Page 87 of The Second Chance Bus Stop
Two very determined women. That’s what I’m up against from now on. And I don’t mind. Not one bit. Of course, Sophia has thoroughly researched the topic of moving with dementia and provides all the arguments.
‘The small town will be easier for her. I’ve read about people with dementia making the move in the early stages to escape the sensory load that is the city. The noise, the smells, congested pavements, getting lost when roads and architecture keep changing. In Svedala, she would have the freedom to still walk out the door alone. Be in nature.’
I give in.
‘So. Sweden it is.’
I just got a whole lot busier. Apply for papers, get Eliza onto fast-tracking the sale of the house, find a decent care home in Sweden, transfer the pension. But anything should be possible. My mum is finally going to start a new life abroad aged sixty-five and I’m coming with her.
We are packing. It’s a big task, and we figured it’s better to start right away. Mum is sat in the armchair and I’m following instructions. Somehow as she gets more clouded, more tired, her alert days, the days when she is herself, become brighter. She is efficiently guiding me around the living room’s drawers and shelves. What used to be a cluttered house, her home fortwenty years, will soon be bare and minimalistic with only the large furniture pieces left. Today Pushba is helping, her youngest child on the floor with wooden spoons and kitchen pots to keep busy. It’s loud, but Mum likes noise. Apparently a toddler banging on a metallic pot drives away other sensory experiences, such as the smell of rat.
‘We’ll miss you.’
‘I won’t sell to anyone unless they’re the type of person who lends their neighbour a pint of milk,’ Mum says.
I shake my head at her.
‘I can’t believe that for years you wouldn’t move, and now you’ve just agreed to move to Sweden. You were the woman who can’t be moved.’
‘I was always meant to be there. If I could have been with the man I loved, I would have spent my life there. I was meant to have my overseas adventure.’
‘Look at this,’ Pushba calls from the other room, where she is helping clear out Mum’s wardrobe. In her hand is a glossy photo of two people on a park bench, tulips blooming behind them. Mum and Sven. Pushba smiles.
‘I found it at the bottom of the box of winter coats.’
Sophia
Svedala
Lina picks me up on the other side of the flight, and seeing her makes the physical illness I feel at being away from Blade subside. I stand still and straight with my bags in my hands as she hugs me.
‘Cornflakes is with Tim,’ she explains when I scan the car for him.
‘Can you pass by an address in Malmö?’ I ask. ‘I need to collect something. For Edith and Blade.’
The manager is young and keen.
‘There’s been quite a search for you,’ he says, when I tell him what I’m there for. He shows me which safe is Edith’s, then hovers next to me as I carefully put the key inside. The key is small and insignificant; it reminds me of a bicycle-lock key or the small silver ones you get on a rubber wrist band at public pools. There’s a wooden box inside. Nothing else.
‘Aren’t you going to open it?’ The man’s disappointment is obvious.
I press it to my chest and breathe in the smell of earth, still there in the wood after years inside a square, metal space.
‘Not just yet.’
I call Blade as soon as I’ve got the contents.
‘This is what was inside,’ I say, showing him. It’s an intricately carved wooden box, much like a jewellery case or where someone might put their sewing needles and thread.
‘Did you open it already?’ he asks.
‘Not yet.’ He watches me carefully as I unclasp the metal latch. The lid doesn’t immediately spring open, and it takes me a second attempt and more force for it to comply.
‘It’s letters,’ I say. ‘Hundreds of letters organised according to year. There are Post-its separating them. It’s my uncle’s writing’
‘I’ll get Mum,’ Blade says.
Edith is on crutches now, starting to bear weight on her legs. She shuffles over to the sofa and Blade holds up the screen so she can see me.
