Odd Mom Out

Sadly, my dad isn’t strong in the empathy suit and isn’t making this process any easier. “But why would she cut her hair off? What’s the matter with her?”

“Nothing’s the matter with her. She just wanted a change.”

“Well, it’s not flattering at all. She looks like a mouse.”

“Not like a mouse,” my mother corrects. “More like an orphan.”

“Yes,” my dad agrees. “A refugee.”

“Or like Little Orphan Annie,” Mom adds, now smiling tenderly at me. “Remember when we saw Little Orphan Annie at the Fifth Avenue theater, Marta? It was one of the first musicals I took you to.”

“I do remember.” I hated it. All those little orphans singing, and Annie with her disgustingly red, curly hair. It gave me the creeps.

My dad suddenly takes my arm. “Is that Bill Gates and Melinda?” he asks in a whisper.

“Yes.”

Dad’s shoulders straighten, and he looks like a retired officer. “Why didn’t you tell me they were here? We should be sitting, enjoying our meal, allowing them to finish their breakfast in peace.

“Sit, Marilyn,” he says to my mother, pulling out a chair for her and holding it while she sits down. “Now go get Eva,” he tells me, “and let’s act like a family that has some manners.”

I go outside to cajole Eva into returning. It’s a chilly morning, the air damp and cold, and even though Eva’s shivering, she doesn’t want to come back in.

“I knew I looked ugly,” she says glumly, seated on the cement planter by the front door, picking at the purple and green cabbage foliage around tiny purple pansies.

“You don’t look ugly. You look different.”

“Huh. Same thing.”

I smile down at her and riffle her hair, the dark ends wispy. My little gamine. Like a young Audrey Hepburn before Audrey Hepburn was pretty. I smile a bit more. “Come inside and eat. I need you there. Your grandma is going to drive me crazy.”

The mention of her grandmother reminds her of her humiliation. “Grandma thought I was a boy,” she says bleakly.

“Grandma’s losing her marbles.”

“What does that mean?”

“It means Grandma has dementia, and little by little she’s losing her mind.”

Now Eva glares at me reproachfully. “That’s not nice. Grandma can’t help it. It’s the disease.”

“I know. But losing your mind isn’t nice, so we’re just going to love her anyway.”

We return to the dining room, and Mom and Dad are suddenly absolutely delightful company, and I know—because my dad keeps sneaking glances Bill’s way—it’s because we’re trying to impress the Gateses. Not that the Gateses even know we’re there.

Chapter Twenty

Monday morning, it’s back to work in the studio. Robert’s taken the week off. It’s his anniversary, and he and his partner have gone to Costa Rica.

I wish I were going to Costa Rica. What I actually wish is that I’d hear from Freedom Bikes. It’s been a couple of weeks, and we should hear something soon, even if it’s just a request to schedule another meeting, give me a budget, and ask for a more detailed proposal.

Tuesday, I present a proposal to Trident Conglomerate. I’m not really thrilled about the proposal because I don’t want to get their account. Trident’s a huge company undergoing tremendous change, which also means tremendous stress. Executives are being laid off quarterly, which is why we’ve been approached about handling their advertising. The last director of sales and marketing was just given the boot, along with the ad agency, and now they’ve got a new (panicked) director who is good at sales but doesn’t have a clue about advertising.

Tuesday evening, I get a call from Luke but don’t have time to call him back, as Mom’s disappeared. I hear the panic in Dad’s voice, and Eva and I throw on coats and rush to Laurelhurst to help look for her.

By the time we get to Laurelhurst, Mom’s home. A neighbor three blocks over found her in his driveway and thanks to Mom’s MedicAlert bracelet was able to escort Mom back to her house.

Eva takes Grandma upstairs while Dad and I confer in his study. Dad is absolutely sick. He sits ashen in a leather chair in his study, his head in his hands.

“I only went out to get the newspaper,” he keeps repeating. “I was gone just a minute. How did she slip out? Why didn’t I see her?”

“It was dark, Dad—”

“But she didn’t say a word. She just left.”

“That’s part of the disease.”

“I’ve already put locks on all the doors. I already watch her like a hawk. What else can I do?”

“I don’t know.”

He lifts his head and looks at me, eyes hollow. “It scares me, Marta, scares me half to death. It’s dark out, she’s not wearing a coat. She could have been hit by a car, attacked, raped—”

“But she wasn’t, Dad. She’s here now. She’s safe.”

“If something happened to her, I couldn’t live with myself. I couldn’t. She’s a fine woman, your mother. A fine woman.” His voice deepens, breaks. “You don’t get much better.”

I’ve always known my dad loved my mom in his way, but until now I had no idea how attached he was. When I was growing up, my parents weren’t particularly lovey-dovey, but I always had the sense that they liked each other, enjoyed each other, even if they didn’t make a lot of jokes or even laugh all that much. Maybe it was the way my dad’s mouth turned up or the way my mom’s eyebrows lifted, but when one talked, the other listened.

“Dad, everything’s going to be fine.”

“But it’s not. I’m losing her, every day, bit by bit. And I have to watch.”

A cold knot settles in my stomach. “Maybe it’s time you got more help. You can’t do this on your own anymore.”

“I have help.”

“The housekeeper is here to clean the house, not take care of Mom, and Mom’s going to need more and more care soon. She can’t be left alone.”

“But what I want to know is where is she going? What is she doing? The specialists say she’s looking for someone, but what . . . where?”

I clasp my hands together, feeling terribly useless. “I don’t know, Dad. I don’t know if we’ll ever know.”

I eventually leave and get Eva to bed, and I know I should go to the studio and work—I have dozens of e-mails to be returned—but I can’t make myself do it. I’m tired, and like Dad, I’m scared. I don’t want to see Mom in a hospital. I know they eventually have to “lock up” their Alzheimer’s patients, but Dad’s right. Mom could have been badly hurt tonight.

Thinking about Mom’s future, thinking about what’s happening to her—to all of us—I put my head down on my arms and cry.

I don’t cry. But I can’t seem to help it tonight.

I miss my mom, and the mom I knew isn’t coming back.

The next day is Wednesday, a day I haven’t been looking forward to, as it’s the first auction class project meeting. As first assistant head room mom, I’m apparently the fourth-grade co-chair for the class project. Not quite sure how that distinction was made, but here I am at Tully’s on Points Drive at ten-thirty in the morning, waiting for the rest of the moms to arrive.

I hate all these meetings. There are way too many meetings. Haven’t these women heard of e-mail or voice mail?

While I wait, I can’t help studying a cluster of women at another table.

They’re all very well groomed and certainly polished, but they don’t look quite normal. No one in the group looks quite like what a woman in her late fifties, sixties, or seventies should look like.

I’m reminded of those funny picture books made for kids, the ones where you can flip different heads and torsos with different feet and legs. These lovely, sophisticated women seem to have stepped from that book. Faces don’t match bodies, and bodies don’t match wardrobe. Skin is too taut in some places and droops too much in others. Some women with softening jaws and softening eyes are toned and taut.

Other women with small shoulders and widening waists have the smooth, shiny complexion of a twenty-year-old. How is this possible?

It’s plastic surgery, and I know it’s plastic surgery, but something in me rebels. My stomach knots.

There’s nothing wrong with plastic surgery, yet when I look at these women, all “seniors,” it’s obvious that they work very hard at taking care of themselves. It almost seems indecent the amount of work involved. Such devotion, such dedication, such personal sacrifice.

Aging gracefully—surely an oxymoron if ever there was one—is wonderful, but this is beyond graceful. It’s Star Wars meets The Swan. Weird. Sad. Unnerving.

Finally, the other moms start to arrive, and our one table becomes two tables and then finally three as more tables are dragged over to accommodate all the binders and planners and calendars.

I don’t want to say it was a waste of time being there, but I’ve nothing to contribute. I’m not even sure I understand the point of yet another school fund-raiser. How much money does the school really need? And how much time is this auction going to take?

But this time, wisely, I voice no opposition and sit there instead, taking notes and nodding my head, trying desperately to fit in and be a good Bellevue mom.

It’s not until a half hour later when my phone vibrates in my purse that I actually come to life. Checking the phone, I recognize Frank Deavers’s number and my insides jump.

I’ve been waiting for this call.

Motioning to the others that I’ve got to take the call, I start walking toward Tully’s glass doors even as I answer. “Frank,” I say. “How are you?”

“Good. And you?”

“Great.”

“Is this a good time to talk?”

I push open the doors and step outside. It’s a gray day, overcast, with the big trees lining Points Drive pale and nearly leafless. “Yes. I’m glad you called.”

I wait for him to make the standard preliminary chitchat we always have before we launch into business, but this afternoon Frank’s abrupt and right to the point.

“We didn’t go with you.” His rough voice sounds almost like a bark on the phone line.

For a moment, I think I’m going to drop the phone. I go cold and numb. My heart plummets. “No?”

“No. And I called as soon as I found out. I didn’t want to leave you hanging, and I didn’t want you to hear it through a third party.”