Turn of Mind

I can barely make out the pale green of the walls, so many posters, clippings, and bulletins tacked up. Fluorescent lighting casting a pall. Men and women talking; to one another, not to me. Some wearing baggy suits, some in jeans. And more uniforms. My guess is that a smile would be inappropriate. Fear might not be.

I can still read, I’m not that far gone, not yet. No books anymore, but newspaper articles. Magazine pieces, if they’re short enough. I have a system. I take a sheet of lined paper. I write down notes, just like in medical school.

When I get confused, I read my notes. I refer back to them. I can take two hours to get through a single Tribune article, half a day to get through The New York Times. Now, as I sit at the table, I pick up a paper someone discarded, a pencil. I write in the margins as I read. These are Band-Aid solutions. The violent flare-ups continue. They have reaped what they sowed and should repent.

Afterward, I look at these notes but am left with nothing but a sense of unease, of uncontrol. A heavy man in blue is hovering, his hand inches away from my upper arm. Ready to grab. Restrain.

Do you understand the rights I have just read to you? With these rights in mind, do you wish to speak to me?

I want to go home. I want to go home. Am I in Philadelphia. There was the house on Walnut Lane. We played kickball in the streets.

No, this is Chicago. Ward Forty-three, Precinct Twenty-one. We have called your son and daughter. You can decide at any time from this moment on to terminate the interview and exercise these rights.

I wish to terminate. Yes.

A large sign is taped to the kitchen wall. The words, written in thick black marker in a tremulous hand, slope off the poster board: My name is Dr. Jennifer White. I am sixty-four years old. I have dementia. My son, Mark, is twenty-nine. My daughter, Fiona, twenty-four. A caregiver, Magdalena, lives with me.

It is all clear. So who are all these other people in my house? People, strangers, everywhere. A blond woman I don’t recognize in my kitchen drinking tea. A glimpse of movement from the den. Then I turn the corner into the living room and find yet another face. I ask, So who are you? Who are all the others? Do you know her? I point to the kitchen, and they laugh.

I am her, they say. I was there, now I’m here. I am the only one in the house other than you. They ask if I want tea. They ask if I want to go for a walk. Am I a baby? I say. I am tired of the questions. You know me, don’t you? Don’t you remember? Magdalena. Your friend.

The notebook is a way of communicating with myself, and with others. Of filling in the blank periods. When all is in a fog, when someone refers to an event or conversation that I can’t recall, I leaf through the pages. Sometimes it comforts me to read what’s there. Sometimes not. It is my Bible of consciousness. It lives on the kitchen table: large and square, with an embossed leather cover and heavy creamy paper. Each entry has a date on it. A nice lady sits me down in front of it.

She writes, January 20, 2009. Jennifer’s notes. She hands the pen to me. She says, Write what happened today. Write about your childhood. Write whatever you remember.

I remember my first wrist arthrodesis. The pressure of scalpel against skin, the slight give when it finally sliced through. The resilience of muscle. My surgical scissors scraping bone. And afterward, peeling off bloody gloves finger by finger.

Black. Everyone is wearing black. They’re walking in twos and threes down the street toward St. Vincent’s, bundled in coats and scarves that cover their heads and lower faces against what is apparently bitter wind.

I am inside my warm house, my face to the frosted window, Magdalena hovering. I can just see the twelve-foot carved wooden doors. They are wide open, and people are entering. A hearse is standing in front, other cars lined up behind it, their lights on.

It’s Amanda, Magdalena tells me. Amanda’s funeral. Who is Amanda? I ask. Magdalena hesitates, then says, Your best friend. Your daughter’s godmother.

I try. I fail. I shake my head. Magdalena gets my notebook. She turns back the pages. She points to a newspaper clipping:Elderly Chicago Woman Found Dead, Mutilated

CHICAGO TRIBUNE—February 23, 2009CHICAGO, IL—The mutilated body of a seventy-five-year-old Chicago woman was discovered yesterday in a house in the 2100 block of Sheffield Avenue.Amanda O’Toole was found dead in her home after a neighbor noticed she had failed to take in her newspapers for almost a week, according to sources close to the investigation. Four fingers on her right hand had been severed. The exact time of death is unknown, but cause of death is attributed to head trauma, sources say.Nothing was reported missing from her house.No one has been charged, but police briefly took into custody and then released a person of interest in the case.

I try. But I cannot conjure up anything. Magdalena leaves. She comes back with a photograph.

Two women, one taller by at least two inches, with long straight white hair pulled back in a tight chignon. The other one, younger, has shorter wavy gray locks that cluster around chiseled, more feminine features. That one a beauty perhaps, once upon a time.

This is you, Magdalena says, pointing to the younger woman. And this here, this is Amanda. I study the photograph.

The taller woman has a compelling face. Not what you’d call pretty. Nor what you would call nice. Too sharp around the nostrils, lines of perhaps contempt etched into the jowls. The two women stand close together, not