MOM HAS started brushing her hair “one hundred times, till it’s silky.” Every morning she puts on her brightest shade of red lipstick and waits for the arrival of more “family treasures” and “foxy men.” At first, I’d worried that men working on the house—coming in and out all the time and dropping tarps and using loud machinery—would make Mom upset. I should have known better.
“I love foxy men with tool belts,” she coos every time they enter the house. I wish she loved the Cajun Maids as much, but she looks at them like they’re trying to steal her foxy men. It’s embarrassing, but at least she and I have found a comfortable routine. I wish I could say the same thing about Lindsey and Raphael. They’ve taken a real aversion to each other, and I’m afraid Raphael delights in antagonizing her.
Mom hardly seems to notice the ongoing feud and is happier than I’ve seen her in years. She wraps herself up in Sutton lore and history and loves sitting at the head of the table and using old family china and crystal and silver. We listen to old records and thumb through photo albums and scrapbooks. Inevitably something taps into her long-term memory, knocking loose nuggets from the past.
“Look, that’s me and Momma outside the Joy Theater on Canal.”
I push her further. “Do you remember when it was taken?” She looks up at the ceiling and gives it some thought. “No.” She shakes her head and returns her attention to the photo. “I’m seven or eight.”
“So it was taken in nineteen fifty-three or four. Sometime after your dad died and before Grandmother married Papa Bob.”
She shrugs. “Momma loved Charles Boyer.”
For most of today, her mind seems clearer than it has in a few years now. She wrings her hands less and mentions Tony only twice. That’s progress, but each time she does, it’s like Groundhog Day, and I feel compelled to explain—very patiently, I might add—the Tony chapter all over again.
If Mom is not repeating old Sutton lore, we talk about the bits and pieces of the past that she can randomly recall. Like the time she took me to a New Kids on the Block concert and bought me Jordan Knight sheets (don’t judge).
I remind her of when we lived in El Paso and she worked at an Elmer’s. She’d have the cook make my favorite for me after school: a grilled cheese sandwich and fries. For dessert, it was always vanilla ice cream with hot fudge and peanuts.
She remembers that she worked at the Drunken Beaver in Portland, Oregon, and recalls every detail of the fight that broke out over her there. “They broke a table and two chairs. One man had to have stitches.”
She doesn’t seem to recall that I’d been sitting on a keg in the back room eating bar nuts and a pickle at the time. Funny how she can remember that fight but not that I’d been ten and scared to death.
“They were so handsome and in love with me,” she says through a nostalgic sigh.
“Did either give you a card with a cactus on it, like Earl?”
“No.” She shakes her head as if it’s a serious question. “They were both married.”
This is not at all shocking. Mom loves men of all ages and marital statuses. Men have defined her life and still do. I imagine the memories of men will be the last to fade and her passionate nature the last piece of Patricia to recede before she sinks into the final stages of her disease. As much as it has driven me crazy all my life, I will hate to see it go.
I’ve cut my Lulu responsibilities in half and work around Mom’s naps, but it’s not enough time. I try to make up the difference at night when Mom’s asleep, but I’m usually too worn out. Before my decision to focus on Mom, I never realized the amount of time it took to run the business of Lulu Inc. I’d been driven and hyper-focused. Doing what I loved and loving what I did, producing creative content in hotel rooms between events. I’ve never taken a vacation where I didn’t work, and it never felt like a chore. I never procrastinated—so why now?
Lulu is my heart and soul. The question of why now has lodged like a burr in my soul and the answer is terrifying. What if I’ve lost the heart for Lulu? What if I don’t love it anymore? My life with both Mom and Lulu is a continual cycle of guilt and anxiety, and I don’t see any resolution.
I’ve tried a couple of more meditation apps, but I struggle to pay attention. A glass of wine might help, but I can’t have one because the wine rack is filled with water bottles, and besides, I’m afraid I might not stop with just a single glass.
We’ve settled into a daily routine and get more comfortable with it every day. Mom’s adjusting to her new surroundings and both her anxiety and her emotional outbursts have decreased. She still has them, but they are less frequent and less explosive. I’m not a doctor, just a daughter living 24/7 with her Alzheimer’s mother, but in the past few weeks I’ve seen a marked improvement. She’s calmer and happier, and I truly believe that her environment has had a positive effect on her memory and thought processes. She’s far from cured, but her mind is clearer. For longer periods of time, I look in her eyes and see the real her.
I hate bugs and spiders and flying insects. I hate that the humidity is sometimes higher than the outside temperature. Sutton Hall is an even bigger money pit than I’d thought at first glance, and I’m bleeding cash. I can’t stick to a productive work schedule, but despite all that, bringing Mom back to Louisiana was the right decision. She’s doing so much better, in fact, that we are leaving the house tomorrow to shop. Nothing big or potentially overwhelming. Lindsey won’t be with us, so I planned a small foray close to home.
While our daytime routine is good and getting better, our nighttime routine is the best. After Mom changes into her nightclothes, I brush and braid her hair while she chomps on Pirate’s Booty, watches game shows, and yells answers at the TV.
Lindsey checks in on us around eight to take Mom’s blood pressure and dispense her sleeping medication. She keeps a little notebook and pen in the front pocket of her scrubs. She’s also expanded her wardrobe; on her days off, she wears flowing sundresses. Due to a kernel-related choking incident that happened a few days earlier during I Love Lucy, Lindsey takes Mom’s popcorn with her when she leaves. If I tried to take her Booty, Mom would fight me over it, but she doesn’t even argue with Lindsey. She’s nicer to Lindsey, but she does talk about her weight after she’s left the bedroom most nights. It’s rude and I’m grateful that she at least waits until Lindsey can’t hear her. Then we crawl into her bed and get cozy like when I was young. I always reach for her hand, but sometimes I wonder if she knows it’s me next to her, with my warm palm pressed into hers.
Tonight, Mom and I sit on the edge of the big canopy bed as Lindsey comes in to do her usual, squeezing the blood pressure bulb and listening through her stethoscope.
“Melvin Thompson,” Mom yells.
I haven’t thought of Melvin Thompson in years, and I wonder why she’s decided to shout her fourth husband’s name. I look up from my fingers braiding her hair to Family Feud.
Richard Dawson is leaning toward a red-haired woman and repeats the question “Name something that has white balls.”
Mom’s answer is suddenly extremely disturbing.
The contestant says, “An old sweater,” and a second X flashes on the screen.
“That was dumb,” counters the woman who expected her fourth husband’s nuts to be nationally recognized.