“I visit all the time.” Mom sighs as if reliving fond memories of the one place I know for certain she’s never stepped foot in. “Cuban cigars are rolled on the thighs of virgins.”
I turn my head and look into my mom’s crazy eyes. “That’s a myth, Mom.”
She just gives me a blank look and says, “Connie has a fondness for scotch, Lucky Strikes, and her sister’s husband.”
I don’t know Connie, either. She might be as made-up as Lorena and Cuba.
“I told Bill she was no good.”
This is a new Patricia that I’ve never witnessed. It’s not Pleasant Fog Patricia, with her vacant eyes and pasted-on smile. It’s not Rattlesnake Patty, either. This is delirious Bat-Shit Pat. I’m not ready for Bat-Shit Pat. I turn back around. “Is she going to go back to normal? I mean, normal for her?”
Lindsey looks at me, then at the road. “A serious infection can affect the progression of Alzheimer’s, but I don’t think it’s nearly that bad yet.”
I should have seen the signs before she got this bad. I haven’t been paying as close attention to her since that day she asked me to kill her. I’ve allowed the standoff to go on for too long. I tell myself she’ll be all right. That everything will be okay. It’s just a little bladder infection, and we’ll get some antibiotics and be home before the end of Tic-Tac-Dough.
Unfortunately, I’m wrong. Mom’s UTI is serious enough that she has to spend the night in the hospital. Lindsey and I leave five hours after she’s assigned a bed and drive home in silence. I don’t want to blame Lindsey. I know she’s conscientious and methodical with Mom’s care. This is Mom’s fourth urinary infection, and she has always recovered. Still, I have a knot in my stomach the size of a soft pretzel and the urge to take it out on someone. Too bad Doug from Golden Springs isn’t around.
My mood goes further south when I walk into the big house, which feels more like a big oven. It’s after midnight, and the thermostat says it’s ninety-two degrees. The air-conditioning switch is in the on position and I hit it a few times with the side of my fist. “Come on, baby,” I plead. “Don’t quit on me now.” Surprisingly, cool air starts to flow from the vents. It’s either my magic fist or my pitiful begging.
The bedrooms upstairs are almost unbearable. I open the windows, but they’re heavy, and I have to wedge a fire poker in one casement to keep the window from sliding back down. Cool night air pushes through the screen as I get ready for bed.
There’s a little knock on my door just before Lindsey enters wearing a purple cotton nightgown that might as well be a muumuu. Her eyes are red and her face is blotchy. “I’m sorry, Lou Ann.” She blows her nose, then sticks the wadded-up Kleenex in her cleavage. “Maybe I should have made Patricia pee on a stick more than once a week.”
“It’s not your fault. We’re both trying to figure out what we could have done differently.” I shake my head. “I don’t know.”
“I’ll understand if you fire me now, but I’m really hoping you won’t.”
“You’re not fired, Lindsey,” I say through a sigh. “Mom likes you more than any nurse she’s come in contact with.”
“She doesn’t accuse me of hiding her shoes and stealing her Pirate’s Booty.”
“There you go. She likes you more than she likes me.”
“No. She just takes her frustration and anger out on you more than she does on me, but she yells at me, too.”
“That makes you practically family, I guess. Lucky you.”
She wipes her fingers across her wet cheeks. “Sorry. I usually don’t cry so much. It’s Frankie.” She looks down and rubs her belly. “He makes me gassy, too.”
“Ahh, TMI. Even if we are practically family, we don’t need to share everything.”
She laughs and sticks out her hand for me. “Come here.”
I frown and put my hands behind my back. “No.”
“Come on.”
“Why? I don’t want to pull your finger.”
She laughs and moves toward me. “You’re so funny.”
I wasn’t trying to be funny.
Lindsey grabs one of my hands and places it on her belly. “Feel that. Isn’t that wild?”
Beneath my palm, I feel her whole stomach move, and something pokes out at my fingers. “What was that?” Startled, I pull my hand back and watch her stomach move again, pushing up on the side of her muumuu. It looks like a scene out of one of Lindsey’s alien movies.
“He’s running out of room and not very happy about it.” She rubs her stomach, and it moves again. “Jim says that means he’s going to be a handful, but I don’t think so.” Then I look up at her, and her face gets serious. “I want to ask you something, and you can say no.”