I met Herb Reynolds at the hospital, along with his youngest daughter, my half-sister, Amanda.
Herb was a man in his late sixties, balding, with a bit of a comfortable paunch. His dark brown eyes were bleary and he looked as if he'd slept at the hospital. Amanda was about Kate's age, pretty with dark hair and dark eyes like her father.
We all shook hands, introducing ourselves and then he just stood there, giving me the once over. Finally, he shook his head.
"You look so much like her," he said, his voice emotional. "Like when I met her back when she first showed up at the Mission."
"My father told me I had her coloring," I replied. "The fair skin and dark hair."
"Yes," he said. "I could tell she was troubled right away. She had this distant look in her eyes. We worked together for a while and then started to date."
"You volunteered at the Mission?"
"Yes," he said. "It's a family tradition."
We talked for a while as we stood outside my mother's room. The nurses were in to administer some meds and so we talked while we waited but I caught sight of her through the window. She looked extremely frail, with longish grey hair, a nebulizer mask on her face to administer the medicine to make her breathe more easily. An IV was in place and there were several bags hung on the IV pole, including what looked like antibiotics and liquids for hydration.
"She's been in a nursing home because of her dementia. I kept her home as long as I could, but I work as a partner at a tax consulting firm. I had to choose between continuing at my job or quitting to care for her. I took as much time off as I could, using all my vacation time for the year, and then I took a six-month leave of absence, but in the end, I had to put her in care."
"Alzheimer's patients require a lot of care at the end," I said, my voice choking up. "I'm familiar with the rapid decline because I've had to care for a few patients over the years since I started practicing."
When the nurses were done, they let us go inside and I was uncertain how she'd respond, if at all, to seeing me.
We went into the room and Herb went to the bedside and took her hand.
"Louise," he said, bending down and talking to her in a loud voice. "We have a visitor here today. It's Drake Morgan, your son."
She looked up at his face, frowning, and made some incoherent mumbles. It was clear she was distressed, and breathing hard, her hand and arm shaking as she held Herb's hand. Not once did she turn to look at me, and I realized that she probably didn’t understand what Herb had said.
"Mom," Amanda said and leaned over to kiss her cheek. "Your other son from your first marriage is here. We found him and he's here to say hello to you."
Amanda ushered me closer and both Herb and she stepped away from the bedside. I went to her, dressed in my scrubs, and took her hand. She probably thought I was another doctor to check on her – if she thought anything at all.
I took her hand in mine and smiled down at her, my eyes filling with tears as I realized how frail she was. She had been a taller woman from what I knew of her, maybe about five feet eight inches, but she seemed to have shrunk down, her hair grey and straggled, her cheeks gaunt. But her blue eyes were bright.
"It's me, Drake," I said softly. "Your son. From your marriage to Liam Morgan when you lived in Manhattan."
I couldn't see any recognition or understanding in her eyes. Instead, she gripped my hand and mumbled something I couldn't make out. I leaned down closer and tried to hear what she was saying, but it was muffled by the nebulizer mask. There was still medicine to be administered so I'd wait until it was finished. Perhaps then I'd be able to understand what she said.
I glanced up at Amanda and Herb, who were both smiling sadly, as they watched Louise hold my hand.
"She can't recognize me," I said. I turned back to my mother. "How could she? I haven't seen her for twenty-eight years."
"She probably doesn't understand what you're saying," Amanda said.
"Sometimes, Alzheimer patients have deep memories, but all their recent memories get progressively destroyed. She may remember having a son named Drake, but may not be able to comprehend that I'm him, but grown up."
I watched her breathing, which was strained, and knew her pneumonia was the cause. I checked the bag of antibiotics and saw that they were giving her some of the strongest available. If she had a drug-resistant bacterial infection, it would be useless. She'd get progressively worse, her oxygen would go down and she'd die from septicemia, her organs shutting down, one by one.
"I can't stand to watch her struggle," Amanda said, tears running down her face.
"They'll give her medicine for her pain and that tends to calm their breathing," I said, wanting to assure Amanda that she wouldn't struggle at the end. "She'll go to sleep and that will be how she dies. But if the antibiotics work, she should start breathing easier soon."
Amanda nodded and took our mother's other hand. We stood together like that, both of us holding one of her hands while she struggled to breathe.
Herb excused himself and left the room to get a cup of coffee, and Amanda told me stories of her mother and how she used to take them to the beach and to the fair each year. It seemed she had been a very loving mother. I felt glad that even if she couldn't be a mother to me, at least she became one to her children from her second marriage. It was possible for a person to make a new life after leaving the ruins of an old one.
Part of me wished she could have recovered while she was living with my father, but neither of them could deal with the loss of my brother and they grew so distant, my father couldn't help her when she became seriously depressed.