Night of Fear by Peg Kehret Read Free Book Online Page B

would at least have been able to find her way home, and could have told his parents what had happened.
    Not now. Now, Grandma Ruth lived in a world all her own. Once in awhile, the fog in her brain seemed to lift and she acted as if she understood but most of the time she didn’t seem to know or care what went on around her.
    As he had hundreds of times before, T.J. thought Alzheimer’s disease was the most terrible disease there was. Itwould be better, he thought, to lose your sight or the use of your legs than to lose your mind. At least if Grandma Ruth was blind or paralyzed, she would still know who he was. She would still be able to carry on an intelligent conversation.
    As he rode along, memories of Grandma Ruth as she used to be swept through his mind. Grandma Ruth taught him to ride his bicycle by running along, holding onto the seat and yelling, “Keep pedaling!” Grandma Ruth cheered at his grade school basketball games. Grandma Ruth helped him make gifts for his parents for Mother’s Day and Father’s Day: macaroni necklaces and wooden picture frames and herb gardens.
    He remembered when she let him stay up past midnight to finish a good book, admitting that she sometimes did the same thing herself. He saw her shaking her fist at the politicians on TV, declaring she could do a better job of running the country than any of them did.
    She used to make sandwiches and invite T.J. to have lunch in what she called “The World’s Greatest Outdoor Restaurant.” It was their own special hiding place on the back side of the woods, reached by walking on logs from fallen trees which were laid end to end to form a path across a broad swampy area. The swamp was L-shaped and when they were almost to the far side, the log path turned sharply, revealing a huge weeping willow tree on the other side of the swamp. Its long branches bent downward until the tips touched the ground.
    Grandma Ruth and T.J. would part the branches with their hands, as if they were pushing aside strands of hanging beads, and enter The World’s Greatest Outdoor Restaurant.
    They always sat on the ground, with their backs against thetree trunk, completely encircled by the hanging willow branches. Sunlight filtered through the leaves as they feasted on peanut butter sandwiches and oranges.
    Grandma Ruth told him, “Restaurants try to create atmosphere by hanging a lot of plastic plants from the ceiling. If they really want atmosphere, they should plant a weeping willow tree in the middle of the dining area.”
    T.J. used to giggle as he imagined a huge tree growing in the middle of Burger King, taking up all the table space.
    He had loved going to The World’s Greatest Outdoor Restaurant and he knew Grandma Ruth had loved it, too. She didn’t go because it was a way to entertain a small boy. She enjoyed it as much as he did.
    That was one of the best things about Grandma Ruth—she could always create fun out of nothing.
    Where had that bright, inventive mind gone? How could she be content to do nothing but count faded Monopoly money and sing a few old hymns, over and over and over?
    One day shortly after Grandma Ruth moved in with the Stensons, T.J. had erupted in rage. “I don’t want her to be this way,” he shouted. “I want the real Grandma Ruth to come back.”
    “So do I,” Mrs. Stenson replied, her eyes filling with tears.
    “It isn’t fair!” T.J. cried. “She’s too smart to act so stupid.”
    “Smart people get sick, too,” his mother said. “It’s a tragedy for Grandma Ruth to be this way but we can’t do anything about it. There is no cure for her, and no treatment. And it doesn’t help her or anyone else for you to scream about it.”
    Later, T.J. felt ashamed of his outburst but the shame didn’t change his angry feelings. All his life, T.J. had been proud ofGrandma Ruth. Maybe that’s why it hurt so much to see her now. The contrast between what she used to be and what she had become made the loss unbearably