I Like You Just Fine When You're Not Around (19 page)

Tig rolled her eyes. A nursing assistant approached Hallie with a glass of juice just as Dr. Jenson placed the already prepared bottle on the tray table along with a diaper and baby wipe. Then he tilted his head in the direction of the hall, and Tig followed the doctor out.

“My wife and I were never blessed with children. I guess that's why I continue to work at sixty-two. With my wife gone, and no kids or grandkids, I am kind of hopeless.”

Tig smiled kindly. “Hardly. You've been so good to us. I want to thank you for visiting my mom.”

“It's my pleasure.” His hands in his pockets, he leaned against the wall outside Hallie's room. “I understand you've been spending quite a lot of time here.”

Tig looked down at her feet. She wore the slippers of a seventy-six-year-old Alzheimer's patient, yoga pants, and a University of Wisconsin Go Badgers T-shirt. “I'm in a bit over my head lately.”

Dr. Jenson examined Tig. “Don't misunderstand me. I'm fine with you being here. I know Pam was surprised. You probably should have told someone what your plans were.”

“Plans?” Tig snorted. “That's a big assumption, plans.”

“Here's what I'm thinking, Tig. I'd like to use you and your mother as a kind of case study. That is, if you'll agree.”

Tig said, “No way. I'm only interested in getting out of things these days, not getting into anything new.”

“Just hear me out. I told you I'm working on non-traditional modalities to ease family transitions. I want Alzheimer's patients to dictate our treatment, to make the medical community fit client needs, not vice versa.”

“Doctor, I appreciate what you're trying to do, but we're . . . .” Tig paused and cleared her throat. “I'm exhausted. I'm at the end of my abilities. This is all I can do.”

Dr. Jenson raised his hands. “Let me be clearer. We are going to be as flexible as possible with you and your niece being here, but it can't look like you are living here. We are going to have you keep a notebook of hours visiting, Hallie's behaviors and moods, and staff and residents' interactions. This way we can call it research, and give you a little time to find your sister.”

Tig closed her eyes. “It's a lovely thought. A lovely fantasy. But how do you have the authority to make this happen?”

“Do you know what the formal name of this place is?”

“Of course. Hope House.”

Dr. Jenson said, “Thor Jenson's Hope House. Thor's my dad. Long gone now.”

“So, you own the place?”

Tig threw her head back and laughed. Thatcher barked in response. Suddenly energized, Tig walked back into the room where her mother dozed and Clementine snored quietly in her bed-nest. She eased Clementine into her own arms and said, “C'mon Thatcher, it's time to go home and pull ourselves together. We can get back in time for lunch.”

• • •

Tig paused at the front door of her house. The mail was piled up on the stoop; the Town Shopper fliers littered the lawn. She shoved the front door open, averting her gaze from the dust and disarray, and grabbed a brown paper grocery bag from under the sink. She shoved the mail in along with a novel she had been meaning to read. She passed over her makeup, grabbing an extra pair of reading glasses and leaving her contacts behind.

“Jeans for dress-up,” she said as she packed a sweatsuit and several pairs of clean thongs, just for daring. “Get your ball, Thatcher. The grounds need a dog.” She stopped in front of her old answering machine. She'd made a note to disconnect the land line, but before she could stop herself, she punched play.

“Your messages are full.”

“Tig, this is Jean, call me. We have a lot to discuss.”

There was a pause, and Jean's voice came on the line again, “Christ, Tig. The lawyers need to talk to you. Call me.”

Several more followed: “I'm outside your house, Tig. Pick up.”

Macie's voice respectfully intruded: “Dr. Monahan, Jean Harmeyer needs you to call her.” And then Macie whispered desperately, “Call her! You know how she gets when she's mad.”

Then Jean again. “I was at your house today, Tig. There's mail all over the place. Where are you?”

Finally Wendy's voice, both timid and defiant, resounded throughout the empty house: “Tig. How's the baby? I'm sorry. I need to talk to you. Call me. I'll pick up. I will.” Tig hit stop and said, “Screw you, Pete, for not calling.” Thatcher, thinking she was being called, came and sat at her heels. “C'mon. It's depressing around here.”

With her arms full, she yanked the door open and walked right into a young man standing on her porch. “Dr. Tig Monahan?”

“Yes, that's me.”

With a serious look, he handed her an envelope from Columbus County Circuit Court, saying, “You've been served,” and the memory of the man with the ligature around his neck admonished her for thinking she could forget about him so easily.

In the craft room with her mother and Clementine in her car seat next to her, Tig answered the woman on her right: “Emma, I think painting your chicks black isn't going to be seen as a protest against ceramics, but will most likely land you on an antidepressant.”

Emma Mobry continued painting a shaky, glossy, black lacquer onto a series of porcelain chicks. She repositioned her nasal cannula and through pursed lips wheezed, “Back in black. Get it?”

Tig nodded. “I forgot you used to own a bunch of Harleys.”

“Biker chick,” she said. “Too many cigarettes and too many years ago.”

Tig glanced over and saw a woman with her wheelchair facing the wall. “I'll be right back.” As Tig approached, the woman mumbled and then chuckled softly. Tig touched the woman's wheelchair. “Beverly, why don't you join us at the table? You haven't even touched your vase.”

Beverly glanced anxiously at the red emergency electrical outlet. Tig followed her gaze. “Beverly, the nursing staff would like you to participate, and remember, electrical outlets don't talk.”

Beverly winked at the electrical outlet and said, “Of course, they don't talk, sweetie. Why would you say such a thing?”

Beverly waved over her shoulder at the red, plastic, shin-high outlet. Tig shook her head at one of the nursing assistants who untangled a resident's walker from an empty wheelchair.

The nursing assistant said, “It takes all kinds.”

“I guess I should know, huh?” Tig squeezed Hallie's shoulder and said, “I'm going back to the room to get Clementine a bottle, Mom.”

“Check my appointment books. I think Sherlock, the Jeffersons' Labrador, is due for his shots.”

“All right.”

In the room, Tig prepared a thawed packet of Wendy's milk that she had stored in the nurses' break-room refrigerator. She wiped her hands on her sweatpants and rolled up the sleeves of her navy hoodie.

“Where's Hallie's dog?”

A girl of about six or seven stood in the open doorway, her jet-black hair pulled into two loose pigtails that fell to her shoulders. She wore shorts and a T-shirt with
Do I Look Like I Care?
printed on the front next to a sarcastic-looking bunny pulling at his ears.

“One of the residents has her out for a walk.”

“Do you live here, too?”

“No. I don't live here.” Tig screwed a rubber nipple onto the bottle.

“You look like you do. You're wearing slippers.”

Tig examined her feet. “Sure enough, I am. But I don't live here. I'm part of a research experiment for people with memory problems.”

“What can't you remember?” The little girl pulled her gum from her mouth in a long, uneven string.

“Not me, honey, my mother.”

“What can't she remember?”

“Me. She can't remember who I am.”

“Who are you?”

Fern arrived in her wheelchair, propelled by her son. With a mildly cross look on his face, he said, “Erin Ann. That is enough questions.” The girl turned and tried to squeeze next to Fern in her wheelchair seat. Fern reached her arm around her shoulder.

Tig smiled. “This must be your granddaughter. She's charming.”

Fern smirked. “She's nosy, more like.” She tickled the girl's chin. “Erin Ann, go get my walker. I have to go to physical therapy.” The little girl scampered off and Fern continued, “This is my son, Alec.” She winked and raised her eyebrows, a look that Tig knew she meant to be suggestive, but only succeeded in making Fern look demented.

Alec offered his hand. “I've seen you here many times. My mom says you've taken a leave from your job to help in Dr. Jenson's research.”

“Well, part of that is right, I guess.” Tig shook her head at Fern, who was busying herself with her support hose.

“Which part?” he asked.

“The part where Dr. Jenson is doing research. I'm fleeing life and apparently I'm just the data he's looking for.”

“Time does seem to stop when you walk inside this place,” said Alec.

“That's true. You get the feeling that no matter what else is happening in the world, dinner will always be served at five and be followed by a bran cocktail.”

“Hear, hear!” said Fern.

“Ah, a place you can count on,” said Tig.

“You'll have to excuse my daughter, Erin. Her mother was in a place like this. Hospice, actually. It freaks her out. She loses all her social graces.”

“Fern told me of your loss. I was sorry to hear it.”

Erin Ann returned, dropped the walker, and pushed her father out of the way. “I get to push Granny to her appointments, Dad. You said.”

Fern grasped her son's hand briefly. “You two stay and chat. Bring the walker when you're done. I don't need it right away.”

Tig and Alec watched as Erin Ann pushed her grandmother down the hall. Both heads were cocked to the right, the little one bobbing with effort.

“She has your hair, doesn't she?”

He smiled. “The rest is all her mother. Every last gene.”

Tig said, “This must look nuts, me living here.”

“I don't know. It makes more sense than what I'm doing, which is barely visiting.” He slipped his hands into his pockets. “I wanted my mom to live with us. She wouldn't have it.”

“No? My mom lived with me. I was happy to have her, but being an all-inclusive for the forgetful elderly is exhausting. Just keeping them dressed can be a full-time job.”

“I assured my mom that as soon as she became a burden, I would slap her into a nursing home so fast her head would spin. She told me her head was already spinning and to sign her in.”

“When I first met Fern, she told me to pick up a jumbo pack of condoms.”

Alec laughed. “That's my mom.”

He was handsome, Tig realized. Fern was right. Tall, broad shoulders, a dip to his eyes that made him look vulnerable. Vulnerable, she could not handle. Whoever she would date in the future would have to be formed like a diamond, able to sustain space-shuttle relationship conditions. Melting hot, freezing cold, dizzying speeds, and the inevitable gravity of reentry. There was no way Tig would subject this gentle man, this mother-lover and widower, to her brand of relationship.

Alec scratched his chin and said, “How did you pick this place?”

“My mom had a pre-Alzheimer's wish book. She kept a notebook her whole life with little comments to be carried out in case she wasn't able to help herself.”

“Wow. That's kind of amazing. What other things were in that notebook?”

Tig looked to the ceiling. “Let's see. She wanted someone to pluck the hairs on her chin and wax her mustache; the only charities she wanted supported were for animals or children; and if rap music was ever on her radio, she wanted the radio to be thrown through a window.”

“Not a fan of rappers?”

“Oh, the rappers themselves were fine in her opinion, but she thought they were too focused on their genitals and she didn't want that invading her chi.”

“That was a pre-Alzheimer's request?”

“That could have been during her borderline period.”

Alec said, “My mom went from gentle housewife to a sort of watered-down Amelia Earhart—ready to get up and go at a moment's notice. She bought a camper, got a passport, and started traveling. Then, when she got sick, she parked the camper and turned into the patron saint of sarcasm and inappropriate humor.”

Tig laughed. The image fit Fern so beautifully. “My mom was on the same trajectory, but her synapses hijacked her along the way.”

“How long will you stay, do you think?”

Tig looked away. “I don't know.” She shook the baby bottle and said, “I'd better get this to Clementine before she realizes she hasn't eaten in a while.”

“I guess I should deliver this walker.”

They looked at each other for an awkward moment, sharing a kind of wireless connection that swooped and snapped between them. Tig said, “You can come to dinner sometime, if you like. You and your daughter.”

“That would be nice. Where do you live?”

Tig said, “Oh, I meant here. Come to dinner with us at Hope House.”

Instant mortification spread across his face.

“Or come to my house,” Tig said quickly. “I live over in University Heights.”

“Sorry, my wife was the social one. I am . . . .” He paused and looked at his hands, the bare ring finger. “Not.”

Tig touched his forearm, felt his strong muscles beneath his light-blue cotton shirt. How long had it been since she had felt anything but the marshmallow consistency of Clementine and her mother? Pete's face flickered into her mind.

“I'm the one living in the nursing home. It's me who is socially inept. Friday night is lasagna night with fresh peaches and buttered bread. Four-thirty sharp, if you don't want to sit back by the kitchen.” She turned her head. “Let's see how we do with supervision first, and then we can try the real world.”