Dementia

Following the events of last Labor Day, I’d made the decision: That’s it.

It was clear to me that so far as my mother’s family was concerned, I was the red-headed stepchild. I had always been the red-headed stepchild. I would always be the redheaded stepchild.

And who the hell needs to interact with that?

So except for my quasi-cousin Katherine, I stopped.

Nothing dramatic.

But I blocked their numbers. And I didn’t think about them.

And then, Saturday night last, I’d dreamt of Annie.

No narrative, just a flash: She was living somewhere, and she hated it. She was deeply unhappy.

So when I did phone with Ichabod the following day, I trotted out the casual question: Do you know how Annie’s doing?

He did not. He’d tried to call her about a month ago, but she hadn’t called him back.

Yesterday, he texted me: Hi Mom just wanted to let you know that Annie is in Oregon now in a home for people with dementia. Apparently, there was an incident that led to that but I don’t have details yet.

Huh.

##

In retrospect, the first clue that something was wrong with Annie was a phone conversation I had with her when we were living in Monterey.

This would have been in 2007 or so.

Fifteen years ago.

“Patty,” she said, “the weirdest thing has happened. There’s this word. And I can’t think of it!”

“Word?” I said.

“Yes, for that thing. You know that thing! It goes up and around and sideways, and people scream when they ride on it. At the Santa Cruz boardwalk—”

“Do you mean rollercoaster?” I asked. I was genuinely puzzled.

“Yes!” she said. “That’s it! Oh, my God. Thank you!!!”

I remember thinking “rollercoaster” was a pretty weird word to forget.

Cognitive decompensation didn’t even occur to me.

###

We were doing family Zoom calls for about a year there at the height of the pandemic.

Annie would sit there and rock. As though she were autistic.

Occasionally, she would act out conversations between large stuffed animals.

One time, though, she did snap back to being a person I remembered.

Shortly after Haley moved into Rik’s dilapidated old mansion in Berkeley, Haley stumbled across a copy of Thunder La Boom on one of Rik’s commodious bookshelves.

“I didn’t know you had written a novel, Ga!” said Haley.

I could not believe Alicia hadn’t told Haley her grandmother was a writer!

In fact, this was the novel that had paid for Annie’s Soquel property—now worth millions, which was something you’d think would impress money-mad, covetous Alicia favorably.

“It’s a very good novel,” I told Haley. “You ought to read it.”

“What’s it about?”

“It’s about a woman who becomes a topless dancer after she leaves her husband when she realizes that despite her extensive education, she has exactly zero in the way of marketable skills. And that woman’s various misadventures.”

I think I went on for about five full minutes, a complete Thunder LaBoom exegesis! Alicia and Haley were stifling yawns.

But Annie was hearing me.

“Thanks for that, Patty,” she said when I paused for breath. “Yes, that’s exactly what I was trying to do in that book. Thanks for getting that.”

###

Occasionally, during the year we were doing those weekly Zoom calls, Alicia would call me to rant and rave about how difficult her mother was being.

They were fighting over money!

Annie was spending $40,000 a year!

“Forty-thousand dollars a year in Santa Cruz?” I’d say. “You should consider yourself lucky, Alicia. I would imagine that even maintaining a sustenance level lifestyle in Santa Cruz would cost $100,000 a year. And anyway, doesn’t she have like a million dollars in the bank?”

“Yes, but it’s in a trust!” Alicia would snap.

And I would think (but not say), So fucking what?

Annie was living then with her long-time partner Stew. Stew was utterly and selflessly devoted to Annie, and that didn’t change when her brain lurched off the cliff. She was living in Stew’s house, and Stew paid for everything. The only things that Annie spent money on were the checks she wrote out to animal rescue organizations.

Okay, granted: She was writing out too many checks!

“You do understand that your mother is maybe one year away from going under completely?” I’d ask. “So, really, it’s kind of a waste of time to argue with your mother about anything.”

And also kinda mean, I’d think. But these massive Annie/Alicia battles over power had been a lifetime dynamic.

And also, Alicia has never understood very much.

###

Alicia and Stew not-so-cordially loathed each other.

You’d think it might have dawned on Alicia that she really should be paying Stew for all this caretaking, selfless devotion factor notwithstanding.

But it did not.

I kinda think the incident, whatever it was, must have involved some blowup between Alicia and Stew.

I’m wondering whether I’m curious enough to find out.

I’m thinking, No. I’m not that curious.

###

Part of me is also wondering whether I should reach out to Stew, thank him for everything he did for Annie over the years.

Stew and I have always liked each other in that way that two strangers standing in a crowd at the scene of a massive trainwreck might feel an arc of sympathetic understanding.

If I did, I’d write him a letter. A letter with a stamp.

Most of me, though, is thinking, Nope! Don’t. Danger, Will Robinson! You do not want to interact in any way, shape or form with these people! Let them remain photographs in a dusty yearbook.

###

Of course, it does not auger well for me that both my mother’s sisters developed dementia in their declining years.

My mother died too young to develop dementia. Which is not to say that she wasn't utterly insane in a different way.

Yesterday, I could not remember the word “crocs.”

You know, those ugly but oddly endearing plastic shoes with the little holes in them?

So, I took a deep breath and began free-associating.

And the first thing that came to mind was a delightful podcast I’ve begun listening to recently called Off Leash, which is all about dogs.

On a recent episode, a man with a delightful Florida drawl told the tale of how he had rescued his King Charles spaniel after a large alligator leapt from the bayou and snatched the little doggie in its jaws.

What’s the difference between an alligator and a crocodile? I wondered idly.

Ding, ding, ding!

Crocs.

So long as I trust those collateral brain byways to produce the right answers, I guess I’m safe.