“No. I’m here to see Lydia.”
Desiree picks up a phone. I wonder how she’s going to dial with such long nails, painted orange and overlaid with tiny black spiderwebs, but she uses a pencil. “Miss Lydia? Someone is here to see you.”
Everyone is a Miss at Morningside, like at a preschool. After she hangs up, she passes an orange flyer to me that outlines the many Halloween activities coming up. I see pumpkin carving is scheduled for tomorrow.
“Pumpkin carving? Is it a good idea to give knives to these people?” I gesture behind me at the slack-jawed men and women.
My attempt at humor is lost on the receptionist. “Most of our residents prefer to use Sharpies to decorate pumpkins. You should come back with your kids! This is a multigenerational experience.”
Lydia arrives and ushers me to the back offices. Round-shouldered and short, she seems to roll rather than walk. Her voluminous skirt may well be hiding wheels.
“Miss Sharon is very spirited, but you probably don’t need me to tell you that. She’s small, but boy, when she gets hold of an idea, there’s no stopping her.” Her melodious voice soothes me, a skill that must come in handy when dealing with irascible seniors.
I follow Lydia into a small, cluttered office. She glides behind a metal desk overflowing with stacks of paper and motions for me to move a pile of magazines off the one other chair in the room.
“Unfortunately, Miss Sharon assaulted one of my staff members.” Lydia’s nose twitches, making the freckles on her brown skin dance.
“What happened, exactly?”
“Your mother must have decided she wanted to go for a stroll after dinner last night. She must have gone into her room, opened a window, and kicked out the screen. My staff found her halfway out the window. When they tried to pull her back in, she choked one of them. Had to be pried off.”
You could never accuse my mother of lacking moxie—or piss and vinegar, as she called it—but this doesn’t sound like her. “Why was she trying to escape? She’s never tried anything like this before.”
“She was having delusions of persecution. She said someone was out to get her and had tracked her down. That she needed to escape.”
“Did she have an altercation with another resident or an argument with a staff member?”
“We don’t think that’s it. Unfortunately, with dementia, a move into a new facility can precipitate this kind of degeneration.” Lydia interlaces her long fingers together in front of her face. “We understand it can be difficult to watch a loved one’s personality change so dramatically.”
I shake my head. I know what Lydia is saying is true, but I can’t bear the thought that my moving Sharon down here may have triggered all this.
“The reality is that we can no longer keep her in assisted living,” Lydia says. “It’s time for the memory ward.”
Lydia explains what this means and produces paperwork that has already been filled out. She’s been through this enough times to know that the families sitting where I am have little choice. I look over the papers with a pang of sadness. I wish Mark were with me. He’s the one who’s good at reading this kind of fine print, not me. The cost is more than what I am paying now and almost double what I was paying for her assisted living facility up in Connecticut.
Maybe Krystle is right. Maybe I should find a cheaper place.
“I know this is a hard decision,” Lydia says, offering me a bowl of candy corn, as if sugar will distract me from the hefty cost of this place.
I demur. “It’s a lot of money.”
“I understand. You can cancel the contract at any time, as long as you give us thirty days’ notice.”
I pick up the pen and hesitate. Staying at Morningside House will be expensive. But a move to another facility would destroy my mom. I sign. I’ll sell her house. I’ll find the money.
After we’re done, Lydia takes me down a hallway I have never been before, pausing in front of a keypad.
“Your mom’s been here since breakfast, in the community room. We don’t have a free room on the memory ward yet, so we won’t be able to move her and her belongings until the end of the month. But we’ll be taking her in here right after breakfast up until bedtime from now on.” I nod. My mother will be on lockdown for her waking hours. Lydia punches the keypad. “We’ll give you the code. We change it weekly, because otherwise the residents might learn it and try to leave.”
The doors swing open to reveal a sitting room with a large-screen TV. Several women and one man sit slumped in front of a home-shopping show hawking cubic zirconia earrings. I see Sharon lying in a fetal position at one end of the sofa, and a wave of nausea hits me. She was always so tough. Now she looks helpless.
I touch her shoulder, and she lifts her head, her big, green eyes brightening.
“Alexis. I’m so happy to see you.” She holds out her hands, and I take them. I can feel her tiny, birdlike bones beneath her cool, papery skin. She’s lost so much weight since she had to move to D.C. that it’s aged her prematurely. I want to let go, but I don’t. I text Mike that I won’t be in today and then sit beside her, not speaking, as we watch a bronzed blond woman model a pair of fake diamond earrings the size of ice cubes.
After a while, when I am sure she is dozing, I start to get up. But her hand clamps down on mine, and her eyes open. “She found me,” she says in a barely audible voice.
“Who?”
“That woman.” Sharon’s lower lip trembles, whether with anger or fear I cannot tell. “She came to the house, wanted me to interfere. But I can’t control Krystle, that’s what I told her.”
“Well, that’s the
