Page 56 of Good Days Bad Days
The nurse leaves the brown paper sack, assuring us it’s been in no hands but her own. I distribute the Styrofoam containers, the heavenly scent of homemade soup filling the room, distracting my mother from her suspicion.
“This is sinfully good,” my mother says, taking a spoonful of cream of potato soup with a saturated lump of homemade sourdough bread. “I haven’t had Lake Aire’s in ...” Her thought drifts off.
“Mmmm, so good,” Olivia agrees. And I remain mute so I don’t distract from their conversation.
“You are a pretty girl,” she says to Olivia, who’s wearing ripped jeans and an oversized sweater that would’ve triggered my mother in my younger years.
“Thank you. I like your nails. Did you just get them done?” Olivia returns the compliment. My mother stares at her cotton candy–pink fingernails.
“I . . . I think so.”
“Well, that’s a lovely color.”
“Thank you. It’s my favorite.”
The idea that the soft pink of a baby’s blanket could possibly be my mother’s favorite color strikes me as odd. Pale pink is such a contrast to the dark cavern of our home.
“It’s my favorite too,” Olivia adds, which is true, though for a brief time in high school she shunned the color, calling it “demeaning” to her feminist values. But apparently she’s realized she can be a feminist and wear pink.
“We should go shopping,” Betty says to Olivia with a youthful verve, finishing the last bit of creamy broth. A long-lost grandmother shopping with her newly acquainted granddaughter—it’s like a subplot from a Hallmark movie. It’s sweet and it’s something I never thought could possibly happen in my lifetime.
“Shopping?” Olivia looks to me to see if this is an odd request. I shrug.
“Yes. Shopping. I know a girl who works at JCPenney’s. She lets me use her discount.” She’s slipping a little, teetering between two times, two realities. I don’t know if my mom has ever left Shore Path, much less visited a department store. I peel a piece of crust off my roll and chew it slowly as I watch the interaction. “And we could go to Ike’s for dinner. If you think this is good, wait until you try Ike’s pot roast. But they only have it on Wednesday nights so we should go on a Wednesday.”
My ears perk up and I risk an interruption. “Ike’s Diner? In Janesville?”
“Yes, yes. Have you heard of it?” she asks us both politely. Olivia shakes her head as I nod mine.
“Olivia, that’s where I was coming from yesterday. It’s the town I was telling you about.”
“When your phone was off?” Olivia asks with raised eyebrows, leaving out the handsome dentist companion. I roll my eyes as Betty claps her hands.
“We should go to Ike’s,” Betty says eagerly, sitting up in her chair as straight as her stiffened spine allows. Olivia seems nearly as worked up by the idea.
“When I volunteered at Mountainview, family could sign the residents out for the day. We could ask,” Olivia says to both me and her grandmother, which enhances Betty’s mood. She starts to list off places she’d like to take us, a park by her house, the ice cream shop, the studio.
While shopping sounds like torture, I’d love to take Betty back to the mysterious town where she met my dad and see if any of the sights trigger her memories. But I deflate internally as the voice of reason prevails. It’s unrealistic.
“Let’s not get her hopes up,” I say under my breath to Olivia before the fantasy of a day trip can take hold any further. I read every pamphlet Nurse Mitchell gave me on my first day here, and one of the big rules, after the one about not arguing, is don’t make any promises, especially false promises, to the dementia patient.
I stand up and start collecting the cards.
“Sorry, but we should probably get going,” I say to both Olivia and Betty, cutting our visit short. The lack of sleep is catching up with me, a piercing headache developing in between my eyebrows. I’ve been the engaged mom, I’ve shown Olivia the town, introduced her to her grandparents, and even played nice with Ian, but I’m out of parental patience. I’ve had my oasis invaded and far too many of my choices hijacked. I need a long bath and maybe a nap before I can think clearly again.
Olivia must be able to tell I’m burned out, and after pushing her luck by showing up on my doorstep, she doesn’t fight me. Betty says easy farewells, the sharp edge to her comments having dulled a bit.
“Ike’s next week,” she reminds us as I write in her visitor’s log, detailing the visit with Olivia, our special lunch, and the card game, leaving out the proposed visit to Janesville, hoping she’ll forget all about it.
Olivia disappears into her room when we return to the rental with promises of unpacking. I take the opportunity to run an insanely hot bath, soaking with the lights off and listening to a white noise app on my phone until the water grows tepid. Wearily, I work my fragrant argan oil shampoo through my hair and rinse by holding my head underwater, shaking the strands wildly till they tickle my shoulders and I run out of air.
I repeat with the conditioner, remembering when I was a little girl how my mom would sit on the edge of our pink porcelain tub in the upstairs hall bathroom, scrubbing my scalp and delicately rinsing it with a large plastic cup filled with bathwater.
Breaking through the surface of the water, I hear the doorbell ping through the static pouring out of my phone’s speakers.
“Olivia!” I call out, but no one responds. The bell rings again. “Damn it,” I grumble, slithering out of the tub. I quickly run a towel over my body and wrap it around my hair. After wiggling into a cleanpair of underwear, I slip on silky blue pajama pants and a matching top, adding an oversized sweater to conceal my lack of a bra.
As I rush toward the front door, a flash of white-hot pain shoots through my shin when I bang it against the corner of the bed frame. I clutch my leg, trying to keep the towel on my head. As I stumble down the hall, deep voices come from the front room. One belongs to Ian. For some reason, he’s standing in my open front door, leaning halfway out and talking to someone as if he lives here. Then, the second voice registers in my mind. It’s Cam.
