Page 75 of Taking It To Overtime

“You guys aren’t old!”

“We aren’t exactly young anymore either, Vera,” he shrugs. “For a while she was still functioning just fine—at work, at home—but then she started forgetting more. She lost her phone for a week. I found it in the glove compartment of my car. She would go to get groceries and come back empty-handed, because she got turned around on the way to the store.”

I bite down hard on my lip. My parents have been going to the same Price Chopper since we moved here. It’s literally walking distance from the house. We only ever drove because bringing back a week’s worth of food was difficult to carry.She couldn’t find it?

“We decided she was close enough to take early retirement, and she was diagnosed a few months later.”

“And I wasn’t informed because…?”

How often do I talk to my mother? My gut instinct is to say every single week. We…. Text. Or email. It’s my dad who calls. My dad who Skypes. Their last few trips have been shorter, but I thought nothing of it because I was busy. I was working. I thought they streamlined their visits to not interfere in my life. How selfish can I be? It wasn’t about me at all; it was to help my mother. The signs have all been staring me in my damn face and I might have ignored every one.

Dad turns to study an impressionist painting slapped up on the wall. It’s a red barn in a yellow wheat field. There’s nothing about it interesting enough to hold his attention. He’s stalling.

“I deserve an explanation,” I say, and I feel a wall of heat as Robbie steps up behind me. “Did you know?” I ask him, glancing over my shoulder to meet his eyes.

It feels like an eternity passes before he dips his chin down to his chest. My heart stops.

“This is a joke, right? A cruel fucking joke?”

“Vera,” Dad’s voice is sharp. There’s an edge there and I’m done.

“No. Don’t you ‘Vera’ me. Was everyone just cackling over my cluelessness? Do I come off as that self-absorbed that I wouldn’t notice or care? I thought she’d had a fucking stroke, Dad. You,” I whirl on Robbie. “You let me go on and on about pretending we were dating so we ‘wouldn’t upset her.’” I pull out the air quotes for that. “What a goddamn joke you all must have thought I was.”

“I’m sorry,” Robbie says, and I want to beat my fists against his chest. I want to scream, howl, kick the walls. How could he, of all people, not tell me? “It’s not an excuse, but I thought you knew.”

I snort a laugh. “Right. How convenient. You thought I knew, but you kept it quiet enough to not even hint that there was an issue.”

He reaches for me, big hands cupping my cheeks.

“I didn’t bring it up, because I figured you would if you wanted to. I only know the truth because my parents let something slip. I knew it wasn’t common knowledge, but never did I think you’d been left in the dark. Not until…”

Not until my dad had been late, and I was left standing in a hospital hallway raving about my mom’s memory issues and screaming that no one cared.

It wasn’t that they didn’t care. They just knew better. It wasn’t a stroke.

It wasn’t cancer, or a tumor, or a brain bleed, or a concussion.

It’s Alzheimer’s. Dementia caused by Alzheimer’s that is slowly stealing my mother away from me. My throat feels tight, like it’s closing up. I can’t suck in enough air.

“I’m sorry,” he says, and I let his forehead rest against mine. I’m mad, spitting tacks angry, but I know it’s not on him. I do.

“Is that why you went along with it? My dumb idea?”

He shushes me, crushing me into the heat of his body.

“It wasn’t dumb Vera. Not at all. And maybe it’s why Ithoughtyou suggested…everything, butnotwhy I went along with it.”

We’re swaying side to side, his mouth pressed to my ear.

“I agreed because I love you, Vera. I always have, I always will, and I will give you absolutely anything that is in my power to give.”

“Why didn’tyoutell me, Dad?” I ask the words into Robbie’s chest. As if not looking at my father will make hearing his answer easier somehow. “I want the truth. Not some bullshit about it being complicated.”

I can hear the deep inhale from behind me. I can almost picture my dad running his hand through his thinning hair as he composes himself.

“When your mother was first diagnosed, it was a shock. She’s considered an early-onset patient, but her symptoms were still mild. Stage three, her doctor said. Frankly, it’s a miracle we got a diagnosis as quickly as we did. I’ve heard horror stories of families waiting, begging for answers.” I hear footsteps and the creak of a chair as he sits down. I squeeze my eyes shut and focus on Robbie.

“Your mother wanted to wait to say anything.”

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