Page 12 of A Forever Home at Honey Bee Croft

I nodded and got into my car but Damon showed no sign of leaving. I turned on the ignition before I put my seatbelt on in the hope that the car starting would speed him into action but he was standing halfway down the drive, watching me. I revved the engine as I pulled on my seatbelt. Surely that had to finally get him moving. No. I revved it again and released the handbrake,letting the car cruise forward a couple of feet. When he still didn’t move, I wound down the window.

‘Damon!’ I called sharply. ‘Stop messing about.’

He raised his hand, presumably in apology, and slowly sauntered down the drive, taking what felt like an eternity to pull his van back so I could exit the drive. I could feel his eyes on me but I didn’t glance his way or raise my hand in thanks. After all, what was there to thank him for? He’d turned up unannounced and couldn’t have made it much harder for me to leave, knowing that I was in a rush. What had got into him this morning? Any guilt I had about telling him I didn’t require his services anymore had gone. I wouldn’t take any pleasure in it but I would feel relieved about severing all ties.

Half an hour later, I pulled into the visitor car park at The Larks and hastened inside, my stomach still in knots. Marnie, a curvy brunette in her late forties, was talking to a woman in the foyer and nodded to acknowledge me. I waited nearby and caught enough of the conversation to glean that the woman was looking for a place for her mother. I recognised the shedload of guilt in her words and demeanour as I’d been the same and still felt that way eighteen months down the line, even though my logic-loving brain told me this was the best place for Dad. The woman took a brochure and, as she passed me, I gave her a weak smile and wished I could say something comforting, but were there really any suitable words of comfort for someone whose loved one had dementia?

‘Poppy!’ Marnie said, her smile as welcoming as ever as I joined her. ‘Let’s go through to my office, but do be assured that your lovely dad is safe and well.’

Safe? The staff here were amazing so I could easily believe that. Well? He’d never really bewellagain, but I knew it was just a turn of phrase and I did appreciate the attempt at reassurance.

Marnie’s office was just behind the reception desk. The large room had several places to sit and she directed me towards the round table and chairs at the opposite end to her desk.

‘I know you’ll be anxious to see your dad so I won’t keep you long, but I need to let you know that his midnight meanderings have escalated.’

‘As in they’re more frequent?’ I asked.

She grimaced. ‘As in he’s also been going into other residents’ rooms. Last night we were alerted to him trying to get into bed with one of our female residents.’

‘Oh, my gosh! Are they both all right?’

‘They were shaken but we were able to calm them and get them settled back to sleep.’

I ran my fingers into my hair and clasped my head between my hands, searching for something to say. The only words I could find were, ‘I’m sorry.’

‘Oh, goodness, there’s nothing to be sorry about. I’ve seen everything over the years and this isn’t the first time there’s been a spot of bed-hopping. It’s nothing sexual. With Alzheimer’s, it’s typically a combination of the person’s confusion, disrupted sleep patterns and restlessness and, as you’re aware, your dad is particularly restless at the moment.’

I raised my head, nodding. Dad’s restlessness had escalated as he’d progressed into later-stage dementia, always looking for someone or something. Even when he was sitting, his fingers would be restless, his eyes darting everywhere. For a man who’d always been so calm and restful, it was distressing to see.

‘I’m not telling you this because it’s a problem,’ Marnie continued. ‘As you’ll remember when you first looked around,my promise to you was for honesty and transparency, so this is simply me being those things.’

I gave her a weak smile. ‘Thank you. You’re sure everyone’s all right?’

‘Everyone’s just fine. I’d tell you if that wasn’t the case. Do you have any questions for me?’

‘What happens next? You won’t lock him in his room, will you?’ I couldn’t bear the thought of my dad being trapped like that.

‘Goodness, no! At night, we’ll keep an even closer eye on the corridor where your dad is, but try not to worry. It’s not the first time this has happened with our residents, and it certainly won’t be the last. Belongings go walkies all the time too.’

I remembered her warning Dad and me about that when we looked around, suggesting that Dad didn’t bring anything particularly valuable with him. Thefts were never intentional or malicious – just symptomatic of the confusion.

Moving to The Larks had been Dad’s idea. During my teens, a neighbour and close friend of my parents had been diagnosed with vascular dementia. Dad had seen firsthand the toll caring for him took on his wife, who passed away herself shortly after him. At the time, Dad vehemently declared that he never wanted to put Mum or me through that if he went the same way.

None of us had noticed the dementia creeping up on Dad because we’d been so focused on filling Mum’s time with holidays, trips and special moments before she was too ill to do little more than lie in a hospital bed with machines breathing for her, being fed through a tube. We’d put Dad’s moments of forgetfulness down to stress but, a couple of weeks after Mum’s funeral, Dad and I tore the house apart looking for his car keys. I found them inside the tub of butter in the fridge and called him through to the kitchen to show him. We laughed about it and then stared at each other, both recalling other incidents whereobjects had been found in unexpected places and the many occasions where he’d struggled to remember words or lost track of what he was saying. What if it wasn’t just stress and old age? What if there was something more sinister going on?

Dad had been so brave that day, getting straight onto the phone to make a doctor’s appointment, telling me everything would be okay even though we both knew it wouldn’t be. He had dementia. We didn’t need a formal diagnosis to confirm that. I’d tried to be strong too, telling him we’d tackle it together if the news was what we feared.But after we said goodnight at bedtime, I’d beaten my fists against my pillows, screaming silently with the injustice of it all. I’d just lost my wonderful mum and now this!

Shortly after we received the official diagnosis of Alzheimer’s disease, Dad strongly reiterated his desire not to be a burden by presenting me with three care home brochures. The Larks was his favourite and he’d already made an appointment for a tour. He wasn’t bothered what the rooms looked like –it’s just a place to sleep –but the garden had been important to him. We stood on the lawn, surrounded by trees and birdfeeders and I saw that same look of serenity on his face that he had whenever he was in the garden at Dove Cottage. An ornithologist since childhood, he thought that watching the birds and hearing their song might soothe his increasingly confused mind. This was to be the place when the time came.

I’d held off as long as I could but, in the autumn the year before last, Dad went missing. I’d only nipped out to post a letter and when I got back, the front door was wide open and he was gone. I’d never known fear like it. It was dark and cold and he could be anywhere.

It was several hours later when a neighbour out walking her dog found him quite distressed sitting on a tree stump down a deserted lane and led him home. He had wandered off before butnot that far or for that long and I had to accept that he was no longer safe to be left on his own.

Dad liked it in The Larks. The staff were kind and attentive and he’d been right about those birds soothing him. We both knew it was the best place for him, but it didn’t make it any easier when I drove home without him that first night, when I opened the door to an empty house, when I walked past his bedroom and he wasn’t there. And none of those things had got any easier since then. I feared they never would.

Dad was sitting in a high-backed chair in the residents’ lounge watching the birds eating from the various feeders spread around the patio. He spent most of his time there or sitting in a chair in his bedroom looking out over the garden.

I watched him from a distance for a while. He looked every bit the immaculately groomed and well-dressed gentleman he’d always been – blazer worn over an open-collared shirt and chinos with his grey hair neatly cut – but I could also see that the blazer was too big and the shirt too loose. I knew that his trousers only stayed up with the help of a belt with extra holes punched into it. If I moved closer, I knew his eyes would be flicking back and forth – always searching – and there’d be lines of confusion etched across his forehead. His hands would be teasing the tassels and ribbons on the colourful fiddle cushion made by the kind members of a local charity.

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