by James Bates
spring water
Short Bio:
I am retired after many years teaching and doing course
design for an electronics control company. I have been writing for a number of
years: haiku, poetry, short and long fiction. My stories can be found posted on
my website: www.theviewfromlonglake.wordpress.com
"See you
later," I waved, "Hope it all goes well."
My brother waved back and made his
way to where the eye technician was waiting. His look belied his true feelings.
I knew how nervous he was. His eyes were pretty bad, scarred years ago from a
rare form of glaucoma. There'd be a lot of tests over the next two hours and the
end result was be this: Would he be able to continue to drive or not?
A moment later he was taken into the
inner catacombs of the eye care clinic. Now it was just Beth and
I.
"Where's Tim?" she asked, less than
a minute after he'd left us, "Where'd Tim go?"
I tried to reassure her, "It's all
right, Beth. He just went for his eye exam. Remember, we talked about this.
He'll be in there for an hour or so."
"Oh. Okay."
Shit. I shouldn't have said,
"Remember." I felt like an idiot. Beth is in her seventh year of dealing with
Alzheimer's. She's still able to live at home, and Tim does an admirable job of
caring for her, but still...you've got to stay on your toes.
I'd brought the two of them here
last year for the same tests and the entire time Tim was away from us Beth asked
every five minutes, "Where's Tim? Where's Tim? Where's Tim?" She had been pretty
agitated. I'd reassured her each and every time by saying, "He's just getting
some tests done. He'll be back soon." But, that's how it is with memory loss;
you forget.
I was ready for the same scenario
this year. After Tim left us, I made sure Beth was settled and at ease. "Do you
want something to drink? Some water? Tea?" A blank look and then a shake of the
head. No. "Are you comfortable? Not too warm or too cold?" A blank look, then a
nod of the head. Yes. "You're okay then? A another nod. Yes.
Okay, good.
Beth was wearing all black today:
black slacks and a black turtle neck. Our Minnesota winter was winding down, but
it was still cold out, so she had on her black winter coat and black boots.
Black is, was, and probably always will be, her favorite color. Today it set off
her short cropped, white hair which framed her angular face. Around her neck she
wore a heart shaped, polished piece of obsidian on a black cord; a gift years
ago to her from my brother, worn today to, as Tim told me earlier, "To make her
look pretty."
I opened my magazine, a publication
put out by the Minnesota Department of Natural Recourses. The lead article was
about an artist who did plein air painting of northern Minnesota scenes,
specifically of the land around the boundary waters and lake superior. They were
well done, in my estimation, and I had brought the magazine along to show Beth.
At one time she was well-known regionally for her elegantly exact paintings of
flowers: peonies, lilies, hepatica and many other types of native plants. She
called her work "photorealism" and it was not only beautiful but highly sought
after. Over the course of her life she'd won many awards, and her work is still
featured in galleries in the upper Midwest. She hadn't painted in over ten
years, though, not since the onset of her disease.
"Beth," I said to get her attention.
She turned a sleepy eye to me and I pointed to a scene of waves crashing against
a rocky shoreline near the Split Rock Lighthouse on Lake Superior, "What do you
think about this painting? Do you like it?"
She looked at the colorful
watercolor: the myriad shades of blue, azure, cyan and teal for sky and water,
the tones of brown,russet, amber and chestnut for the trees, the feldspar and
olivine minerals of the igneous rocks, and the soft vanilla white of a nearby
birch clump dotted with shades of summer green for its leaves. I gave her time,
wondering what her reaction would be. In years past, she would have had an
opinion, lots of them. In fact, she used to write art reviews and commentary for
a local newspaper. But that was a long time ago. Today, she pondered the
painting for maybe a minute before looking at me, shrugging her shoulders and
silently shaking head to the negative, indicating, I guess, she had no thoughts
on the subject.
"Do you remember that you used to
paint? I asked, not wanting to let go of the moment, "Both you and Tim
did."
She gave me a long look. Would she
remember? She had produced nearly seven-hundred and fifty paintings over her
lifetime. More than enough, to my way of thinking, to remember some of them, or
least one or two, possibly her particular favorites. But, no, another shake of
her head to the negative.
"I don't remember," she said, and
sat back. Then she closed her eyes as if exhausted by the
effort.
"That's too bad," I said
sympathetically. I thought for a moment, not wanting to give up on helping her
to retrieve a portion of her memory, tiny and fleeting though it may have been.
I leaned over and said, "They were really good." I'm not sure if she heard me.
Probably not. I watched her eyes darting under her eyelids, moving rapidly,
engaged in a world all of her own design, her own creation. Entranced, I watched
and wondered, "What could she be seeing? What was she envisioning?" After a
minute, though, her eye movement slowed, and her eyelids went still. Soon her
breathed deepened as she dozed off.
I spent the first hour reading,
checking my phone and making sure Beth was doing all right. She was. She dozed a
bit and was awake a lot. I was happy that she was comfortable and not agitated
like last year. Once when I asked how she was doing she said, "I'm fine. I like
watching the people."
I didn't blame her. This was a big
outing for her. Usually she and my brother stayed home and spent the day
together, their only break being an occasional walk in their quiet, tree lined
neighborhood. Outings like the one we were on were becoming fewer and farther
between, what with his failing eyesight and her increasing memory loss. It
occurred to me that getting out like this was good for her. She hadn't asked
where Tim was except for that one time when he'd first
left.
Into the second hour, I was reading
and, to be honest, kind of dozing off a little myself, when I felt a stir to my
right. It was Beth. She was awake. I glanced at her and smiled and she smiled
back. I went back to reading. Suddenly, softly, I felt her move again and in a
moment her hand slipped over the arms of each of our chairs and into mine. Her
left hand into my right hand. It was cool to the touch. She gently interwove her
fingers into mine and with her right hand, leaned over and covered them both.
Then she patted them. She and my brother had been together for over forty-one
years and in all that time, I doubt she and I had ever even touched, and
certainly never held hands. Even to shake, "Hello," in a way of a greeting. We
were not what you'd call a physically demonstrative
family.
I was shocked, yet, at the same
time, curiously touched by her action. What would cause her to do something like
that? I turned to her and smiled, "Are you doing okay?"
She smiled back. "Yes. Yes, I am."
She was silent for a moment and then added, "Thank you for being here with
me."
Well, I never...What do you say to
something like that? Well, obviously, "You're welcome," which is what I said. I
paused a beat and then added, "I'm glad to be with you." She didn't say anything
in return, she simply smiled back at me. We were both quiet. Then I had a
thought. I went ahead and seized the moment and asked her something I'd been
wondering about for the last few years, "Beth, I have a question for you. Do you
know who I am?"
She gave me a long look, still
holding my hand and said, "Nooo. No, I don't. I'm sorry, but I don't
remember."
"Do you know who Tim
is?"
"Oh, yes," she smiled happily and
perked right up, "I know Tim."
"Well, I'm Tim's brother," I told
her, "I'm Jeremy." She stared at me. Another blank look. I added, "Like Dennis.
You know. You're bother."
"Dennis?"
"Never mind," I decided not to push
it and make her uncomfortable about not being able to remember who her brother
was. I shifted gears and asked, "So you're doing okay, Beth? Should we just sit
here?"
"Yes."
So we sat together. I went back to
my magazine and read. I held it in my left hand. Beth continued to hold my right
hand while she watched people come and go from the waiting room. We were quiet
with each other, but comfortable being together. It was a good
feeling.
Fifteen minutes later when Tim came
back and saw us he smiled, "I guess you guys are doing pretty good. He pointed
to our hands, still interlocked, "Beth likes to do that sometimes. It gives her
a sense of security. I'm glad you were there for her."
He sat down on the other side of
Beth and she immediately released my hand and took a hold of his. By then both
her hands were nice and warm. Tim and I talked for a while about how his
appointment went before we all got our coats on and left. We went out to lunch,
and then I dropped them off at their home. "See you next week," I waved
good-bye. I liked to visit with Tim and Beth on a weekly basis. It was good to
stay in touch. Then I drove the half hour drive west to my home in Long
Lake.
I don't know if I'll ever forget
that morning with Beth and being with her in the waiting room; being there when
she needed someone to give her comfort and a sense of security; being there to
help fill in for my brother; being there as a friend. I'll tell you one thing,
though: I was glad to do it, glad I was there.
Oh, Tim passed all of his tests. He
can still drive, but with restrictions, and has to go back next year to be tested again. I guess, now,
it's a yearly thing for him. He wants to know if I can drive him and Beth. I
told him I'd be happy to.
About the auhtor
I am retired after many years teaching and doing course
design for an electronics control company. I have been writing for a number of
years: haiku, poetry, short and long fiction. My stories can be found posted on
my website: www.theviewfromlonglake.wordpress.com
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