FLASHBACK by Gary Braver Read Free Book Online Page B

visit to visit?”
    “Frankly, I’m embarrassed to admit it, but I haven’t visited my sister in several months. My eyesight is poor and I don’t trust myself on long drives. And to be honest, watching her bump down the staircase is very depressing, as you can imagine.”
    Bump down the staircase . René nodded silently. Depressing doesn’t come close.
    “As I said, she moved in with me after Walter died. And for a while it was fine. Then she began to have memory problems. We had her diagnosed, and within a year she began to get worse—confused, disoriented. She was forgetting things from one moment to the next. It was like watching her being peeled away like an onion. God, what a cruel disease.”
    “Yes, it is.”
    “When it became too much for me to handle, even with visiting nurses and day care, we found Broadview. I must confess that the early visits were stressful. I love my sister, but seeing her disappear like that took its toll. She would flicker in and out, asking me the same questions over and over again until I felt my own mind begin to go. Of course, the driving became an issue. So I stopped visiting her, which didn’t make any difference to her by then.”
    “The last time you saw her, how did she seem in terms of mental abilities?”
    “Half there. She’d sit around the activities table and try to fill in the blanks. The aide would read a familiar adage for patients to fill in the rest: ‘You can’t have your cake and …’ pause. Or’Nothing ventured, nothing …’ pause. ‘A stitch in time saves …’ et cetera.

    “Clara would struggle to beat others to the answers. Sadly, she was a book person with a master’s in history and a doctorate in education. A former high school principal. Most of these books are hers. The last time I visited her she couldn’t read the name on the box of chocolates I’d brought.
    “I have a good dozen ailments, not the least of which is degenerative arthritis of the lower back—which sounds much kinder in Latin. But I don’t know what happened in the genetic throw of the dice that caused her to start blanking out while I’m still festering with useless memories. There are times I envy her. You reach a certain point in life when even your recollections begin to feel made-up. I think Mark Twain said it best—something like, ‘I can’t remember anything but the things that never happened.’”
    “I understand.”
    Cassie took a sip of coffee. “No, you don’t understand.”
    René wasn’t certain what she meant but felt as if she were engaged in some odd sparring match. “No, I can understand the anxiety of seeing her fade. It’s horrible, I know, and there’s nothing to feel guilty about.” René did all she could not to stumble on her words.
    “It’s different. It’s part of your job.”
    “My father died of Alzheimer’s.” The words jumped out before René could catch them.
    Nothing to feel guilty about . Not true, René thought. She had felt guilty for getting angry with her father when he got confused or abusive; guilty for not being able to give him comfort against the awareness that he was demented and getting worse and that he would never go home again; guilty for losing her patience with him, for not knowing how to act when she visited the nursing home, for not knowing what to say when he wasn’t responding or was unaware of her presence, for hating the fog in his eyes and the slack-jawed mouth as he descended farther into the gloom. Guilty for breaking down in his presence after he’d confused her for his dead wife; when he begged her to remove his restraints and they wouldn’t let her; when in a fit of rage he swung at her cursing; when it got so bad she no longer wanted to visit him. She felt guilty for trying to get on with her life. For allowing the nursing home staff to avoid taking extraordinary measures when he would no longer eat. For letting him die.
    The woman looked at her for a moment as if reading her thoughts.