“First of all, it’s April, Mom,” the clone said. “And what party? There isn’t a party.”
“Of course there’s a party. There’s always a party on Christmas Eve. Don’t be silly.”
“It’s April,” the clone told her again, quietly this time. “It’s not Christmas Eve, Mom.”
In the lab, Jeremiah put a hand to his forehead and said nothing. Brent shot him a concerned glance and then turned his attention back to the monitor.
“It’s April?” his mother asked. “It’s not. Are you sure it’s April?”
“I’m sure,” the clone told her. “Why don’t you come and sit down for a while, Mom. Or maybe we could go to the dining room and get something to eat. Have you had dinner?”
“I’m not hungry.” Her voice was hushed, and she avoided looking at the clone as she crossed the room and sat down carefully on the edge of the bed. “I think I’ll just get some sleep. I’d like to be alone. I want to get out of this dress.”
Jeremiah watched the clone and tried to compel him to do something other than stand there with a useless, blank look on his face. Go over there, he thought. Put a hand on her. Hug her or something!
But the clone remained where he was, his face cycling through several expressions in quick succession, settling at last on something that looked like defeat. Finally, he looked down at the floor and backed out of the room without a word. Just before he closed the door, Jeremiah could hear his mother say something else about Christmas Eve. Reluctantly, he realized that he would have reacted exactly as his clone had if he had been there himself. It was easy to judge from outside, but he knew that he would have stood there just like his double had done, looking at his shoes, clueless and utterly shaken. As if to demonstrate the point, Jeremiah closed his eyes and turned his head away from the monitor, without even realizing he’d done it.
When he looked again, the clone was in the hallway and the camera angle had shifted. He looked as though he weren’t certain where to go and Jeremiah could feel his distress in the pit of his own stomach. He’d known for some time that dementia was likely, but he’d never seen his mother like this before. When had it gotten this bad?
After a moment, the clone was approached by Nichelle, the busty, plain-speaking head nurse with skin the color of bittersweet chocolate. He was never sure how she’d greet him when he came to visit: sometimes with a wide grin and a story about something funny that his mother had said, and sometimes with an exasperated sigh and a stern shake of the head. Today it was the latter, but it was mixed with a shadow of concern.
“Mr. Adams,” she said. “Patricia’s episodes are getting worse. Do you know she asked me to alter her wedding dress today?” She didn’t even own a wedding dress, Jeremiah thought. “And she practically accosted poor Dave the orderly this morning because she insisted he was her brother and he was very dangerous. And she keeps asking the doctors to drive her to the airport. I’m afraid Administration needs to see you before you leave.”
Watching, Jeremiah said out loud that someone ought to check her medication. This had happened before, he told Brent, and all they had to do was increase one of her pills to three times a day. After a few days, she was back to her old self.
“Have they checked her medications?” the clone asked. “Maybe she just needs her meds tweaked or something. That helped before.” Jeremiah nodded his head and looked at Brent as if to say, See? I told you.
“The doctors have checked her over,” Nichelle told the clone, her face softening around the edges. “You can see for yourself what this is. It isn’t a problem with her meds, Mr. Adams. This is her mind. We need to talk about a more suitable place for her. Come with me to the office. They’re expecting you.”
“Where would she go?” the clone asked as he followed her down another hallway behind the reception area. “She’s happy here. She has friends.”
“There are options. Good places with the right people. You’ll see.” Nichelle stopped momentarily and turned to look at him. “This is for her own good, Mr. Adams,” she said. “We all want what’s best for her.”
The clone looked down at the floor again. In the lab, Jeremiah buried his face in his hands.
“I know,” the clone said at last. The exact same words echoed in his own head. He knew.
Nichelle put a hand on the clone’s shoulder and gave it a light pat, exactly the gesture that Jeremiah wished the clone had done for his mother, and led him down the hall where a thin, blond man was waiting in front of a closed office door.
“Hello, Mr. Adams,” he said, extending a hand. “Dr. Tim Waterson—we’ve met before. You’ll have to excuse the interruption, but for some reason they’re installing a new phone system in my office at this exact moment. They should be almost done. I don’t know why they couldn’t do this later.”
Almost as soon as he said it, the office door opened and two men in nondistinct gray overalls came hurrying out. In the lab, Jeremiah was vaguely perplexed, but if the clone shared those feelings, he said nothing.
“All set, Doctor,” one of the men mumbled as they shuffled past. The doctor said nothing and ushered the clone inside.
The camera angle wavered slightly and then settled into a seamless view of the office. Jeremiah understood at once it wasn’t a phone system they were installing.
“Does he have people waiting in the wings to put in his cameras?” Jeremiah asked Brent with some alarm. “How did they get it done that fast? How the hell did he even know?”
Brent shook his head and continued watching. “Charles Scott likes to cover all his bases,”
