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My head snaps in her direction, stunned. “Yeah. How’d you know?”
“You always seem stressed when he’s been nipping at your heels.”
Wow. I don’t know if Beatrice is more receptive than I give her credit for or if I’m simply that transparent.
“And he called looking for you.” She chuckles.
A laugh escapes. “And here I was starting to think you were a clairvoyant.”
“No. You can literally see it on your face when you’re stressed. You’re always so cordial. But when things are tense, that lovely dimple disappears.”
I guess I am transparent.
CHAPTERSIX
POPPY
“Hi, Jasmine.”
“Poppy,” she greets affectionately. “You here to see your mom?” I notice the kind receptionist looking at her watch. She probably suspects I’m here to voice a complaint or settle a bill. I’m never here at this hour on a weekday.
“Yes. I know I don’t usually come this early. I’m working the weekend, so I have the day off. I thought I’d have lunch with Mom.”
Her sweet, round face beams back at me. Jasmine has worked at Hanover Haven since Mom first arrived. “Oh, she’ll love that. Would you like to eat in the courtyard?”
My mother is deaf as a post. And most likely demented. I know she’ll struggle to make out what I’m saying over the clatter of the dining room. “I think the courtyard is a perfect idea.”
“No problem at all, dear. Why don’t you go surprise her with a visit, and I’ll have everything set up at a table in the gazebo in about an hour.”
“Thank you, Jasmine. That’ll be lovely.” I make my way down the cold, sterile hallway until I come to my mother’s door. My brother, mother, and I made the painful decision to place her at Hanover Haven while Dan was in his steep decline toward the end.
My brother, Ian, and his wife and kids live several hours away, near Blacksburg, Virginia. He attended Virginia Tech and never wanted to leave. After graduation, he was able to come home to visit regularly. But once he married Rita and the second and third children arrived, his visits became less frequent.
It was understandable. Ian works full time, and the weekends are busy with the kids’ sports and church youth activities. Our father had died years ago, and we’d made sure to look in on Mom over the years. In the beginning, this didn’t require much. She was a homebody. Our mother had a few friends from church who’d drop by occasionally, but otherwise, she was in the kitchen or her garden.
Yet, as the years ticked by, she became more forgetful, and we worried about her safety living alone. One night, I arrived to find a grease fire in the kitchen. Accidents can happen at any age. Yet the most alarming part was that she was completely oblivious, belting out answers to Steve Harvey’s questions onFamily Feudin the other room as flames licked up the kitchen walls. She had no recollection of placing anything on the stove. I couldn’t even identify what she’d been preparing due to the amount of wreckage it caused.
I immediately took her to see her practitioner, expressing concern for Alzheimer’s or some other form of dementia. Yet she’d have intermittent spells where she was completely lucid. So it had been difficult to receive a formal diagnosis.
Eventually, she was admitted to the hospital for pneumonia and experienced an episode of Sundowner’s while she was there. Mom tolerated the unfamiliar environment during the day, but as night fell, she became increasingly more confused. That occurrence was enough to grant her a dementia diagnosis and allow us to seek placement in a skilled nursing facility where someone had their eyes on her twenty-four-seven.
At times, I feel guilty having placed her here. I’d much rather have her home. Now that Dan is gone, I often reconsider whether she’d be better off at home with me than here. But it’d be a massive undertaking around my job. And I have no guarantee she’d be happier at my place. Plus, there’s the risk she might be less safe if there aren’t trained professionals to watch her constantly.
“Hi, Mom.”
Seated in a wheelchair, my mother is wearing a short-sleeved floral top and light blue pants. Her head is down, and she appears to have fallen asleep as she hasn’t moved an inch in response to my greeting. I consider whether I should let her sleep, but my gut tells me that’s about all she does anymore.
Knock. Knock.
Nothing. My heart starts to thump in my chest, worried something’s wrong. I pound harder on the door before racing to kneel down in front of her. Just as I reach her, my mother’s head pops up. “Oh, hello, dear.”
My hand flies to my heart and I bite down on my lip to prevent screeching.Jiminy Christmas. “Good God, Mom. You scared me half to death.” I grimace at my analogy. Probably should avoid using that phrase here.
“Why is that?”
“I was knocking on the door, and you didn’t budge.”
Taking in my frail mother, my heart squeezes remembering the vivacious woman she once was. When she arrived at Hanover Haven, she was ambulatory. The physical therapist later encouraged her to use a cane for stability, but after they found her frequently walking with it tucked under her arm, they moved to a wheelchair. While she resisted at first, I think her chronic inactivity has caused her muscles to atrophy, and she’s given in.
