Optimism inflated in my chest when I stopped outside Maura’s room and knocked on the door.
Today, she would remember me. I was sure of it.
I knocked again. No answer. I hadn’t expected one, but I always knocked twice just in case. She may live in a care facility, but her room was her room. She deserved some say over who entered her personal space.
I waited an extra beat before I twisted the knob and stepped inside.
Maura sat in a chair by the window, staring out at the pond in the back of the facility. The water was frozen, and the trees and flowers which flourished during summer were nothing more than bare branches and withered petals during winter, but she didn’t seem to mind.
She wore a small smile as she hummed a low tune. Something familiar yet indistinguishable, happy yet nostalgic.
“Hi, Maura,” I said softly.
The humming stopped.
She turned, her face registering polite interest as her eyes swept over me. “Hello.” She tilted her head at my expectant stare. “Do I know you?”
Disappointment pulled at my chest, followed by a sharp ache.
Alzheimer’s varied greatly from person to person, even those in the middle stage, like Maura. Some forgot basic motor skills like how to hold a spoon but remembered their family; others forgot who their loved ones were but could function fairly normally in daily life.
Maura fell in the latter category.
I should be grateful she could still communicate clearly after being diagnosed with Alzheimer’s four years ago, and I was. But it still hurt when she didn’t recognize me.
She was the one who’d raised me while my parents were busy building their careers. She’d picked me up and dropped me off at school every day, attended all my school plays, and consoled me after Ricky Wheaton dumped me for Melody Renner in sixth grade. Ricky and I had only “dated” for two weeks, but eleven-year-old me had been heartbroken.
In my mind, Maura would always be vibrant and full of life. But the years and disease had taken their toll, and seeing her so frail made tears thicken in my throat.
“I’m a new volunteer.” I cleared my throat and pasted on a smile, not wanting to cloud our visit with melancholy.“I brought you some tembleque. A little birdie told me it’s your favorite.” I reached into my bag and pulled out the chilled coconut pudding.
It was a traditional Puerto Rican dessert Maura and I used to make together during our “experimentation” nights.
Every week, we’d try a new recipe. Some of them came out amazing, others not so much. The tembleque was one of our favorites, though, and we justified making it more than once by dressing it up with different flavors each time. Cinnamon one week, orange the next, followed by lime.
Voila!A new recipe.
In my eight-year-old mind, it made sense.
Maura’s eyes lit up. “Trying to butter me up with sweets on your first day.” She clucked. “It’s working. I like you already.”
I laughed. “I’m glad to hear that.”
I handed her the dessert I’d made last night and waited until she had a firm grasp on it before I took the seat opposite hers.
“What’s your name?” She spooned some pudding in her mouth, and I tried not to notice how slow the movement was or how hard her hand shook.
“Stella.”
What looked like recognition glinted in her eyes. Hope ballooned again, only to deflate when murkiness snuffed out the glint a second later.
“Pretty name, Stella.” Maura chewed with a thoughtful expression. “I have a daughter, Phoebe. She’s around your age, but I haven’t seen her in a while…”
Because she died.
The ache in my chest returned with a vengeance.
Six years ago, Phoebe and Maura’s husband had been on their way home from the grocery store when a truck T-boned their car. Both died on impact.
Maura sank into a deep depression after, especially since she had no living relatives to lean on.
As much as I hated Alzheimer’s for robbing her of the life she’d lived, sometimes I was grateful for it. Because the absence of good memories also meant the absence of bad ones, and at least she could forget the pain of losing her loved ones.
No parent should ever have to bury their child.
Maura’s chewing slowed. Her brows drew together, and I could see her struggling to remember why, exactly, she hadn’t seen Phoebe in a while.
Her breathing quickened the way it always did before agitation set in.
The last time she’d remembered what happened to Phoebe, she’d gotten so aggressive the nurses had to sedate her.
I blinked back the sting in my eyes and upped the wattage of my smile. “So, I hear tonight’s bingo night,” I said quickly. “Are you excited?”
The distraction worked.
Maura relaxed again, and eventually, our conversation meandered from bingo to poodles to The Days of Our Lives.
Her memories were patchy and varied from day to day, but today was one of the better ones. She used to own a pet poodle and she’d loved watching The Days of Our Lives. I wasn’t sure she understood the significance of those topics, but at least she knew they were important on a subconscious level.
“I have bingo tonight. What do you have?” She abruptly switched topics after a ten-minute monologue on hand washing laundry. “A beautiful girl like you must have fun plans for Friday night.”
It was Saturday, but I didn’t correct her.