I sigh, then glare at the look on Lizzie’s face.
“Not one word…” I raise a finger in warning.
“Donald?” she asks with way too much innocence on her face.
“That’s a word.”
“So is ‘blackmail’, my friend.”
Oh, this is going to be a long afternoon…
Waving a hand, I prompt Lizzie towards the sitting room area of the bedsit.
“Take your pick of the seats.”
The options are a couch with too many cushions, an old leather armchair, and a deep, plush bucket seat.
“Where does your mom normally sit?” she asks, glancing towards the plush chair most central to the TV. “Here?”
“Yeah, why?”
Lizzie moves toward the couch.
“My friend Jess’s great uncle had dementia. I don’t know much about it, but I know routine is important. I don’t want to upset any patterns she has.”
For a moment, I’m surprised. It took me months to work out how to operate around my Mom without upsetting her. And every time I think I have a handle on it, the disease advances or she develops a new quirk. A new landmine to be placed directly under my feet.
“Here we are.” Ma comes around the breakfast bar of her kitchen with a tray supporting three steaming mugs. “Oh Caleb, sit down, you’re looming.”
“Fine.”
I deposit myself into the armchair without grace.
“Now, are you going to introduce me to this young lady?” Clearly, Mom had forgotten the previous week. Similar to how she’d forgotten the thing in her pocket. It was a hairdryer.
“This is Lizzie, Mom, remember? You already—”
“I should apologize to you, Mrs. Walker,” Lizzie suddenly says, cutting in. I turn to look at her, confused. “I’ve come to see you uninvited and without a previous introduction. But I’m hoping apology flowers might make up for my rudeness?”
Lizzie takes up the flowers she’d lain on the floor beside the couch and offers them over. Ma’s eyes are so wide, Lizzie might as well have been a magician, producing live doves.
“Oh, aren’t they beautiful!” she cries, taking them in hand. She’s careful in how she holds the plastic wrapper, not wanting to bruise the flowers within. She spares only a moment to slap me on the leg. “Why do you never bring me flowers anymore?”
“I brought you flowers two weeks ago for your birthday, Ma.”
“Bah! It doesn’t have to be a birthday to give flowers. And you Miss Lizzie are more than welcome. None of that rubbish about apologies. They’re not needed.” Her eyes suddenly narrowing, Mom gives a mock glare in Lizzie’s direction. “But you’re not having the flowers back.”
“That’s okay,” Lizzie laughs. “I don’t have much of a green thumb. I think they’ll do better here with you. Caleb tells me you like to garden?”
And so begins an in-depth conversation over seeds and soil. One that, for all Lizzie’s claims to have no green thumb, she managers to keep up with. At least until Ma and I get lost in a heated debate over irrigation systems.
“We’re forgetting our manners, Caleb,” Ma eventually breaks through. “I should be putting these in water and you should serve the tea. Just don’t spill anything. Margaret isn’t here for another three days.”
As Mom stands and heads back to the kitchen, flowers in hand, Lizzie catches my eye. She mouths her question:
Margaret?
“Maggie O’Connell down at the post office. She used to come and clean for Mom on the weekends when I was a kid.”