Getting Sassy (2 page)

But then, instead of continuing her downward spiral, she’d thrived at Dryden. After a rocky start, that is. Smoking was not allowed on the premises, and my mother was an unapologetic smoker. She had to go cold turkey. For a month she called me daily, alternately begging, cajoling and commanding me to buy her a pack. Many a day I wanted nothing more than to march down there, jam a Virginia Slim between her lips and light it for her. But then the calls became less and less frequent and eventually they stopped. And once her doctor sorted out her medications, her mental state improved some. Her short term memory was still diminished and evenings, when her confusion was most profound, could be surreal, but her memory of events in the
distant past was still good, albeit selective. For example, she frequently spoke of the luxuries she enjoyed as the wife of a banker, but had forgotten that Wyman considered many luxuries to be Satan’s temptations. (I’ll never forget the battle over the bidet. Wyman won.) Then, after he died, she’d worked for a couple of tight-fisted dermatologists until she was in her seventies, starting as a clerk, a secretary and finally retiring as an office manager. And now she ruled Dryden as lady of the house. This didn’t win her a lot of friends among the residents, but she had her fans among the staff members who liked the feisty ones with delusions of grandeur.

I would have loved watching her occupy this role if it weren’t for the sad, stark fact that her worst fear had come to be: she had outlived her money. She wasn’t aware of this—a small gift the dementia offered—and I’d only begun to realize the lengths to which I might go in order to keep her from knowing.

Last month I’d been a week late with her rent. I’d used up the last of her funds and emptied most of my checking account as well. I knew all I was buying was time and that the days until August rent was due would creep up on me like hyenas smelling a kill. Now it was here—three days ago—and I’d squandered the time, visiting a few nursing and assisted living homes that accepted public aid residents and, at the same time, wondering how large an apartment it would take to contain the two of us. I’d even resorted to purchasing lottery tickets, a practice I’d always scorned. And speaking of practices I tend to scorn—robbery would be near the top of that list.

“Robyn.”

I froze, hearing the soft thud of footsteps coming up behind me on the plush carpeting. Drawing in a deep breath, I turned to face April Clarke, who approached with a handbag slung over her shoulder and a set of car keys dangling from her right hand. Timing was everything.

Her smile didn’t seem forced, which was more than I could say for my own. She gestured with a nod in the direction of her office. “We need to talk,” she said. “It won’t take a minute.”

When I hesitated, she added, “I’ve been leaving messages on both your home and your cell phones.”

I nodded—I know when I’ve been busted—and followed her into the small office next to the reception area.

April closed the door behind us and moved into the middle of the room, pushed aside a coleus plant on her desk to make room for her purse. But she held on to her keys as she leaned her butt against the desk’s edge.

I swallowed. “I just need a few more days to find a place.”

“Are you looking?”

When I’d made the decision to move my mother into Dryden, April had been one of its assets. I’d watched her chatting with residents, and she’d never given me the impression that she wanted to be somewhere other than with her old people. Fully involved and focused, she could not have not been faking. And now, as she waited for my answer, I didn’t see any anger or sign that she viewed me as a deadbeat who had let it all come to this.

“I, um, yes. I’ve got an appointment this afternoon with Willoway Care Center.”

“They have a bed available?”

“Yes.” I paused. “Middle of the month.”

She nodded. “They’re good. I’ve heard good things.”

“That’s good.” I blinked and looked out the window, past a vase of black-eyed Susans.

“She’ll do okay, Robyn.”

“She doesn’t like change.”

“People of her age usually don’t. But give her a little time. She will adjust. Lizzie’s tough.”

My shoulders bobbed once in a half-assed attempt at a chuckle. “Yeah.” The elm outside blurred and I looked down at the floor. “I know.”

And then, because I figured April shouldn’t have to ask all the tough questions, I said, “I’ve got some money coming in next week. Can I pay you then for the days she’s still here?”

“Robyn, don’t do this to yourself. Your mother doesn’t want you to go into debt over this.”

I shook my head. “I won’t.” I wondered what April would have thought about my criminal inclinations. I could hear her:
Robyn, your mother doesn’t want you doing hard time over this.

After studying me for a few moments—I didn’t blink—she sighed and said, “Okay. I’ll tell Connie.”

“Thank you, April.” Connie—Dryden’s financial manager—was the one who did make me feel like a deadbeat. But I had to be grateful for any time they gave me and, if necessary, I knew how to grovel.

On my way to the lounge, I stopped in the women’s room to pull myself together. While my mother has never been good at reading my moods, this afternoon I was sure I wore defeat like a cast-iron choker. Here I was—forty-five years old with no one in the world depending on me except for my mother and my dog. And I’d been a disappointment to at least one of them. Some days I hated what I saw in the mirror. I blew a puff of air up toward my bangs. Maybe there was still a chance. An outside chance that was as stupid as robbing a bank, but at least it was marginally legal. I swiped my lips with a stick of gloss and went to see my mother.

I found her sitting with three women in the lounge. As usual, she wasn’t behaving. The fact that she is far from the most popular resident at Dryden Manor doesn’t faze my mother one iota. I think she sees herself as a firm but benevolent monarch who doesn’t expect to be adored by all.

She’s a small woman, made smaller by bones that were collapsing into themselves. But she held herself as straight as her C-shaped spine would allow. Today she wore the powder blue terry pants and hoodie that I’d gotten her. She sat with her legs crossed and her fingers laced around one knee. Her chin was lifted so she could look down her petite nose at the women sitting in a semi-circle around her.

If I could have chosen the physical traits I would inherit from my mother it would be her near immunity to wrinkles—at eighty-two,
her face was almost without lines—and her hands. They were slim, with fine, blue veins and were seldom still, punctuating her sentences and grasping the air for forgotten words.

Of course, there were also days when I wished I’d been adopted. As I came within earshot of her little group, I conceded that this might be one of those days.

“Of course it’s not pizza, Effie,” my mother was saying. “You need more than cheese to make a pizza. It’s got to have sausage or those pepper things on it. Why if—” She broke off when she saw me, and the moment of confusion she often had when I arrived unexpected passed—like a cloud lifting from her eyes—and, without getting up, she opened her arms to me.

“This is my
beautiful
daughter, Robyn.” She often introduced me this way. It made me feel schizophrenic—as if there were a homely but more compassionate daughter who showed up more often.

I took her hand and gave it a little squeeze.

The three women looked at me with varying degrees of skepticism. Effie, whose hair was dyed a harsh shade of brown that matched her perpetually arched brows, looked up at me and said, “What do you think, Robyn? Can a pizza have just cheese on it?”

My mother’s grip on my hand tightened. I swallowed. “It’s not a very interesting pizza.” A nail dug into my palm, and with some effort, I pried my hand from hers.

“I brought your wine, Mom. Should I take it up to your room?”

Her eyes locked on mine. Glaciers exuded more warmth than those pale blue stones.

“So it
is
pizza,” Effie crowed, proving herself as pugnacious as her soft, square jaw implied.

“It’s a sorry excuse for a pizza.” I turned toward my mother. “Why don’t you come up to your room with me?” I asked, offering her a way out of this deteriorating situation.

Bestowing a gracious smile on the women, my mother said, “Syl, Vera, do come to my room before dinner for an aperitif.”

Before either Syl or Vera could respond, my mother took my arm and, steadying herself with her cane, allowed me to escort her out of the lounge.

I glanced over my shoulder and saw the three women huddled together, talking, glancing our way. Effie was smiling.

“Would it have killed you to agree with me?” my mother said.

“Pizza’s important.” Then, because it never hurt to remind her, I added, “You don’t always have to be so confrontational.”

“I’m entitled to my opinion, aren’t I?”

“You are. But you stated it as fact.”

“I see.” She nodded as though this angle required careful thought. “So what I should have said was ‘that’s not pizza
to me.’”

“That would have been more diplomatic.”

“The hell with being diplomatic. I’ve been diplomatic all my life.”

Hardly.

My mother’s room on the second floor overlooked the river and the walking path. When she’d moved in, we sat together with the binoculars I’d given her, watching the ducks and geese. A pair of cardinals frequented a nearby yew, and she referred to them as “my cardinals.” I was grateful that the couple had chosen a tree near my mother. Not only were they fun to watch, but their antics provided conversation fodder.

My mother settled into her rocker by the window, and I checked her tissue and hand cream supplies and rinsed out her wine glass, using my thumbnail to rub the tinge of red from the rim. I always felt like I should do more to make this a home for her. But there wasn’t any more to do.

This was what getting old was like. Everything got smaller—our homes, our freedom, our bodies. After my stepfather died, we had moved to a three-bedroom ranch house. When I went to college, my mother gave me as many of her belongings as I would take and moved
to a two-bedroom apartment and then later to a one-bedroom retirement condo. Now her home consisted of a square, beige room with a microwave and mini-fridge in one corner and her bed, a chair and television in another. She’d jettisoned everything else, donating most to Salvation Army. She did give me her jewelry and a Wedgewood plate. And even though she’d instructed me to throw away a box crammed with old papers and clippings, I’d stashed it in the basement of the building where I rented. I didn’t want to throw away anything I hadn’t looked at, but out of sight was out of mind, and I seldom thought about it.

I adjusted the angle of a photo—my mother in her mid-thirties in front of the Trevi Fountain—on the wide windowsill. Her life had been distilled to a few mementos: a picture of me, some figurines— two dachshunds and three finches. And, of course, there were my biological father’s remains, which currently resided in a raku vase she kept on the window ledge. He died just before I was born, so I have absolutely no memories of him, but every year on his birthday I buy a new vase for his ashes. I’m not sure why I do this, but I think it’s both a way to honor my father and an excuse to buy pottery. Plus the fact that my mother seemed to enjoy the ceremony where we removed the plastic container holding his ashes from the one vase and put it into the new one. We would toast him with wine and she would tell me a story about him. It’s usually the same one—how he proposed to her—but she likes telling it.

After I’d poured her a glass of wine, I told her I had to leave. Then I braced myself. My mother hated being alone, a time when she was more likely to get confused and anxious. It was as if this worrisome voice in her head started in on her when she was by herself. In order to combat it, she’d usually turn on the television. But she couldn’t converse with the TV, and so there were days I nearly had to fight my way out her door.

“Where are you going?”

“I’ve got an appointment with my accountant.”

“Why do you need an accountant?”

“Because I was a journalism major.”

“I don’t know why you didn’t study something more difficult. Like finance. Or medicine.”

I clamped my mouth shut.

She paused for a moment, and her thin white brows drew together as she posed a question to herself. “It’s not tax time, is it?”

“No,” I said, hoping she’d drop it.

“Then why do you need an accountant?” For an eighty-two-yearold woman with encroaching dementia, she sure knew what questions to ask.

“He’s also my investment advisor.”

“Oh.” She pushed herself up from the chair. “Take me with you.”

This was what I feared. “I don’t know, Mom. I’m just going to be sitting in an office.”

“I don’t care. I need to get out of here.” Her tone had taken on a panicky edge. If I hadn’t known better, I’d have thought she was teetering on one of her anxiety states. The signs were there. But I figured it was more likely she didn’t want to return to the lounge, where she’d have to face Effie and friends and might have to acknowledge her erroneous take on pizza. Losing face was not something that Lizzie Guthrie did gracefully.