Far Harbor by Joann Ross Read Free Book Online Page A

inside front cover of the address book and read through the list she’d made the morning she’d returned home from the hospital after that stupid fall that had gotten everyone so excited.
    “Number one. Does recent memory loss affect job performance? Ha! It can’t affect my job performance because I’m retired.”
    All right, so she may have gotten a bit more absentminded, but that was only natural, especially in this hurry-up world when so many outside things demanded immediate attention, all at the same time. It was perfectly understandable that she’d occasionally forget things, such as her reason for having come into her former examining-room-turned-den in the first place.
    “It’ll come,” she reassured herself as she rubbed her uncharacteristically icy hands together. The trick was to remain patient and not panic. Concentrate .
    “Number two. Does patient have difficulty performing familiar tasks?”
    No problem there. Relief came in such a cooling wave, she decided that boiling all the water out of the teakettle this morning didn’t really count. That, after all, could happen to anyone.
    She also didn’t have any problems with language. Perhaps she mixed up her words from time to time, but if her family and friends were to be believed, and she had no reason to doubt them, she’d been doing that all her life. Nor had she suffered any disorientation of time and place, problems with abstract thinking, or decreased judgment.
    “Does patient misplace things?” She frowned. “Stupid question. Name me one person who doesn’t lose their car keys from time to time.” Hadn’t Raine, whom everyone knew was smart as a tack, done the same thing when she’d dropped by to visit last Saturday? They’d practically turned the house upside down before finding them behind a sofa cushion.
    Number eight regarding mood swings didn’t count, nor did nine: changes in personality. She’d never been a moody person, had never suffered PMS, and had breezed through menopause with hardly a ripple even without the hormone replacement that was so readily available for women these days.
    Why, she was the same person she’d been at thirty. “Better,” she decided.
    Ida had to laugh out loud at the final “warning sign” on her diagnostic list. If there was one thing she wasn’t suffering from, it was loss of initiative. Hadn’t she managed to take care of three delinquent teenagers when the entire social system of the state of Washington had given up on them?
    Two of the girls were now safely placed with relatives, and while Gwen, admittedly, might have gone through a rough patch, she certainly seemed on the straight and narrow. Her therapist had assured the family that the girl was coming through the separation from her infant daughter as well as could be expected.
    When she heard a car engine outside the house and saw Savannah’s red convertible pulling into the driveway, Ida folded the piece of paper and slipped it back into the front of the address book, hiding it behind a checklist of things she should make certain she did before leaving the house. Not that she’d ever leave the shower running or the stove turned on, but it never hurt to be cautious.
    “I’m a doctor. I’ve been diagnosing people’s illnesses for fifty years. I should certainly know whether or not I have Alzheimer’s,” she muttered. “And I don’t.”
    The front door opened. “I’m in here, darling,” she called out to her younger granddaughter with feigned cheeriness. Today had been important for Savannah, she remembered, frustrated anew when she was unable to recall exactly why.
    “I got it!” Savannah breezed into the den, her smile as bright and happy as it had been back when she’d cheered the Coldwater Cove High School Loggers to victory.
    “That’s wonderful!” Got what? Ida sneaked a quick glance at her checklist, hoping for some small assistance. “I’m so pleased for you.”
    “Of course now the work begins.” Savannah