Page 11 of Meet Me in Berlin

Holly, Melbourne

Iunwrap my scarf, shrug off my coat and walk the wide, carpeted corridor of the care home to the lounge area. Mum and my brother are seated on the far side of the room by the fireplace. I weave through the recliners and couches, offering hellos to the residents who smile up at me.

‘Hey, Hols,’ Adam says with a tired smile and weary eyes.

‘You okay?’ I give his shoulder a rub, dump my bag on the floor and take the free chair on the other side of Mum.

‘Yeah. Long day.’ He gestures to the fire. ‘And that’s putting me to sleep.’

I lean down to kiss Mum’s cheek and breathe in the familiar rose scent of her face moisturiser. ‘Hi, Mum.’

‘Hello…’ Confusion skates across her pale blue eyes. ‘Erm…’

‘Hol—’

‘I know your name,’ she says, her voice tinged with irritation.

My eyes cut to Adam and he replies with a worried frown.

‘Holly.’ Mum places her hand on my cheek, soft and warm against my skin. ‘Sorry, my lovely girl. It’s Holly,’ she says, her English accent still strong even after forty years in Australia.

I give her a reassuring smile. ‘That’s right.’

‘Ooh, you’re cold,’ she says, letting her hand linger on my cheek.

‘Uh-huh. It’s icy out there and I walked from the tram.’

‘The nearest tram’s a good fifteen-minute walk,’ Adam says. ‘Why didn’t you call me to pick you up?’

I shrug. ‘Felt like a walk.’ I turn to Mum. ‘It’s cosy in here, though. The fire’s nice.’

‘It’s okay.’ She glances furtively around the room and lowers her voice. ‘It would be better if everyone wasn’t so old.’

Adam and I exchange a bemused look.

‘I reckon a lot of them are around your age, Mum,’ Adam says.

Her eyes widen. ‘They aren’t!’

‘That’s why we chose this place,’ I say. ‘So you’d be with people around the same age.’

‘I don’t even know how old I am these days. I started forgetting that even before’ – she points to her head – ‘I started forgetting.’

I grin. ‘You’re only sixty-seven, Mum.’

Her eyes widen again. ‘Only? Well, who wants to remember that?’ She pats Adam’s knee. ‘Now, how’s your little one getting on at school?’

As Adam tells Mum about his youngest son, I take in the other residents, wondering how they came to be here and whether any of them have similar stories to Mum. We moved her in about three weeks ago but she’d been struggling on her own for months, her short-term memory slowly deteriorating over the years. Possibly the consequence of a stroke she’d had after Dad died, according to her doctor. Eventually diagnosed with vascular dementia and the early stages of Alzheimer’s, she refused to leave her home or to accept that she needed more care, until – all in one day – she left the gas burning on the stove, the iron switched on and the front door unlocked overnight.

Adam stands. ‘I reckon I’ll get going. Walk me to the car, Hols?’ He bends down and kisses Mum on the cheek. ‘I’ll see you soon.’

‘Okay, love. I’d like to see my grandsons, too.’

‘You will when you come to my place for lunch on the weekend. How does that sound?’

She beams. ‘Splendid.’

I grab my coat. ‘I’ll be back in a couple of minutes, Mum.’

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