“Maybe it’s true. Maybe she’s away somewhere, shooting an important subject, like a politician or something.”
“Bullshit, Penny knows her every move, and Mom’s not returning my calls.”
“Did you have a fight with her?” He was always suspicious of his sister’s side of any story. She usually left out a vital piece of information and played innocent, which wasn’t the whole truth.
“Of course not.” She sounded miffed. “I needed a favor, and she hasn’t been in a good mood.” He was checking Instagram as he listened to her. “It looks like she’s at some kind of school.”
“She is apparently,” he said as the images she had posted that morning appeared on his screen. “That’s Harvard.”
“What would she be doing there? Early in the morning. And why is she being so secretive about it?”
“Maybe she’s photographing the chancellor of the university, or a Nobel Prize winner. She has very important subjects.” Deanna knew it too. “Why are you so worried about Mom all of a sudden, other than the broken ankle? It could happen to you or me too.”
“Not at two or three in the morning, at the top of a ladder.”
“Only because we’re married and have young kids. She probably has a lot of lonely nights to fill,” he said with more sensitivity than his sister.
“I think she’s losing it. Something’s going on with her. And why didn’t she or Penny tell me she was out of town?”
“I have no idea. Maybe the story is a secret, or some kind of breaking news. A new chancellor, a cure for a rare disease they’ve done the research for. She covers very major stuff and people. Does she usually tell you everything she’s doing?” He sounded exasperated, he had no idea why his sister was being so dogged about her. He knew how tactless she could be, especially with their mother.
“No,” Deanna said honestly. She rarely spoke to her brother either. She sent him an occasional text, but that was it. “I think something smoky is happening. And she’s never fallen before. I told her I thought it was the beginning of the end.”
“Christ, Deanna, why would you say something like that? And you wonder why she’s dodging your calls?”
“Well, it’s true. She’s not young anymore. She should sell the firehouse. The broken ankle proves it. She’s going to kill herself on those stairs one of these days. A broken hip will be next.” She sounded adamant about it, and he closed his eyes as he held the phone.
“Did you tell her that too?”
“Of course. She needs to hear it. We can’t sugarcoat everything for her.” He could count on his sister not to do that, of that he was sure. “She’s getting older. She should have someone staying there at night, some kind of caretaker. She’s got room for it, so she has no excuse. Or she should sell that Bohemian death trap she lives in. The stairs alone are dangerous, and once she’s injured, there’s no elevator. I told her she should consider one of those assisted living co-ops. Some of my friends have been buying them for their parents, and she can afford it.”
“She doesn’t need assisted living at fifty-eight.”
“Not yet, but she will. The broken ankle proves it.”
“Oh, for chrissake, Dee. If I break my ankle playing tennis, should I move into assisted living too?”
“Of course not, you’re thirty-five years old. Mom is old now, she’s nearly sixty. In a few years the firehouse will be seriously dangerous for her. It already is. I told her she should get one of those alarms to hang around her neck in the meantime, until she sells it, in case she has another fall.”
“Oh God. Let me give you a clear picture of what you did here. You told our mother, who cherishes her independence, has a booming career, and is respected around the world, that she was an idiot for falling off a ladder and breaking her ankle and that she should wear a geriatric alarm in case she falls again, which she may never do since she’s never done it before. You told her that she needs a caretaker living with her, should sell the house she loves, and should consider assisted living. If you said any of that to me, I’d be profoundly depressed, and she probably is now. What you said is unnecessary and inappropriate, especially at her age, and for someone as vital as our mother. She’s fifty-eight, not ninety, and she looks fifty on a bad day, forty-five on a good one. What the hell were you thinking?”
“I’m thinking that she’s not acting normal,” Deanna said, sounding huffy. “And she’s not too young for early-onset Alzheimer’s. People her age, and younger, get it all the time.”
“People get struck by lightning too. Let me tell you, the one thing our mother does not have is Alzheimer’s. She’s smarter than either one of us, and I haven’t noticed her slipping.”
“Maybe not, but she’s behaving strangely.”
“How? Because she went to Harvard without your permission? She’s probably there to see the chancellor, which is something you and I wouldn’t be invited to do.” He knew that his sister had issues with their mother, and at times was jealous of her accomplishments, but this was ridiculous. “Do you ever think about what her life is like? How lonely she must be? She has three children, two of them live three thousand miles away, one of whom is practically a recluse and never speaks to anyone, including her.” He had wondered at times if Milagra had some form of Asperger’s, although there was no firm evidence of it. She was certainly eccentric. “You live in the same city. How often do you see her?”
“David and I are very busy,” she said defensively. “We both have very stressful jobs,” as though that explained it, but to him it didn’t.
“So does she. Do you ever take her to lunch, or do something with her on the weekends?” he asked and there was silence on the other end for an instant.
“We go away every weekend. I can’t stay in the city for Mom. I have my family to think of.”
“So do I. That’s my point. She is our family. We forget that. We all have our families and lives. Millie and I live far away, and you’re too busy to spend time with her. And then you go and tell her she has to have a babysitter, should sell her house, consider assisted living, and wear a geriatric alarm. What about diapers? Did you suggest those too? Jesus, how do you expect her to feel with all that?”
“Maybe that’s her reality now,” Deanna said harshly. “Or it will be.”
“Maybe not. There are plenty of people in their eighties and nineties now, in good shape and fully operative. Some are even still working. You want to treat her like she’s a hundred years old at fifty-eight, when she’s still busy, beautiful, and at the height of her career. I’m not surprised she’s not returning your calls. I wouldn’t either. And who knows what she’s doing at Harvard, probably working. Or maybe she’s having an affair with one of the professors. She must be lonely as hell. And I don’t think she’s ‘slipping,’ geriatric, or senile because she broke her ankle.”