Turn of Mind

After that, there was idle talk of an eighteenth-century finca with a large garden. Growing our own tomatoes, peppers, beans. Living off the land. Solar panels on the roof, our own well. Out of sight. Our own desert island. Who were we fooling? We were going off the grid in any case, each in our own way.

A hand touches my elbow.

Hey, young lady! A man’s voice. He has a pleasant enough smile, but his face is marred by an eggplant-colored hemangioma in his right upper quadrant. Inoperable.

I am finishing up my lunch when someone pulls out the chair next to mine, sits down heavily. A face I recognize, but I am in a stubborn frame of mind today. I will not ask. I will not. This woman seems to understand that.

Detective Luton, she says. Just here for a short visit.

I am not going to make it easy for her. So I take my napkin off my lap, fold it, and place it across my empty plate. Push my chair back to rise.

No, wait. I won’t be here very long. Just sit with me for a moment. A young man in scrubs approaches, offers her the coffeepot, and she nods. He puts a cup in front of her and pours. She raises it to her lips and gulps it, neat, as if it were water.

I was on my way somewhere. My annual pilgrimage. And suddenly found myself driving here. One of those urges. I used to have more of them. I used to be more spontaneous. Here she smiles. One of the hazards of growing older.

I nod. I don’t understand, but my impatience is ebbing. This is someone in pain. A state I can recognize.

So how are you doing today? the woman asks.

We seem to have taken a step backward, I say. From words that mattered to socially appropriate but meaningless questions.

Instead of appearing upset by my rudeness, the woman looks pleased.

In good form, I see. Glad to see that.

So why are you here? I ask.

As I said, I was on a pilgrimage. I guess you could say this is part of it.

In what way?

I was on my way to the cemetery.

Anyone I knew?

No, not at all. You and I aren’t connected in that way. Our relationship is a . . . professional one. She motions for more coffee. Well, mostly.

Are you my doctor?

No, no. A member of the police. An investigator.

She stares at her hands, pressed tightly against her coffee cup. Seconds tick by. I find I am now curious rather than annoyed or impatient. So I wait.

She finally speaks, slowly.

My life partner had Alzheimer’s. Early onset. She was a lot younger than you—only forty- five.

I am having trouble following her now. But I sense the emotion and nod.

People think it’s just forgetting your keys, she says. Or the words for things. But there are the personality changes. The mood swings. The hostility and even violence. Even from the gentlest person in the world. You lose the person you love. And you are left with the shell.

She stops and pauses. Do you know what I’m talking about?

I nod. My mother.

The woman nods back. And you are expected to go on loving them even when they are no longer there. You are supposed to be loyal. It’s not that other people expect it. It’s that you expect it of yourself. And you long for it to be over soon.

She reaches over and takes hold of my wrist, gently raises my arm into the air a little. It is a sorry spectacle, no muscle tone, as thin and desiccated as a chicken’s leg. We both gaze at it for a moment, then, just as gently, she lowers it down into my lap again.

It broke my heart, she says. And, somehow, you’re breaking it again. Another pause.

Then, as suddenly as she had arrived, she is gone.

A dark night. Figures emerging and diverging from shadows, moving just out of my range of vision. A very dark night and I need to get up, to move, but I am restrained, my arms and legs tied down tightly to the bed.

I retreat into myself. I use all my will to get myself away from here to somewhere else. A dial spins in my head and I hold my breath and wait for what might happen. The pleasures and risks of a time traveler.

And so I find myself walking in the door to my house, greeted by the shrieks of a young infant in pain. I know immediately when and where I am. I am a mother for the second time. I am forty-one, she is one month old. She