Page 3 of Good Days Bad Days
I smile and thank her, though I can’t imagine what they’ve told the staff here. It’s likely a mix of truth and imaginings about my life.
She continues, “So, Betty is ready for your visit, but I must warn you—she’s having a bit of a bad day today. Your dad has probably told you—with RPD, rapidly progressive dementia, or really any major neurocognitive disorder, there are good days and bad days. It’s what we call fluctuating cognition. Sometimes it can make our residents feel a little unstuck in time. So, don’t be discouraged if she’s confused today and doesn’t remember what year it is. She might not recognize you or your dad at times. It’s to be expected but not exactly predictable, right, Greg?”
My dad gives a polite chuckle, and I nod as if I know what they’re talking about.
“A few tips. We suggest on these harder days to let your mom have the reality she’s in at the moment. Arguing is not really productive and can actually prolong or exacerbate the situation. Distraction is great. Your dad’s found that playing cards or working on a puzzle helps focus your mom. Music, too. I’ll give you a printout with some tips, but it’sunderstandable if you end up feeling overwhelmed and need to step away. This isn’t easy for anyone.”
“Sounds good,” I agree.
We go through a locked door Nurse Mitchell opens with a key card and then pass a living room–like area where a few residents are watching a blaring morning show while another pair seems to be playing a game of checkers in the corner. It’s a happy place, or so it seems. The elderly men and women look engaged and well tended. I’m sure my mother is in better condition here than when she lived at home, and even with all the hurt from my childhood, I’m glad she’s being cared for.
When we reach room 184, I see my mom’s name written on a nameplate under the room number. She has a sun sticker on one side of her name and a bright pink flower on the other, which seems awfully cheerful for the Betty Laramie I know.
“You ready?” Nurse Mitchell asks. I nod and my dad gives my shoulder an unexpected squeeze. I flash back to my childhood, how he’d say goodbye with a loving pat each day as he headed out to open our family store. It’s strange how memories can be both exquisite and excruciating at the same time.
Nurse Mitchell gives a double knock on the partially open door and then steps inside, gesturing for me to follow her.
It’s been thirty-one years, five months, two weeks, and three days since they took me out of my parents’ home. Thirty-one years since I was taken out of my school and the town that was helping to raise me. Thirty-one years since my mom and I exchanged our last words.
Our last words—until today.
Chapter 2
Greg
April 3, 1969
Ike’s Diner
Janesville, Wisconsin
“That might be the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen,” Mark Lucian says, a little louder than I’m comfortable with in the middle of Ike’s Diner. “Look. Look.”
“Would you knock it off?” I growl, staring at my empty coffee cup until the diner’s door chimes, signaling her impending exit. I refuse to try to get a better look at her, hoping to make Mark’s blatant drooling less obvious.
“Oh, man. You missed her.” He tosses his last sliver of bacon into his mouth and wipes his mustache with a napkin. “Well, your loss.”
I’d caught a brief glimpse of the pretty young lady when she first approached the counter before being seated several booths away from our table. She was wearing a figure-hugging red dress and a hat that likely cost more than I make in a week. Her medium-length hair had an unnatural platinum hue, root to curled ends. She was out of Mark’s league and definitely out of mine.
“Don’t you get enough of gawking at women over at that place in Darien? Leave the hometown girls alone.”
Mark’s a real ladies’ man, who I personally know keeps a pack of nudie cards in his desk and visits the Vegas Club at least once a week. I know he doesn’t think the same of me. I haven’t had a date in half a year. At twenty-five, I’ve gotten to know all the eligible ladies in Janesville and watched most of them get married. A lot of them have at least one or two in their brood now.
“That was no hometown girl. You’d know that if you’d looked when I told you to.” Mark sniffs and tugs his belt up over his slim abdomen. When I say Mark is a ladies’ man, I don’t mean that only he thinks of himself as one. He picks up women easily at any bar we go to. When I talk to women, especially beautiful ones, I get nervous and tongue-tied, my palms wet like I’ve dipped them in the Rock River.
“I don’t like ogling women.”
“I know. I remember you at the club. I was embarrassed for weeks at how you fell all over yourself around those gals. I don’t know what’s the matter with you ...”
“What’s the matter with him?” Lucy, our regular waitress and Ike’s daughter, asks. Her husband went to Vietnam a few years ago and didn’t come back. It’s happening more and more lately, and when Mrs. Morris, my mother’s neighbor and best friend, called me last June, I knew as soon as I heard sobs in the background that my family had been touched by this same kind of tragedy. “This man here is one of the last true gentlemen, unlike you, Mark Lucian.”
I dip my last bite of pancake in an amber pool of syrup, blushing. Lucy is tall, blond, and constantly warding off Mark’s advances. I have a particular softness for Lucy, knowing we share some of the same flavor of grief, and I’m easily irritated at Mark’s childish flirtations. I think Mark has always been in love with Lucy. I suspect he would’ve proposed as soon as it was socially acceptable after her loss, but he’s not the kind of man to ask a question he doesn’t already know the answer to. It’s not that I have a romantic inclination toward the young widow, I justwish Mark would leave her alone if he isn’t going to go about things in a respectful manner.
“Hey, Luce, who was that woman that just walked out?” Mark asks as Lucy places the bill on the table and collects our empty plates. She shrugs, not seeming annoyed or jealous, which I’m assuming she would be if Mark had any chance with her.
“The fancy one from table three? No idea. Never seen her before. Must be passing through.”
“Huh, that’s what I thought.”
