Leanne tugged the metal handle, opening the fridge to see a carton of milk with an expiration date of next week. The cryptic note made no sense, like so many things her mother had been saying lately.
Her unease deepened.
She made her way to the bedroom. The bed was unmade, and the ashtray on the nightstand held a lipstick-smudged cigarette burned down to the filter. The closet door hung open, a sweater sleeve drooping out, a blouse crumpled on the floor. Leanne scanned the contents of the hangers, most of the clothing dating back to her childhood.
And then she noticed the empty space on the top shelf—the suitcase was gone.
A cold ripple worked its way around every vertebra in her spine.
Between the strange, rambling jottings and her mother’s missing suitcase, something was wrong, really wrong. She began riffling gently through the disarray of her mother’s things, scanning for a scribbled message, a list, anything to explain her absence. The speed of her search and the sense of dread inside her both accelerating as the bedroom proved disappointingly devoid of any clues.
The bathroom was the same story. A half-empty bottle of champagne on the edge of the tub. A mirror smudged with the sort of cryptic lipstick messages her mother was always leaving herself—Shine on, Eleanor—but no toothbrush in the holder. The shelf where her mother’s favorite perfume usually sat was empty.
Leanne’s pulse quickened.
Her mother had left town without telling her. Not even a note.
That wasn’t like Eleanor. Despite being free-spirited, she always let Leanne know when she was traveling and called to check in. This…felt off.
Leanne walked back toward the family room, her stomach twisting.That’s when she spotted the paper, lying half crumpled on the floor near the record player. She bent to pick it up.
Her eyes scanned the heading.
Her mother’s name was typed neatly at the top followed by:Dementia. Early Signs.
Below was a short note from her mother’s doctor explaining the symptoms, the progression, and stating Eleanor’s official diagnosis. The doctor noted that Eleanor should speak to her family soon about care.
Leanne’s chest tightened. Her mother was losing her memories. But more than that, at this moment, she was physically lost too. Vanished from the house without a trace of anything other than her past.
There’d been signs of Eleanor’s forgetfulness, of senility, creeping in—lost keys, missed appointments, odd comments. After overhearing one of her friends at a Tupperware party discussing her own mother’s dementia diagnosis, Leanne had rushed to the library to find a book. But there wasn’t one, only the librarian suggesting a title on aging that had a small chapter on senile dementia and a doctor from the 1800s called Alzheimer. She’d even called her own doctor to ask him questions about it. However, the information she’d discovered had been part of why Leanne had pushed her mother to visit the doctor in the first place. But seeing the diagnosis—dementia—in black-and-white made it heavier. Real. More final. Like the ground had shifted beneath her feet.
With an official diagnosis, things were going to change. At first it would be little things. Forgetting. Repeating conversations. Misplacing keys. But it would progress into possibly getting lost. Mood swings. Confusion. Delusions. Unable to dress herself or recognize her family. And near the end, she’d need full-time functional care and possibly be unable to communicate. The notion that her mother would one day be a shell of the lively woman she was terrified Leanne.
It also meant that soon her mother wouldn’t be able to live on herown. They’d have to make space for Eleanor at their house. And while Leanne might be sending a child off to college, she’d be responsible for another person.
Leanne swallowed hard and crossed to her mother’s phone. Pulling a notepad toward her, she scribbled quickly:
Call me, Mom. Leanne
She left it by the receiver, trying for hopeful. Maybe Eleanor had just run out to buy a new toothbrush. Perhaps she’d impulsively thrown out the old suitcase like she did when she got tired of things or didn’t like the color.
Leanne clung to that thought, though unease kept buzzing beneath the surface.
Her mother wouldn’t leave without telling her. She just knew it.
When Leanne arrived back home, the glow of the Zenith television lit up the family room. She set her purse down on the console by the door, then glanced over at her daughter. Nora’s eyes were fixed half on the flickering black-and-white screen and half on her own bare feet, propped on the coffee table, as she painted her toes. She was watchingI Dream of Jeannie.
“How’s Grandma?” Nora asked without looking away from the brush putting bright pink polish on her left big toe.
Leanne studied herself in the entryway mirror, sliding a loose hair back into place. “She wasn’t home.” Leanne tried to be nonchalant but was afraid the pronouncement revealed the anxiety warring inside her body. Her gaze lingered on her daughter—so young, so sure the world would always stay the same. She wished it would, just for her.
Nora finally glanced up, eyebrows knitting as she shoved the nail polish handle haphazardly back into the jar. “Where is she?”
Leanne hesitated, the words catching in her throat. How could she answer without setting off the same alarm bells in her head, inside Nora’s? “I don’t know. Maybe…she went on a trip.”
The explanation sounded hollow, ridiculous. And ominous. Dramatically ominous, if she was being honest.
Nora snorted, eyes wide, her smile wry. She shook her head, blond hair falling into her eyes as she swept it away with the ease of an unbothered teen. “You’re joking.”
