoe thought.
“It’s the difference between putting a band-aid on a gaping wound,” Flo said. “A wound like poverty or racism, versus trying to correct what caused the injury in the first place. Making that commitment and following through, no matter what the consequences.”
Jeremy had spent a lot of time considering consequences. How children are often the collateral damage of their parents’ choices. Even if the parents mean well, even if the effects are hidden or subtle or dormant for decades. Not only the families of spies or serial murderers or drug dealers are at risk; the white picket fence can hide unforgivable error or neglect, pious fanaticism or cavernous sorrow. Kids are simultaneously fragile and resilient; who knows why one blooms in the dark and another withers in bright sunshine.
Why was Tim so untouched by their shared past, why was he the one with obsessions about fragility, about extinction, the one with hallucinations—or whatever they were—of plants growing out of his fingertips? Not that he would give it up, not entirely, not all of it. Looking at Zoe, so comfortable with herself despite how she was born, he wondered if he’d ever feel normal.
“Do you really mean that?” Jeremy asked Flo. “Because the consequences can be huge.”
Flo’s face had slackened and she didn’t answer. Zoe told him on the phone that Flo was in and out of lucidity, sometimes floating off in the middle of a sentence. Too bad, because Jeremy really wanted to know the answer to his question and he didn’t know that many people to ask besides Flo. Mary maybe. If he ever had the chance to talk to her again.
“What happened to you?” Flo asked without opening her eyes. “To make you ask about consequences?”
What could he tell this old woman? That Tian and Francie had lived their utopian dream, trying to repair the social damage they observed around them. Was it their fault that their dream became his nightmare?
“Bad things happened to my family when I was nine,” Jeremy said. He was nine and hiding in the snowy woods with Tim, watching the cops kick and beat his dad, drown the bonfire, cuff and take away all the members of his family. “When you’re a kid and bad happens, it sticks to you like superglue. Forever.”
“But Jeremy …” Sam started.
“I know, Sam,” Jeremy said. “You were there, with your crazy mustache, and you saved us and I’m really grateful. But nothing can erase what happened. It was like growing up in a war zone.”
Zoe reached for Jeremy’s hand. “Or like being a mutant.”
Jeremy nodded. “That’s right. Mutants are people who feel different and discarded. They’ve been pushed away and live on the edge of things.”
Flo’s eyes snapped open. “That’s the lumpenproletariat,” she said. “The only way to get power is to fight back, organize yourselves.”
“I don’t know about the lumpen-people,” Jeremy said, “but Zoe and I are inheriting a world that is self-destructing. Even if I want to do the expected thing—get a good job, have a family—what’s the use? Our kids will grow up to environmental catastrophe.” Jeremy blushed furiously on the word kids, avoiding Zoe’s gaze. “How fair is that?” he said, looking at the floor.
“Who ever told you life was fair?” Flo asked.
Sam stood up. “This is fascinating, Ma. But let’s all go downstairs and check out the fair before lunch.”
Sam had to sign his mother out of the Memory Unit before punching in the four-digit elevator code. He knew the reason for the precautions, but when Flo muttered, “prison,” he couldn’t disagree. Still, she was safe here. No more wandering off and forgetting where she lived. No more fires.
Downstairs, the activity room was crowded. Every non-profit in town had a table, from homeless vets to domestic abuse, from global warming to civil liberties. Zoe and Flo wandered together from display to display and Sam followed, trying not to lose sight of them. He didn’t know whether to hope his mother got involved with something or worry that she would join a group and let loose her particular brand of bossy passion on the unsuspecting members.
While his mother and daughter chatted with a ponytailed man about the battered women’s shelter, Sam joined Jeremy at the climate change booth.
“There’s great stuff here,” Jeremy said, holding a flyer from 350.org. “These guys have a chapter at UMass and I went to my first meeting on Tuesday.”
Zoe wheeled up to them, Flo leaning heavily on the wheelchair. “Grandma’s tired of walking. Time for lunch.”
Two young women holding clipboards flanked the exit. One stepped forward and asked, “Can you spare a moment for reproductive rights?”
Sam glanced at his mother, whose face was turning a deep red. Uh-oh. He had a bad feeling about this.
“How dare you?” Flo voice cascaded to a scream. “Look at you, you babies, asking me if I can spare a moment for reproductive rights? Do you have any fucking clue what we faced, how hard we fought to gain those rights you’re talking about?”
Flo snatched the woman’s clipboard and raised it like a club, then threw it at the two women, who cowered while the clipboard clattered across the tile floor.
“It’s okay, Ma.” Sam put his arm around Flo and tried to swivel her away from the women. Jeremy picked up the clipboard and handed it to its owner.
“It’s not okay. It’s insulting.” Flo slapped at Sam’s hands.
“Sorry,” murmured the young woman clutching the clipboard to her chest. The other canvasser looked stunned.
Zoe grabbed her grandmother’s hand and tugged. “Let’s get lunch. I’m famished.”
Flo turned back to the two young women. “Feh. You know nothing.” Spittle sprayed with the force of her words. “Nothing.”
Trixie appeared at Flo’s side. “Is there a problem, dear?”
“I’m not your dear and yes, there’s a problem. These insulting, stupid girls know nothing.” Flo started walking toward the elevator, Zoe and Jeremy hurrying after her.
“I’m so sorry,” Sam said to Trixie and the young women.
Trixie patted his arm. “You don’t have to apologize, Mr. Tobin. It’s the disease.”
Sam wanted to be alone, to weep, but he had to pay attention. The director was still talking.
“This kind of aggressive symptomatology is not uncommon,” Trixie said. “Unfortunately this is not the first incident with your mother. We have to consider the safety and tranquility of our community. I suspect that when Dr. Robertson hears about this, he’ll decide it’s time to begin the psychotropic medication he mentioned to you.”
After the incident with Flo and the canvassers, lunch was anything but cheerful. Sam dropped Zoe and Jeremy off at the library and went home. Instead of going upstairs and finishing building a website for the new Asian fusion restaurant at the X, he rang the downstairs doorbell. Sam hated to ask Emily for medical advice but he didn’t know where else to turn. She was a nurse, even if she refused to administer to family.
Anna answered the door. “Hey,” she said. “How’s your mom?”
“Not great,” Sam said. “That’s why I’m here. I’m worried. Is Emily home?”
“In the kitchen, kneading bread.” Anna stepped back to let Sam enter and followed him down the hall.
“Hey, Sam. Talk to me while I take out my frustrations on seven grains who can’t fight back,” Emily said.
“Tea?” Anna asked.
Sam nodded and sank into a chair at the table. This much kindness was almost more than he could handle. He cleared the moisture from his throat and watched Emily form the kneaded dough into a mound and drape a towel over it. Anna warmed the teapot and spooned loose tea into it. One of the things that fascinated him when they first met was her refusal to use tea bags, instead carrying a small china teapot to the college dining room every morning. It was hard to remember their idyllic beginning, how happy they were until the ultrasound and Zoe’s birth. If only Anna had been able to express doubt or fear about their daughter’s situation; if only he’d been able to wrap his brain around it without terror.
“What’s happening with Flo?” Anna’s voice was soft as sorrow.
“Bad behavior,” Sam said. “Acting out even more than usual. They’re going to start her on some drug to calm her down. You worked in a nursing home, didn’t you, Emily? After.”
“You mean after I got fired from the home care job?” Emily said. “For about six months. I hated it, partly because of those drugs.”
He took a folded brochure from his pocket. “I must have read this a hundred times, but I still don’t understand it. The risks are so bad—cardiac rhythm problems and heart failure, strokes and death. Why would they give her something like that?”
Emily glanced at the paper. “It’s an off-label use. This med isn’t recommended for elderly patients with dementia, but it’s used a lot for that purpose because there’s nothing better. Belligerent behavior with cognitive impairment is really hard to manage and psychotropic drugs work. Sort of.”
Sam watched Anna pour boiling water into the teapot. “What else does it do?”
“All the nasties you mentioned. Sometimes it triggers a cascade of medical problems. It can also act like a sedative. Some people become lethargic.” Emily hesitated. “How bad is her cognitive function?”
“Up and down,” he said. “I mean, I know that’s supposed to be common, but it’s so variable. One day she’s pretty cogent, makes sense and everything. The next day, she looks at me like she’s not quite sure of my name, but she thinks she remembers that I’m an okay guy so she should be nice to me.” He paused. “She can’t stay there unless she takes the medicine. Should I try to move her to a different place?”
“You could try,” Emily said. “But I think most facilities medicate patients to control antisocial behavior. They have to, and sometimes the meds work pretty well. There’s no magic bullet for this.” Her voice softened. “There might be no better option.”
Anna scooted her chair closer to Sam’s and put both arms around him. “I’m so sorry, Sam. I always admired your mother, how tough and fierce she is, even though she didn’t have much use for me.”
“She liked you,” he said. “As much as she liked anyone who wasn’t a blood relative or a comrade. Preferably both.”
Emily poured three cups of tea. Sam inhaled the tea steam and the aroma transported him to the apartment he and Anna rented in those first deliriously happy months. He had to clear his throat again.
He stood up. “I can’t do this.”
“Sit down,” Anna said. “Talk to me about Zoe and this boy.”
Sam sat. “Jeremy? He’s a good kid.”
Anna made a face. “But he’s so much older. And got to admit I’m concerned about his family. Prison and the commune or cult or whatever it was?”
“Come on,” Sam said. “You can’t hold the kid responsible for his family. Besides, is your family any saner? Emily’s dad was in prison, just like Jeremy’s.”
“It’s not only his family,” Anna said. “It sounds like he’s not that stable emotionally. That worries me.”
Sam started to argue with her. He liked Jeremy and wanted Anna to like him too, but he didn’t have the energy for it, not today. He stood up again. “It might take him a while, but Jeremy will figure it out. But right now I can’t focus on anything except my mother. She’s declining pretty fast. Is that normal?”
“Nothing is normal with this disease,” Emily said. “I’m so sorry.”
Anna stood too and hugged him. “Let me know if I can do anything, okay?”
“Me too,” Emily added. “One of the hardest things about this disease is that it doesn’t progress in an orderly manner. Some days there’s profound memory loss. Other days, people remember a lot. Including how much they’ve lost and will lose.”
“I’m not sure which of those is worse,” Sam said.