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Ethan
Threehoursearlier
Never gonna give you up, never gonna—
I punch my alarm so hard my phone flies into the crack behind my nightstand, where all the spiders live. Peyton must have guessed my passcode again when she brought over a load of clean laundry yesterday. My groan sounds more like a sob as I rub my aching eyes into my pillow. It’s just as dark now as it was two hours ago, when I got home from my night shift at the Qwik N’ Go.
Grabbing a sponge, I stumble into the shower and alternate rinsing myself off with scrubbing hair and hard water stains off the plastic walls. I polish the mirror as I brush my teeth, struggling to keep my eyes open. I don’t look at myself in the clean mirror, because no one wants to see that shit.
My Emerald Lawncare polo doesn’t stink too much, so I pull it on and hide my messy hair with a ball cap. I unhook the rod that opens and closes my curtains and use it to fish my phone out of spider land before heading to the kitchen.
Listening to the gurgle of the coffee pot, I crack eggs into an Olympic National Park mug with the handle missing and stick them in the microwave. “Good morning,” I mumble at Petunia as her fat tortoiseshell body weaves between my legs. Her purr vibrates against my calf like she’s trying to give me a deep tissue massage. “Thanks, girl.” When my eggs are done, I drop a bit on the floor, just to watch her foggy old eyes light up.
The wireless pager clipped to my belt loop beeps, so I pad toward Mom’s room as I shovel down eggs too hot to taste. My heart sinks when I get to the door. Mom has an open box on the floor, an album sitting in her lap, pictures scattered across the bed. I need to move this stuff to my room so she stops finding it. “Who is this?” She holds up the album.
“Morning, beautiful.” I kneel down by the bed and open her medications one by one, dumping them into my palm. Fetching her a glass of water, I sit next to her and rub her back gently while she takes the pills, watching to make sure she doesn’t miss any. Then I start gathering up handfuls of pictures and throwing them back in the box, careful not to look at them.
“Wait,” she protests, her brown eyes full of anxiety. “What are you doing?”
“Tidying up so you can get dressed. It’s all good.” I keep my voice upbeat. When I try to take the album, she tightens her grip on it. “Whoisthis?”
My head throbs when I see the little boy she’s pointing at. It’s always him. Some part of her remembers that he’s important. “That’s Danny. He’s your sister’s son.” I’m very careful never to saywas.
“He must be big now,” she muses. “Can we have them over?”
Back when she was diagnosed with early-onset dementia, the hospital made me go to some class full of shit I didn’t understand and referrals to grief counselors I couldn’t afford. They said a dementia patient’s world has its own rules and reasons and structures, asacred piece of their personhood, and the worst fucking thing you could do is twist reality or hide the truth.
I lie to her every day.
The truth is too brutal to repeat, and if we’re both broken, then I can’t take care of her.
“He got a job in London, and Aunt Cath is too busy. It’s ok. They know you care about them.” Finally, I nudge the album out of her hands and throw it in the box, slamming the lid. I’m tempted to take the thing out back and burn it.
I pull her into a tight hug. Her hair smells of lemon and baby powder as I drop a kiss on it. It has barely started graying at the roots, but her life’s practically over. Maybe if I had taken her hiking every weekend, or to the symphony instead of buying records from the thrift store, maybe the enrichment—another dementia buzzword—would have helped. If every day was different, maybe she’d forget fewer of them.
“Check this out.” I swallow past the lump in my throat and pull open her dresser drawers, pointing to the piles of clothes my best friend Peyton helped me coordinate. “Each of these is an outfit, remember? Created by your personal stylists.”
Her face brightens as she studies the row of tops. “Did you fold these?”
“If they’re good, yes. If they’re bad, then it’s Peyton’s fault.”
“They’re perfect. Did I teach you that?” When I smile in spite of myself, she puts her arm around my waist and points to a blue cardigan. I hand her the tidy stack of clothes. “Get ready and I’ll make your cereal.”
Her favorite bowl goes on the table. Box of Cheerios on the right, spoon and oat milk on the left. I don’t know if the routines are for her or me anymore. Collapsing in a chair, I check the time on my phone, wondering why the nurse is late.
“Where are your scrubs?” Her voice cuts through the headache banging against the backs of my eyes. I blink at her as she sits and pours her cereal, before glancing down at my shirt.
“They’re in my locker at the clinic. I’ll change when I get there.”Liar, liar.
“Don’t let your boss see you all dirty like that.”
“It’s ok, Mom. I won’t.” I stare at my feet, twisting them around until I can fit all my toes in one of the squares patterning the faded linoleum. The summer before I was supposed to start studying biology at Washington State, I had a great internship at a local veterinary clinic. They said I could work for them every summer and break until I finished vet school. Mom ironed my navy-blue scrubs about fifty times, and we went out for steaks and ice cream after my first day.
At the end of July,ithappened. She was a completely healthy woman, until she wasn’t. And because of the way it all went down, what happened to Danny, not a single member of my extended family offered to help a scared eighteen-year-old take care of his mom.
I never went to college, let alone vet school. But of course, that first day is one of the things she can’t seem to forget. So now I work at a nameless vet clinic, day in, day out, forever. Because if I tell her the truth, all the things that are herfaulteven though she can’t be blamed…there’s just no fucking point.
The doorbell finally rings. I shove on my boots and hold the door open. “Morning, Ana.”
