insley slid onto the driver’s seat and waited for Chris and Gina. When they hopped in the back, she angled the rear-view mirror to catch Gina’s gaze. “Nothing I like better than playing chauffer.”
Gina’s cheeks colored. “I’m sorry. I thought Chris would . . . Want me to come up there?”
“No, it’s fine.” She turned the engine and eased out of the parking lot, waving to Deborah as she left.
“Oh, my! Is it that late already?”
Ainsley glanced back to see Chris staring at his watch.
“Is everything OK?”
“Yeah, I guess I didn’t realize your service went so late. I normally eat lunch with my mom on Sundays. How long does it take to drive back? Twenty minutes?”
Ainsley shrugged, a lump forming in the back of her throat as she thought about her own mother. They hadn’t spoken since the salt-dough experience.
Love initiates, expecting nothing in return. How many times had she heard that message? How many prayers of surrender had she offered? But somehow her determination dwindled once she left the sanctuary.
She studied Chris’s reflection in the mirror. “We’re about twenty to thirty minutes out, depending on how many tractors or escaping cows we encounter along the way.”
“It’ll be close. I hate to ask, but . . . A crooked smile began to emerge. “You guys wouldn’t happen to like overcooked country fried steak and mashed potatoes, would you? My mom does much better with routine, although there’s a good chance she’ll forget our luncheon. But if she does remember and I don’t show up, or I show up late . . . His forehead creased.
A turkey wobbled across the road and Ainsley slowed. “No biggie. I’ll drop you off. Where is it?”
Gina leaned forward. “But how would he get home?”
“Right.” There could be worse ways to spend her Sunday. “Country fried steak sounds lovely.”
They spent the rest of the drive engaged in small talk, Gina asking enough questions to fuel a national trivia contest while Ainsley stifled a giggle at Chris’s two-to-three-word answers. They pulled into the Shady Lane Parking Lot exactly twenty-two minutes later.
Once parked, Chris jumped out and led the way up the sidewalk, into the nursing home, and through a sparsely furnished lobby. Ainsley and Gina scurried after him.
The rich aroma of roasted meat and melted butter drifted down the hall, followed by a steady clanking of silverware and the agitated chatter of voices. One woman’s voice dominated them all.
“Hermon, I just took you to the bathroom. Eat already before I take your food away.”
Chris stormed down the hall and around the corner, hands fisted. He didn’t slow until he stood in front of a woman dressed in a faded smock. Gina and Ainsley gathered behind him, exchanging glances.
Upon seeing Chris, the woman’s scowl smoothed into a stiff smile. “Mr. Langley, I thought perhaps you weren’t coming today.”
Chris’s eyes blazed. He turned to an arthritic man sitting beside him and placed a hand on his shoulder. “Hermon, my buddy! How you like them mashed taters?”
Hermon’s gray eyes lifted and a smile emerged on his food-speckled face. He mumbled something, every third word punctuated by a chuckle.
“You better eat your supper, buddy, before these hungry ladies steal those tender peas of yours.” He shot Gina and Ainsley a wink. “Mind if I take a taste?”
After a little more banter, Hermon picked up his spoon.
The nursing assistant muttered something under her breath then wandered to another table, her plummeted eyebrows casting a long shadow over her face.
Ainsley stared after her. “That lady’s a little low in the compassion department, huh?”
Chris’s steely eyes softened when he turned to Ainsley. “You know what they say about those who are overworked and under-paid, although most of the staff’s pretty good.” He scanned the dining room then strolled toward a woman sitting three tables down at the end. The woman glanced up when they approached.
“How are you?” Chris leaned over to kiss her, but stopped short when she flinched and pulled away.
“Do I know you? You look so familiar.” She wrung a napkin in her hands.
He motioned to an empty seat. “Mind if we join you?”
She studied each face in turn, smiling when her gaze met Ainsley’s. “Now aren’t you a pretty little thing, just like an angel dropped straight from heaven. Have you eaten yet?”
“We were about to fill our plates.” Chris smiled. “Will you hold this seat for us?”
Ainsley followed Gina and Chris to the buffet counter, smiling at the residents she passed. Most of them lit up when their eyes met.
A woman in a paisley sweatshirt grabbed Ainsley by the arm. “Such beautiful curls. They’re natural, aren’t they?” She lifted a wrinkled hand to touch Ainsley’s hair. “I used to have curly hair.” She ran her hands across her silver locks. “Used to be a blonde too.”
“Least you still have hair.” A baldheaded man with age spots speckled across his arms rubbed his head. “What do you say? Think you can spare a few strands for me? Get me some Super Glue, and I can make myself a wig.”
When she finally made it to the tray table, Chris grinned and handed her a plate. “You ladies appear to be quite the hit. I’d say you’re gonna have to come back next Sunday.”
Ainsley turned around and found the woman who’d touched her hair still watching her, still smiling. Like those down at the shelter, it took so little to make these women happy. “You may be right. They certainly pull on one’s heartstrings.” She looked at the partially empty tables all around her. “Do many of them get visitors?”
Chris’s face fell. “No, not normally.” He motioned for the girls to go ahead of him. “If you scoop from the middle, you’ll avoid most of the clumps.”
Once food filled their plates, they meandered back through the residents to Mrs. Langley who appeared to have lost all interest in eating.
Her face caved in a deep set frown and she clutched the collar of her shirt. “It’s freezing in here.” She struggled to stand, entangling herself with her chair. “Where’s my husband? James, where in the heavens have you gone?”
Chris set his plate down and grabbed his mom’s elbow. She flinched like his hand felt hot and turned on him. “Who are you and what do you want?”
He stepped back and spoke in a low, soothing voice. “I’m here to help you. Would you like a blanket?”
Ainsley clasped her hands in front of her, at a loss as to how to help. Her heart ached for Chris and his mom.
Mrs. Langley glanced around, chin quivering, shoulders hunched. “I left my sweater in my apartment.” Her gaze swept right then left. “My apartment is . . . My apartment . . .”
“Your apartment is at the end of the hall, remember?” Chris guided her through the cafeteria and around the corner.
Ainsley and Gina followed a few steps behind while Chris continued to speak softly to his mother. Rounding another corner, they nearly ran into a nurse with spiked hair and big hooped earrings.
The nurse smiled and came to Chris’s aid. “Mrs. Langley, would you like to rest?” She nodded to Chris and he moved aside.
Mrs. Langley trembled. “Where’s my husband? Have you seen my husband?”
Chris stopped in the middle of the hall and shoved his hands in his pockets. When the nurse and his mother disappeared through a wooden doorway, he turned back around. “So, you wanna finish, or should I say, start, your lunch, or would you rather hit a burger joint?”
Gina glanced back toward the dining hall. “Uh . . . burgers sound great.”
Silence fell over them as they passed the cafeteria and continued to the parking lot.
Once in the car, Ainsley paused with her hand on the ignition key. “You’re so patient with her. How do you do it? I mean, that’s gotta hurt, to have her forget who you are.”
Chris shrugged. “I mourned her a while ago, although I suppose I still mourn her. But I’ve come to realize this is who she is, and I love her for who she is and not who I’d like her to be.” He stared out the window, as if remembering times past. “It’s hard, but it’s beautiful, too, because it helps me see god’s love for me.”
“I don’t get it.”
“When Heather, the nurse from the dining room, looks at my mother, all she sees is her behavior—her mood swings and agitation. But that’s not how I see her. When I look at my mother, I see her sickness, Alzheimer’s. Often we have the same shortsightedness. When we look at each other, all we see is the behavior—bouts of anger, selfishness, snide comments. But when God looks at us, He sees our sickness, sin.”
Ainsley swallowed, her thoughts jumping to her mother. Like Chris’s mom, her mother was sick. Only her sickness, sin, wasn’t as easily diagnosed. And yet, did loving her mother for who she was, and not who Ainsley wanted her to be, mean giving up hope for change? She could understand it in Chris’s case, but her mother chose her disease. Jesus offered a cure for sin.
Then again, a cure only proved useful to those who sought treatment.