“Ron thinks we should hire a caregiver for mom,” my brother David told me. I was scribbling notes and typing data in my studio apartment in a cool old building called The Mallory. “Hardwood floors and leaded glass doors” drew me immediately, and it wasn’t far from the PAB.
“That’s not Ron’s decision,” I said.
“I don’t think mom needs a caregiver, anyway. And I sure as hell know she wouldn’t want one.”
“Why’s Ron think she does?”
“She forgot how to log into her computer. Forgot the key code on the office door. Then there’s the little matter of the fender bender.”
“Fender bender?” I said. “Is she okay? How come you didn’t tell me?”
“I’m telling you now,” David said. “And yeah, she’s fine. But she calls Ron every time something happens. ‘What’s the key code? What’s my password? Who’s my insurance company?’”
“Just like she did with Brian.”
“Yeah,” David said. “And we saw where that ended up.”
Ron insisted mom get Brian into rehab. Brian pleaded with her not to. Ron insisted mom get a court order forcing Brian into rehab. She refused and Brian, in a rare moment of clarity, relented and went on his own. I think Brian felt sorry for her, having to fight with her brother about her son. Rehab didn’t take. Brian relapsed about a month after he finished.
“Mom could come live with me. I’d have to get a bigger place, but—”
“That’s a nice idea, sis, but alone, with no friends, in a big, strange city?”
“A big, strange, interesting city that might keep her mind off things.”
“We want her mind on things,” David said.
“How do we know she isn’t just depressed?”
“Grandpa. Genetics. Symptoms.”
“Symptoms of depression or dementia or Alzheimer’s or—” I said. “Until she agrees to see a neurologist or a psychiatrist or even a family practitioner, we won’t know.”
“That’s what I told Ron,” David said. “Getting a caregiver is putting the cart way before the horse.”
“How much does mom know about this caregiver plan?”
“Ron mentioned it. Sold the idea as kind of an extra set of hands. Housekeeping, shopping. Care giving, without the connotations.”
“What do you think of just-an-extra-set-of-hands? Sounds harmless enough.”
“I think having anyone reliable and trustworthy to help mom out now and then would be a great idea. Extra set of eyes and hands. Maybe that’s what we need. Someone impartial, who can tell if something seems amiss. But not an official caregiver.”
“What can I do?”
“Not worry. When was the last time you guys talked?”
“It’s been awhile,” I said. “You know how it can get with us.”
“Why don’t you call mom? Check in on her. Even if just to leave a message. She’s still in the office every day by eight thirty.”
“Good,” I said. “I always thought after dad died she’d retire. Also suggests to me she might need a vacay. Why don’t I work on her to come out here?”
“Seriously?”
“For a visit? Why not? You should come out, too.”
“Maybe over summer,” David said. “The idea of just you and mom, for a couple of weeks. That actually sounds like a great idea.”
“I’ve been known to have those, now and then,” I said.
I called mom that afternoon and left a message. The more I thought about it, the more I liked the idea of her getting away from Kenosha, from Ron and Marjorie, the memories of dad and Brian, even David. I’ve been in school for as long as I can remember, and so there was, in fact, a good reason mom and I never had a girls-only vacation. I should clarify—there was a good psychological reason. I’ve never felt settled. And the idea of mom staying in my always-tiny apartments or in the Pasadena guest room my Cal Tech roomies maintained, usually for younger siblings but once for a hip dad, never appealed to me. Mom and I have a weird mother-daughter dynamic. David insists she gets all proud and stiff-lipped whenever I come around, which is weird because I get all humbled and even shameful, that I still can’t report “I’ve made it!” Still can’t present myself to my mother as a fully-formed, functional, success-suffused adult. I’m in debt up to my ass if not my eyeballs; my chosen profession—astrobiology—has always seemed Quixotic, unrealistic, like the starving artist who puts herself through a $200,000 per year Master of Fine Arts program on little more than a government-guaranteed credit card. And mom is this debt-free pragmatist with the 820 credit scores, paid-off rental properties, nice home sans mortgage, no car loans, no school loans, and the proud title “Mother Who Helped Pay Tuition for Three Children,” two of whom don’t yet make enough money to return—or repay—the favor; and one of whom never will. And yet David says mom envies me. How do we tear down this wall, made of the bricks of misunderstanding?
I’ve tried talking to Ron about mom and me, but I think it just stresses him out. He’s all ears at first, sympathetic, wants to help, but then. Then, he goes into Ron mode and we end up with a kind of listless agreement about a vague plan based on illogical premises. All I want to do is to connect with my beautiful mother. I want to hold her. I want to laugh with her. I want us both to cry in my arms. You don’t know how much I wanted to kiss her hair and bathe in her tears after Brian died. How much I wanted to share with her about the Brian I knew, how his getting hooked on junk had nothing whatsoever to do with any of us. How we both loved him, the two women closest in his life. Instead, we fought. The knock-down drag outs from my tempestuous teen years reappeared, if briefly, to tuck point our bricks. And Ron decided I was, like Brian, taking an unfair emotional toll on his “fragile” sister. He stepped in to shore her up when that was the last thing she needed.
Ronald Gulliver—Uncle Ron—is my mother’s only surviving sibling, only surviving blood relative, other than us kids. I say “surviving” because mom’s little sister was killed in a freak accident. Grandma was changing her diaper in the front seat of a car called a “minivan.” Guess they were popular for family vacays forty years ago because that’s what they were on. Mom, Ron, Grandma Jennifer (for whom I was named) and Grandpa Max. Mom and Ron were playing a board game—I think Monopoly, but because mom never talks about it, I’m not sure. The backs of these minivans were large enough for kids to spread out on a blanket, chow down on snacks, nap, and play games to wile away the mileage. Grandma Jen was changing my aunt Lucy’s diaper, door open, in the front seat, at a rest stop. A car plowed into them. Grandpa Max ran out of the men’s room. He found mom and Uncle Ron huddled in the back of the bashed-up car, covered with blood and inches from death but otherwise unscathed. Ron was holding my mother, shielding her eyes.
Grandpa Max never recovered. He never remarried. Uncle Ron has trouble recalling any times after the accident that his dad laughed. The happy-go-lucky man who had been afraid of nothing, the pragmatic doer who had worked since age fifteen, and who grew up learning patience and resilience on the road while his mother searched for work after his father died a young man—that easygoing, fearless guy became afraid of his own proverbial shadow. Which may be why when his decline began, we at first attributed it to grief rather than the well-characterized disease that may now plague my mother. Alzheimer’s was actually a mercy in Grandpa Max’s life. It made him forget his grief. He couldn’t even remember how to walk toward the end, and while I cannot say he was happy, he was no longer in realizable pain.
“Hey.” My mom called me back with our usual terse greeting.
“Hey,” I said. “How’s Kenowhere?”
“Still here,” she said. “How’s Seattle?”
“The most brilliant sunny sky you’ve ever seen.” And I wasn’t lying just to get her to come out. Seattle did have those days, clustered around certain months—a few weeks late summer, early Fall, and often up to a month during the Spring, before and after which gray and drizzle prevailed. “I can even see Mt. Rainier today,” I told her.
“Sounds amazing,” she said.
“You need to come out. See for yourself.”
“I’ve never been to Seattle,” she said. “You know, Harold almost landed there. Sent me the prettiest postcards.”
“Dr. Hale?”
“Yes,” she said.
“I thought you two never spoke after you broke it off.”
“There are things about me, darling daughter, you do not know.”
“Ah. Une intrigue.”
“Bien sûr! Et vous pensiez que votre mère vivait une existence aussi humble,” my mother said.
“Don’t try to talk your way out of it.”
“Parler de sortir de quelque chose? Bannissez la pensée!”
“You win. My French will never rival yours.”
“But what fun we could have stumbling our way across France, eh?”
I hadn’t heard this tone in my mother’s voice for a long time. It was charming, even a little seductive. This woman, thirty five years ago, standing on the shores of Lake Michigan, wind in her hair, chiseled cheeks ruddy and lovely, dashing off French elocutions. Harold Hale wouldn’t have stood a chance. Maybe that’s why he left.
“How is Dr. Brando’s little girl?” mom asked.
“I just saw her,” I said. “She’s doing okay.”
“What a little charmer.”
“She sure took to you.”
“I took to her. That was such a fun trip.”
“It was,” I agreed. “When was the last time we were all together like that?”
My mother was quiet, probably thinking. “The Christmas before Brian died,” she said. “I guess it wasn’t like that, though, was it?”
“No,” I said. “It wasn’t like Christmas at all.”
“I need to get out of this cold. I love Wisconsin, but—”
“Remember how Dad talked about moving to Florida?”
I heard her sigh. “Have to do things in life before it’s too late,” she said.
“So can we plan on you coming out here? Staying with me? It’s a little cramped, but...”
She didn’t say anything.
“Dr. Levitt would love to see you again. And you never met the whole team.”
Still nothing.
“Lexi Brando.”
“All right,” my mother chuckled. “You’ve convinced me. J’aimerais venir te voir.” Which loosely translated means, “I would love to come see you.”
“I’d love it, too.” I was on Cloud Ten for the rest of the night. We spent the next few weeks making plans.