“I can’t imagine where he’s gone.”

Spunky died at about the time of my first cancer diagnosis when I was sixteen. Margaret had wanted to get another dog right away. Dad said no, and it wasn’t because he didn’t want another family pet. Just then, taking care of me was all he could handle. My sister knew that and added one more resentment to the pile she was accumulating. One more resentment against me.

“Can I get you anything before I leave?” I asked Mom. Instantly I could tell she didn’t want me to go.

“You just got here,” she said accusingly.

Actually, I’d been with her for over an hour. “I need to get back to the shop and then home to Brad and Cody,” I told her as gently as I could. From the blank look in her eyes, I knew she didn’t recognize either.

“Will you come tomorrow?”

I nodded. I’d make the time and if I couldn’t, I’d ask Margaret to visit. Before I left, I hugged her and made sure she was comfortable. I handed her the remote and Mom flipped up the volume on yet another judge show, one with a woman on the bench.

As I stepped into the hallway, Rosalie Mullin, the staff nurse who gave Mom her insulin injections, passed me. I stopped her. “How have Mom’s blood sugars been?” I asked, remembering that she said she’d skipped lunch. A cracker with a bit of tuna could hardly be considered a meal.

“Her sugars have been good.” She paused, then said, “The diabetes is under control.” Her eyes held mine.

Rosalie’s hesitation told me she had other concerns. “There’s another problem, isn’t there?”

She nodded. “Perhaps we should talk in my office. I can be there in five minutes.”

I took the elevator to the bottom floor, where I waited outside Rosalie’s office. She seemed to be away far longer than a few minutes, but that might have been due to my nervousness. Each minute felt like at least ten.

Without a word, Rosalie ushered me into her office. She sat behind her desk and motioned to the chair on the other side. With a lump in my throat, I perched stiffly on the edge of the cushion.

Already I could feel the beginnings of a headache. Probably because of the brain tumors, I’m prone to migraine headaches. They’re crippling, and they can last for days. It’d been months since I had one and I chose to believe that this was a simple tension headache and forced myself to ignore the nausea and dizziness.

“I’d been planning to call you and your sister,” Rosalie said. She reached for a file from the stack on her desk and opened it. “I’ve asked the assistants to keep tabs on your mother.”

“Why?”

“She’s been missing a lot of meals, growing less social and showing signs of paranoia. She was reacting badly to the Aricept, so the doctor took her off. He warned me she might lose ground quickly and she has. Unfortunately, one of the symptoms of this sort of decline is lack of appetite.”

My first inclination was to defend Mom, to make excuses for her. “I’m sure that has something to do with losing both Helen and Joyce in such a short time. I don’t think I’d want to eat, either.”

Rosalie agreed with me. “To a point, that’s true. However, I’ve started to notice other signs.”

“What do you mean?”

“I’m afraid your mother’s showing early symptoms of Alzheimer’s.”

That had been my worry, as well, although I couldn’t verbalize it, even to myself.

“As far as meals go, what about bringing them to her?” I said.

“We can do that, of course,” Rosalie assured me. “There’s an additional charge after a certain number of delivered meals. But what I’m trying to say isn’t about your mother’s eating or her diabetes.” Her eyes were sympathetic. “I’m thinking the time is fast approaching when her needs will exceed what we have to offer her.”

My mouth was dry. The light from the lamp on her desk was bothering my eyes. “You’re not suggesting a nursing home, are you?” The thought of placing my mother in one was more than I could bear.

“Not a nursing home,” Rosalie told me. “A memory care facility.”

“Memory care?” I repeated. I’d never heard of such a thing.

“They’re wonderful for people like your mother. There’s a greater level of individual care, and the environment is more controlled. I’d recommend that you and your sister visit a few, talk to the staff, get a feel for each place. I can give you information on three of them.” She opened a drawer, removed a file and handed me a sheet with names and addresses. “I’m familiar with all of these, and I can guarantee that Mrs. Hoffman would be well looked after.”

“Thank you,” I said shakily as I stood. My eyes had started to water and I wasn’t sure if it was because of the light or my emotions. Probably both.

By then I knew I needed to get home as quickly as possible. I don’t usually talk on my cell phone while I’m driving, but this was an emergency. At least it felt like one. My first call was to my husband, who was just getting off work.

“Hi, sweetheart,” he said as he answered. “Where are you?”

“Driving. I probably shouldn’t be,” I said, hardly able to function now as my head throbbed painfully. “I’m on my way home. I have a migraine.”

“Your medication’s at the house?”

“Yes.” At one time I carried it with me, but after all these months I’d become careless. “I’ll be all right once I’m home,” I said. “I should have asked the nurse for a painkiller, but it didn’t enter my mind.”

“How far are you?”

“Five minutes from the house.” That was true on a good day, but it was rush hour and the traffic would slow me down.

“What can I do?”

“Call Margaret for me,” I said. “Ask her to close the store. She’ll know what to do.”

“Okay. Anything else?” I heard the concern in his voice.

I swallowed a sob and when I spoke my voice was hoarse with emotion. “It’s Mom, Brad. She’s not doing well.”

“I’ll be home as soon as I can.”

“Thank you.” I clicked off the phone and exited the freeway. By the time I’d pulled into the garage and made my way into the house, the pain in my head was blinding me. I stumbled down the hallway to the bathroom, where we kept the medications. Turning on the light wasn’t an option. I found the bottle in the cabinet more by luck than intent, nearly ripped off the cap and swallowed the pill without water.

Keeping my eyes closed I braced my hand against the wall and dragged myself into our bedroom. The first thing I did was close the shades. Once the room was dark, I undressed and climbed into bed. Soon the medication would kick in and the pain would subside. Tears crept from my eyes, sliding down my cheeks.

“Mom,” I sobbed. “Oh, Mom.” She wasn’t there to comfort me and would never be again. Nor, it seemed, could I comfort her.

The tragedy of this disease was that it took away so much of who my mother was. She’d become completely dependent on Margaret and me to make decisions for her. As her mental capacities diminished, we’d be assuming all responsibility for her care. Most painful, perhaps, was her growing inability to remember her own life. My sister and I would have to be the keepers of her memories, for her and for ourselves.

Margaret had talked about how much she missed our mother, and I knew now that we’d be missing her more and more.

CHAPTER 22

Alix Townsend

When Colette met her at Go Figure, Alix could tell that she was worried about something. For that matter, so was Alix. They completed their workout routine and then went for a drink at a nearby restaurant.

“You’re looking very thoughtful,” Colette said, sipping her herbal iced tea.

“You are, too,” Alix said. She wasn’t about to let Colette’s uncharacteristic silence that morning slip past without comment.

“Is everything all right between you and Jordan?” Colette asked.

Alix shrugged, dismissing the comment. Her relationship with Jordan was strained at the moment; it’d all started with the wedding cake and escalated from there. She’d avoided him since then and he seemed to be avoiding her, which only complicated matters. “We had a…difference of opinion. It’s no big deal.”

Colette studied her. “What about?”

Alix reached for her iced coffee and took a deep swallow before answering. “What else? The wedding.”

Okay, so it was an actual argument, not merely what you’d call a friendly difference of opinion. Alix had been good and angry, and she hadn’t been afraid to let Jordan know how badly he’d disappointed her. Now, though, their disagreement was about more than the wedding.

Alix didn’t doubt that Jordan loved her. That wasn’t the point. The problem was he hadn’t listened; worse, he hadn’t heard anything she’d said. Because of that, Alix had been forced to surrender herself one more time at the altar of this blasted wedding.

“What about you?” Alix asked. She wasn’t spilling her guts if Colette wasn’t willing to do the same. That was what friends did.

Colette sipped her tea. “I won’t be dating Steve Grisham again.”

Alix sat up. This was news. “That’s the detective, right?”

“Right.”

Alix had no time for what she sarcastically called the boys in blue. She didn’t know even one who didn’t lie through his teeth. Not only that, they saw what they wanted to see. She’d gone down on a bogus drug charge because of her roommate. The cop had been ready to believe the lie as long as it added to his arrest record. Alix didn’t plan to forgive either him or her onetime friend.

She knew Colette had recently met Steve for a fancy dinner. Alix didn’t have that much experience with detectives, but she figured they weren’t any better than the cops on the street. Out of respect for Colette’s dead husband, Alix hadn’t shared her opinion of the police. “Did Columbo put the moves on you?”

Colette grinned. “No, but I talked to his ex-wife and learned a few things that…I didn’t know and, well, it was obvious this was never going to work out, anyway.”

Alix wasn’t convinced Colette should listen to the ex. Still, she tended to believe it was a mistake for Colette to date any man other than Christian Dempsey when she was so clearly in love with him.

“Don’t you think the ex-wife might have her own agenda?” Alix asked.

Colette shrugged. “If it was someone else, I might think so, but not Jeanine. We were good friends once, the four of us, and then Derek got transferred and we didn’t see as much of them. Now I wonder…Jeanine was always friendly but there were times she seemed distant. I thought it might’ve been me. She never talked about it. But it turns out Steve’s been unfaithful for years, so it all sort of makes sense now. Besides, he’s just a little too smooth, a little too…practiced, especially around women.”