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He yelled for Ellie and hurried to the shed, positioned halfway down the hill from the barn. He could see Denny holding something that looked like a checked blanket around his mom’s shoulders. What the—?
“Mom?” As he drew closer, he could see why.
His mother was dressed in a white nightgown, her bare feet covered in mud, her hair string-like and looking grayer than ever.
“Mom?” Jackson drew close, nodding to Denny who shot him a look he couldn’t interpret before moving away. Jackson wrapped an arm around her. “Mom, are you okay?”
She looked at him, and for a second, he could see the woman she’d once been—sad but courageous, exhausted but doing all she could to keep her kids clothed and fed.
“Donald?”
He blinked, a shudder curling up his back at that name. “Mom, I’m Jackson.”
She peered at him, her faded blue eyes remaining dull, without recognition. “Who?”
“I’m your son. Jackson.”
“Who?” She shook her head and pulled away. “I don’t have a son.”
His breath hitched, and he watched blankly as Ellie drew close and secured the blanket more firmly around his mother’s shoulders.
She didn’t recognize him. She’d mistaken him for the person he loathed more than any other. Nausea rippled through his stomach.
He watched for a moment as Ellie escorted her back up the hill, breath escaping in a heavy exhale as he scrubbed his fingers into his scalp.
A cleared throat nearby drew his attention to Denny.
“Thanks so much.”
“She doesn’t look well.” His foreman stated the obvious.
“No.” Now he was paying attention, he could see his mother looked more frail than his dim memories of his grandmother. When had this happened? Why hadn’t he noticed? A glance around the rusting machinery reminded him of the reason why. “I need to call the doctor.”
Denny made a non-committal sound, but Jackson didn’t have time to chase that now. He didn’t have time for much at all.
With long strides he hurried back to the house, in time to hear Ellie croon about washing Mom’s feet and getting her settled in bed again. His throat thickened. When had this happened? Why hadn’t he realized how bad she was?
He moved to the kitchen and switched on the coffee maker. Mom had always liked her coffee. Maybe they still had a pack of those windmill cookies she’d always liked. Little reminders of such things might provide enough comfort to help her snap back to the present. But try as he might, hunting through the cupboards and pantry revealed no pack of cookies, only a stale container of wafer biscuits he figured even Fido would turn her nose up at.
“What are you doing?” Ellie asked.
“Looking for windmill cookies.”
Her eyes softened like she knew why. “We haven’t had any in years.”
Of course they hadn’t. “What’s wrong with her?”
“I don’t know. I’ve never seen her this bad before. She’s never wandered off like that either.”
“She called me Donald.”
The face she made matched the turmoil in his gut. “Ugh.”
“She hasn’t seen him in over twenty years. Why would she do that?”
“Maybe she thinks you look like him.”
Perish the thought. Anyway, he wouldn’t know. All memories of that man had been expunged over the years. It was almost as if Donald Reilly hadn’t existed, save for the DNA running through five people’s veins.
