“Ohhhh, okay. Hang on one second and let me transfer you to our—”
“No!” I yell again, but it’s too late. Canned music plays in my ears.
My phone flies across the room and smashes against the wall. I hear the crunch of breaking glass. Then I see my mother’s face and I realize when I threw my phone, I barely missed her head.
Her arms are half-raised to protect herself, and her eyes are huge.
“Catherine! What the—”
“What, you’re the only one who’s allowed to get mad? At least I didn’t hit you.”
I leave the rest of my sentence unsaid, but I can tell my mother knows what I’m thinking: Like you used to hit me.
She didn’t do it a lot. Three, four times maybe in my entire life. And I could tell she felt horrible afterward, but I’m too mad to care right now.
I actually want her to hit me again because then I’ll have the satisfaction of fighting back.
I leap to my feet, the bowl of popcorn falling to the floor and spilling everywhere. My mother cowers below me.
I’m surprised by how good it makes me feel.
I remain there for a breath, then walk away and pick up my phone. A needle-thin shard of broken glass snags my fingertip, drawing a dot of blood.
I don’t trust myself to say a word, so I grab my purse and walk out without uttering one.
* * *
I arrive at Sunrise and drive through the parking lot, searching for a spot. The prime ones all require parking stickers, which are issued to residents who still drive and full-time employees. There’s also a long row dedicated to visitors. Since I don’t have a sticker—none of us part-timers get them—I have to bypass two empty permitted spots and leave my car near the very back of the crowded lot.
I exit the Bonneville and go through the ritual of flashing my ID and signing in, then I hurry up to the Memory Wing. I make my way to the small office connected to the nurses’ station. There’s a new fax on the machine. It feels slightly warm to the touch, like it arrived a second before I did.
I recognize the handwriting on the form immediately. I know it as well as I know my own.
It’s the two-page work application my mother filled out years ago for RJ’s, complete with a list of her prior jobs and a reference—a woman whose name I don’t recognize, Diane Brown. It seems like a solid lead.
As I stare hungrily at the new information, I also come to a decision. I’m not just going to try to track down my mother’s family. I’m going to devote myself to figuring out as much of the truth about her as I can.
If my mother is faking Alzheimer’s—which I’m becoming more and more convinced of—I’ll help her get whatever mental health services she needs, but I’m not going to destroy my life to enable her.
My lease is scheduled to start in seven days.
It’s a good thing I didn’t cancel my cable or find someone to sublet my apartment because I plan to arrive in Baltimore right on time.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
RUTH
Here’s a riddle: How long does it take to pick up every kernel from a spilled bowl of popcorn without using a vacuum cleaner?
Answer: The perfect amount of time for you to think about all the ways you’ve screwed up as a parent. Your shouts and threats. The bad choices and misguided advice and misunderstandings. The arm yanks and occasional spanks.
Compared to what my mother did, my few incidences of physical discipline were so minor they wouldn’t even register on the same scale.
But our kids don’t focus on the fact that we try as hard as we can to undo the mistakes of the previous generation. They don’t know how difficult it is for us to break the patterns we were steeped in during our formative years.
They only see the errors we make. The ones taught to us, and the ones that are all our own.
Some of the worst incidents between me and Catherine are seared into my daughter’s psyche. I could feel old resentments smoldering in her as she stood over me, her fists balling up.
Catherine scared me in that moment.
For a brief flash, it felt as if she was a stranger. As if I didn’t know her at all.
It wasn’t the first time I’ve experienced that eerie sensation.
The hairless patch of scar tissue on my right forearm is peeking out from beneath the edge of my shirt sleeve, like it sometimes does. I yank down my sleeve, but I can’t blot out the accompanying memory.
It happened fifteen years ago, but sometimes I swear I can still smell the smoke that alerted me to the danger as I walked down the hallway toward our old apartment. I’d run out that afternoon to pick up laundry detergent because we were all out and my two uniforms were dirty. I’d only been gone fifteen minutes or so. Certainly long enough for a mature nine-year-old girl to be left alone.
At first, as the acrid smell filled my nostrils, I assumed someone was burning dinner. Then I heard the shriek of a smoke detector coming from inside an apartment on the right side of the hallway.
Our apartment.
I dropped the plastic bottle of detergent and flew the final few steps, banging my hand against our door and screaming: “Catherine!”
When she didn’t answer I fumbled through my purse for my keys and burst inside. The smoke wasn’t too heavy yet. I could still see clearly, but the smell was horrible.
Catherine hadn’t responded to my cries, and she wasn’t within sight. Instinct drove me to the kitchen first.
There I saw two things that stole my breath away. The first was orange-and-gold flames shooting up from our tall plastic trash can, greedily reaching out to devour the dish towel hanging from the stove handle.
I grabbed the dish towel, throwing it to the floor and stomping on it with my sneaker, hoping to stop the spread of the fire. It worked. The flames went out.
What I didn’t realize was that I’d inadvertently provided another source of fuel for the fire to catch hold.
My pain didn’t register for a few seconds.
Then the searing sensation of my left arm burning overpowered me.
“Get it off! Get it off!” I shrieked, slapping at the long sleeve of my cheap cotton shirt with my bare hand. I pulled my right arm out of my shirt and yanked it over my head, throwing it to the floor and stomping on it.
Catherine had been staring in horror, but now she leapt into action. “Cold water!” she yelled, turning on the sink tap.
I grabbed a pot that was sitting on a stove burner and filled it, letting the water course down over my forearm on its way into the pot. Then I dumped the water into the trash can, which was melting and warping in the intense heat. I had to do that twice more before the fire was completely out.
My arm still felt like it was being burned. The skin was raw and red. I slumped down onto the floor, next to a puddle of water seeping out of the bottom of the trash can. I felt dizzy and nauseated from the pain.
“Mama,” Catherine said, her voice breaking. “We have to go to the hospital.”
I nodded. I’d seen enough burns in kitchens at various restaurants where I’d worked to know mine was at least second-degree.
“What happened?” I asked.
“I’m sorry. I wanted to light a candle,” she whispered.
I nodded again and managed to get to my feet. I soaked a clean dish towel in cold water and wrapped it around my forearm. Knowing our insurance wouldn’t cover the cost of an ambulance, I collected my purse and Catherine’s backpack and we took the bus to the hospital, where an ER doctor applied balm and dressed my wound.