I am a geriatric social worker at Cherryvale Memory Care Center. While normally I do not lead outings for patients at the center, I did, on one occasion, as a special favor. The outing, I was assured, would be for a couple of hours and with only one patient.
Jeanne’s late husband had been descended from settlers of French Louisiana down around old Fort Chartres, which later became part of Illinois. After the French and Indian War, most of the French moved west of the Mississippi River. Ever since that time the name LaTour has figured prominently in just about every Missourian county.
There have been LaTours in public office acting as state representatives, judges, and mayors. There have been college professors, artists, shopkeepers, farmers, laborers, policemen, and soldiers serving honorably in defense of their country. On Jeanne’s husband’s side of the family, his mother’s maiden name had been Baste. Jeanne was not sure about the nationality, whether it was French, Basque or Portuguese. There was some historical evidence indicating a connection with the name Baste to Jean Lafitte, the buccaneer who lent assistance to the American cause during the War of 1812.
There were several members of the Baste family claiming to have traced their ancestry back to people living in the Galveston area—the home-base of the buccaneer Lafitte, about the time he would have been active. Jeanne’s father’s people had been Irish; the Harmon’s and the Gibson’s hailing from County Derry in North Ireland and from northeastern Oklahoma probably after the eponymous Gibson of Fort Gibson. There were also hints of a Cherokee connection somewhere in their ancestry.
All of this I was told by Jeanne during the getting-acquainted period of our relationship—when she had just arrived and was under the impression that this was to be just a short visit, while her daughter Domani was taking care of a few car issues.
The patient at 87 years of age had lost most of her hippocampal memory; that is she was no longer able to form new memories. Her retention was generally very short. Say that she falls out of bed and manages to press the HELP button. By the time staff arrives, she will have forgotten all about the incident that precipitated the call, and how she came to be sitting on the floor with a sore butt will be a mystery to her. She will retain the emotional effect of the incident—the shock and surprise of falling out of bed, but will be unable to articulate the reason for it.
At the supermarket, I left the patient out of my sight for a few seconds, while I went to carry out a request for a brand of cookies that she likes, which I knew to be just a short distance away down another aisle—leaving her standing by herself next to the grocery cart. When I got back, I had to reintroduce myself to her all over again saying “I am Mrs. Magillacudy from the Cherryvale Memory Care Center and I’m here to escort you on this outing to the supermarket.” In the patient’s mental landscape, she actually believes that she is on an ordinary shopping trip. As we drove back to the center, the patient’s conversation was on a child’s level. She chattered happily about the traffic, the cars, the trees, the clouds in the sky. She brought up the subject of her father. After informing me that her father had been an avid fisherman, she made the confident assertion: “Everything he did was all right with me!”
She chose to recall a memory associated with happiness, solely in order to furnish self-comfort.
At first everything appeared in shades of grey. Jeanne’s memories had been progressively rewritten to conform to the Harmon family photo album. People seemed frozen in time, growing older in jumps, appearing at family get-togethers, showing off the new baby, posing in an army uniform, leading a thoroughfare horse by the bridle. Time always seemed to be the height of summer with the grass long and lush and heavy sunflowers nodding on immense stalks with leaves that seemed like hands.
Everyone was standing around or sitting like Pashas at a tea party, the women-folk in their white summer dresses; the men-folk in their Sunday best. It was at her grandmother’s farmhouse constructed after her husband had vanished leading a cavalry charge for the Southern Army. As a war-widow she had settled in northeastern Oklahoma, constructing this grand house with six bedrooms and indoor plumbing. Episodes of Jeanne’s life played out with the members of her family whose likenesses were preserved in the nature of a prologue or cast of characters: her grandfather, Francis and grandmother, Elizabeth Gibson; her aunts and uncles Matilda, Chauncey, Floyd, Charles; her father and mother, Leavitt and Elizabeth Bottle; her three brothers and single younger sister: Roger, Charles, Edward and June.
Other minor characters appeared such as a nameless little girl forever memorialized as the one who wouldn’t give me back my charm-necklace. The snippy little girl had begged and begged Jeanne to let her try on this article of jewelry, she admired it so much; and Jeanne had mistakenly granted her request—only for the little girl then to claim that the article of jewelry was her own—it had always been hers, so leave me alone.
What happens when we die? Jeanne had wondered about this. There was a whole spectrum of phenomena out there, so tantalizingly out of reach because it intersects our own plane of existence, pretending to hold all the answers. Some members of the family on both her and Martin’s side had had experiences with the supernatural. Down in Shreveport there were some second cousins of hers who had been followed by a ghost-light, along a dark deserted road.
Another cousin, who had stayed with them one summer, had seen a ghost-light hovering over her bed—and the next day she had learned that, at the very same time as the appearance of the ghost light, her fiancé had been fatally shot by some sheriff’s deputies trying to arrest him. The ghost-light had appeared in one of the upper bedrooms belonging to her mother, Elizabeth Bottle, which, later, was to become Edward’s bedroom, after she had passed on.
It was all the phenomena—ghosts, séances, premonitions, UFOs, alien abductions, Barney and Betty Hill, UFOs over Gulf Breeze, those jet pilots and astronauts. There existed in the country a buoyant optimism, regarding those visitors from Outer Space. It was the belief, or hope, that, when the time was right, these visitors from some other world were going to come forward to usher in a new era of peace and prosperity for all mankind. Being all-wise they would help us solve all of our worst problems, the problems of war, hunger, disease and poverty.
But what was death after all? Some said it was a veil—the thinnest of veils, separating us from the Next World. Jeanne had read somewhere that the spirits of the newly departed were supposed to show up one last time to say goodbye or to ask permission before undertaking their journey to the Next World.
Walter came back just that way when Jeanne was taking a nap. In a dream of herself sleeping on the couch something woke her and she opened her eyes. And there was Walter bounding toward her with all the happy energy of a young dog. During his last months, he had had trouble moving about because it had been so painful for him. He had just barely managed to hobble in order to drink or go to the bathroom. Eventually he had become terribly thin, his bones standing out through the fur. She remembered afterward waking and remembering everything: the feeling of Walter’s wet nose giving her a goodbye kiss.
“Don’t worry about me, I’ll be fine” he seemed to be saying.
And death was all around her. She went out to the cemetery to weed around the gravestones, the cows watching her the whole while through the fence. It was something she felt she had to do; a duty for her to tend the graves of her loved ones—and it rejuvenated her. The drive out in the country helped lift her spirits; and there at the cemetery you communed with the dead, who were there watching and listening. She liked to think that they were appreciative, whenever anyone took the trouble to neaten up their graves.
One night she had punched the numbers to call up Domani, her panicked voice telling her that Martin had not come home, and she was worried about him. Domani had to gently tell her that Martin had died a few years ago. Jeanne apologized—“Oh, I know what’s wrong. This happens when I get dehydrated.”
Fleecy white clouds and blue sky: A big maple stood at the corner of the yard and partway down the trunk a little red squirrel was scolding her for not putting out his ear of corn. She bustled over and stuck a fresh ear on the nail protruding from the feeder, attached to the side of the tree. Afterwards, she went over to the side of the house and filled up a bucket to refresh the water in the bird bath. There was just about an inch left, and it was looking brown. So she went back to the shed for a bristle brush.
Those birds certainly used up the water. Sometimes they would be in a line along the top of the fence waiting their turn to take a bath. Later she had a visit with Cocoa, a brown Labrador retriever. Cocoa came over and stood on his hind legs at the back fence, and she went over and talked to him and patted his head and told him he had pretty brown eyes. Jeanne had an affinity for dogs and birds and horses.
A Rain Crow was calling—always a mournful sound. When she was little, some people had told her that Rain Crows come around when it was going to rain, and that was why they were called Rain Crows. But that was probably not true. A lot of what they used to tell kids had been not true. She had come to that realization late in life and she had passed on that bit of wisdom to her children, Domani and Robert.
Jeanne had to twist the screw counterclockwise at the bottom of the baseboard heater to bleed the pipes. This was a once-a-year operation that had to be done before the furnace could be turned on. Jeanne was doing what Domani had told her to do, and something was still not right. Water was pouring out of the hole where the screw used to be—maybe she had turned it too far. Water was just pouring out and pouring out all over the floor, making this huge mess. Oh, look, it’s soaking into the carpet. Jeanne's eyes filled with tears. But this is no good. I can’t just sit here. Suddenly Jeanne remembered that Domani had left her number somewhere around here. Fortunately, she doesn’t live far.
Domani, Robert, and Julius were sitting at the dining room table. Jeanne wanted to know “how did they get here?” One moment she had her eyes closed and the next moment there were people sitting around her, engaged in conversation. She couldn’t account for it.
While she dearly loved her children—they were welcome to come over anytime. But people needed to call beforehand. A person had to have time to get ready and make preparations.
Jeanne nodded and smiled, making it seem like she was following the conversation. It was like a panel discussion on television, with the panelists batting ideas back and forth. You had to pay close attention to what is being said, or you would lose the gist of what was being said. Unless the panelists were to start over with a new topic, your only hope would be to catch hints and inferences to previous comments, to provide yourself a toe-hold and then laboriously climb back onboard. There’s a lot of talk going on, but nothing much is being said. Jeanne who had been feeling more and more like that inattentive viewer made an admission or very perceptive and cunning remark to explain something to her guests: “It is like there is a picture on a piece of cloth, and it is all torn and the edges are frayed and there are pieces of it that are missing and it is getting worse and worse. I try and try to make sense of it—but I just can’t.”
Another time she told them: “It is like scraps of cloth, fluttering in front of my eyes, and parts are missing. I try and I try but I still can’t put them together.”
Jeanne was glad to see her only daughter at the door. Domani always wore a cheerful smile and had nice things to say. “Oh yes, of course. You’ve come to do the bills. Well you know where they are. It is certainly nice to have someone around who can take care of things like that.”
In the crowded little house, which had become dingy from her living in it for so long: greasy smudges where her fingers had touched walls, and upon every horizontal surface food cartons and candy wrappers lying around, wherever the transaction took place. Jeanne’s totem animals: ebony elephants, porcelain birds, needlepoint deer—were standing about, encircling Jeanne the infirm member of the herd in a circle of protection. Her books, her crafts, her paint-by-number ballerinas were all waiting for her to take them up and employ for the purpose for which they had been designed.
Jeanne’s eyes took in the sights about her, her brain correlating the imagery with memory files indelibly associated with emotions. As the house had been pleasant and well-regulated, the memories and associated emotions were overall positive. Martin’s unassuming protection was still about her. The clutter, which for anyone else would have been clutter, was for her loving murmurs. Her rationale for this clutter was inferred by her arguing “Why waste time, doing all this cooking, when you have boxes of cookies and cupcakes to snack upon? Besides, an older person can manage a lower caloric intake than a younger person.”
Mario Lanza was singing: “The Loneliest Night of the Year.” Jeanne’s mentality, at this point, was desperately longing for comfort—for she had been generally deprived of so much. Her parents and brothers and sisters had passed on leaving a hollow emptiness inside.
There were still her children—but they were always so busy and she felt like they had passed her by, in terms of her being relevant. She could not pretend that it didn’t make a difference. Hence the irresistible lure for the familiar—the almost forgotten lore that still had what it took to take her out of her sadness, to evoke those feelings of long ago.
In the long hours of the night, she had the radio to keep her company—the mellifluous voice of someone dwelling on the edge of the desert—Coming to you LIVE, we are Coast to Coast! It was almost as good as another person being actually physically present, and she was not required to make the appropriate remarks, and if your attention wandered there was no one to give you an impromptu pop-quiz.
Sometimes she didn’t even bother looking at the clock. The days of the week were meaningless to her because each day was the same. Jeanne had instructions written on little notes, stuck all over the house, which she seldom bothered to look at. She was supposed to take her medicine regularly—this or that once a day, or twice, once at bedtime, once upon rising.
They made it too complicated. Domani loaded a week’s supply of pills in this blue plastic thing with all the days of the week marked off in white letters. The light switches were marked INDOOR and OUTDOOR. The thermostat in the living room was marked DON’T TOUCH. All Jeanne’s groceries, for the whole week, were always set out upon the counter, where there would be no excuse for her not seeing them. There was no need at all for her to cook anything fancy.
Jeanne listened to the music of Roger Whittaker on the radio, and then abruptly another program came on, called Problems and Solutions.
The people who lived in the back had moved away, and now there was only a little black dog that would rather bark at her than be coaxed to the fence. At the corner house, behind her, they had a dog which the owners kept in the kennel which kept coughing and coughing at night, when everything was quiet. She would hear the dog rattle his chain and then COUGH, COUGH, COUGH—then, for a while, everything would be quiet. Then the dog would rattle his chain and go COUGH, COUGH, COUGH, all over again.
Sometimes, she would hear screech owls long, long after midnight—sounding as though they were situated just below her bedroom window. She had always enjoyed the cries of birds at night believing them to be a hauntingly beautiful sound. The cries of the screech owls were very haunting and mysterious, a trilling almost warbling sound. The cry of the loon which she had heard personally in the wild—she considered the most haunting bird cry of all. The loon was calling for her lost lover, as one would put a candle in the window. The loon did not know whether her lover would ever return but she was ever faithful to him and would call out every night without fail.
In my sweet lit-tle A-lice Blue Gown—When I first wan-dered down into town—
Jeanne slipped out of the house to go for a walk. Surrey was never very busy, and any time, especially in the middle of the week, it had the appearance of a ghost-town. Although you might see a few cars whizzing past, and you might see people doing yard work, seldom did you see anyone walking on the sidewalk or walking through the cemetery. Jeanne varied her route, visiting the two cemeteries, situated on opposite sides of town, giving equal attention to both.
Walking for Jeanne was an ingrained, lifetime habit. In her present mental state, it had become a means to remain thinking in the present moment. The scene unfolds like the pages in a book: the brick house with the porch swing, the white picket fence with the rosebush in the corner, the blue flowers growing on a trellis, the place next to the tree where the sidewalk was heaved up. Passing a visual attraction, it passes through her mind like turning a page. She crosses an alley—a little way down was a coach-house, where someone had once kept a horse and buggy.
A large, white house on the corner with the sculpted privet bushes, hydrangeas and various hosta plants and ferns—all looked to be in good order. They always do a good job keeping the place up. Next door was the Post Office. Jeanne goes to the entrance, gazing at the dark silhouette of a woman—and goes through and enters the foyer. There was a common area with a service desk and a counter and a recessed area around the corner, where the lockboxes were located. And then outside, once again, to more sidewalks, more houses, more trees, more bushes. A black pickup was parked partway over the sidewalk, forcing her to walk around it. There was an empty lot, where someone had put up a Purple Martin house.
There was someone’s cabin boat, parked next to a garage. There was an oak tree—that knothole would be a good place for an owl’s nest. The leaves were turning colors so it must have fallen. Just then she hears a dog barking. She did not know where it was coming from but it sounded close. Oh there it was—pressed against a fence, barking like mad: WOOF WOOF WOOF. Oh, but now it has stopped. She could see a slight tail wag. So, it has not made up its mind about her.
Jeanne had always possessed a special affinity for dogs. She was aware of a fellowship existing between them, as though they were fellow wanderers on the Earth, longing to roam about and be free.
Jeanne made a mental note that you can go for blocks without seeing a single car and then, the moment you cross the street, there one is. There one was, and it was being driven by a boy with freckles and blue eyes. What was he doing driving a car? He looked too young to drive.
Jeanne stopped to pick up some sticks that had fallen from some old tree. Picking up sticks was good exercise, and it didn’t do any harm neatening things up a bit. After picking up a bunch of sticks, some five feet in length, she dropped them about half a block further at the base of a tree. I’m done toting them around—let someone else deal with them.
Nothing was growing in the gardens—the communal gardens by the cemetery. It was just dry stalks and half-rotted squash and pumpkins and tomato plants.
The street continued straight into the cemetery, and from there it was a narrow blacktop walkway that made a big loop. It was always quiet there, like a little park. Outside the cemetery were cornfields, now reduced to stubble. How time passes—so soon and now it was after the harvest. But look at them—there must be millions of those yellow stalks. She exulted at the thought of millions of them.
Leaving the cemetery, she heard the distant sound of drums. She guessed that it was the high school—they were up to something. You can look down and see the high school situated lower than the cemetery. There it goes again!—BOOM, BOOM, BOOM. CLATTEDY, CLATT, CLATT. Now there were horns: WAH, WAH, WAH. Jeanne peered off into the distance, her lips formed into a faint smile.
The lights had not been turned off and the windows were open. Inside the bedroom the old RCA radio was on. This was the radio with the turntable, which had the ability to play only 78 RPM vinyl recordings. Low and sonorous the radio set was possessed of a lighted dial that accentuated its antique character. Look inside and it was a fairy-land containing transistors, capacitors and vacuum tubes: all the things that had awed people in the olden days. Her late-night talk-show host was on the air making his introductory comments: “What a spectacle it must be… for our visitors from other worlds. Maybe that is why they like to buzz our little planet.” His voice paused dramatically… “They are only looking.”
This remark though did not evoke in her the intended thrill—for it was of a similar species of remarks that compelled her to faithfully tune in. If anything, it made her wonder about the existence of other forms of intelligent life in the universe—and the thought gave her a thrill of pleasure. No complicated thought process was involved.
Later, she woke up and everything was dark. The screech owls were trilling below her bedroom window, their mellifluous calls floating upon the night air. The windows themselves were too narrow and high up to look out of, as she lay in bed. There seemed to be a cool breeze. A car passed quietly, its headlights as it turned the corner briefly illuminating the ceiling with the pattern of lace curtains. Jeanne continued lying there drinking in the solitude of night. A little later she rose from bed to go into the kitchen, to fetch something to nibble on.
Lately, she had been getting up, after dozing off for a while, usually a few hours after Coast to Coast had gone off the air. And she would continue padding around the house, in her slippers and robe, checking the doors, going through all the rooms, making sure everything was alright. Then with dawn happening outside, she would go back to bed. Any sleep she managed to obtain would, afterwards, be broken and interrupted by an unending stream of confusing dreams.
The air was hazy with a glow around the moon. A full moon as white as milk was hanging low in the sky. Just then a mosquito whined in her ear. As long as she was home sometime around dark she would be alright. It was not like she was worried about someone doing anything to her. It was that decently-minded folk weren’t the kind to go walking around after dark. It used to mean that you were up to no good—you were somebody raiding a chicken-house or somebody who spent time in taverns. Her Pop had told her all about those kinds of men and how ornery they could be.
There were good people in this town and she didn’t want to be mistaken for a prowler. But just how late is it? She could have looked at the clock, to satisfy her curiosity, but it was more pleasant to float about in uncertainty—the childlike simplicity which had become a refuge for her.
A card table had been set up in the living room. Who but a single person, a widower or a widow, would have the nerve to set one up in the middle of the front window, with all the piles of jig-saw puzzles and soda cans and snack wrappers? The last puzzle she had worked on was still there half-way toward making the picture of something. She excused the disorder, saying that she could straighten up, if or when somebody came over.
“Oh, Domani—what has happened to you? It’s like you have aged ten years since the last time I saw you. What’s that you’re saying? You want somebody to come over to clean up… like a cleaning woman? Not in my house. I’d be a nervous wreck, making sure she didn’t steal something. I won’t have some stranger coming into my house. Oh, Domani—it’s you! Now, you’re standing in the living room. Just a moment ago I was thinking of you and just look! Now you’re here. Isn’t that nice?”
There, looming in the darkness, were a couple of birch trees at the end of her block. They stood there like beacons alerting her and orienting her in the right direction, after she had lost her sense of direction, after one of her typical, several-hours long walks. She could have read the street signs, but she was like a child wandering around spontaneously and in the moment. She needed something tangible like this to stand like a signpost telling her home was this way.
It was this ever-changing aspect of life. One moment’s presentation was continually being replaced by a subsequent one. She sees a trellis with grapevines on top and this calls to mind Harpo Marx with his hair piled on top. A hanging mass of vine was like the grizzled beard of an old toothless man. She looked between two houses and saw a dog barking at her. After a few moments he had become a friend yearning for her to visit.
Over there was a magnolia tree with pretty pink flowers. Over there was someone watering his lawn. Her mind recapitulated a litany of facts about the town where she had lived for over thirty years, while still considering herself an outsider—these people would never have accepted her as one of them. She would always remain the new person in town, a vast gulf existing between them.
At her age, she could get away with a lot that she used to be able to get away with, when she had been a kid. But sometimes her plan backfired. She would trespass into somebody’s backyard to shorten her journey—and also to be a little mischievous. But then she would find herself blocked by a hedge or a fence. Turning back, to find her way out of this strangeness, she would not be able to make sense of it. Then, the floodlights would come on, and the woman of the house would come out. Jeanne would shrivel up. With her meekest-sounding voice she would ask, “Could you help me find my way home?”
They were doing a lot of talking but nothing was being said. Why were their faces so strange? Why were they talking so fast?—and why was nothing being said? There was Domani—and there was Robert—and there was Julius.
My daughter, my two sons; but look at them—their faces—how much they have changed. What has happened to them for their appearance to have changed so much? What is going on? Oh me oh my! .... Why do they make me say things that I don’t want to say? Look over here at me and just tell me, simply, what is going on?
Jeanne did her best to show her appreciation. Domani, her faithful daughter, who never did anything wrong, how much she relied on her! Jeanne attempted to make small talk, to show her that her heart was in the right place. But she couldn’t think of anything to say. They were in a car, and she was wedged between Robert and Julius. She could see scenery whizzing by.
But why are we stopping here?--This parking lot, this tall building, my word, it must be six stories tall. Why are we stopping? Surely, we are not going inside. Red, pumpkin faces; evil thoughts rising to the surface; something has infected them. To turn on their mother! Oh, I wish I had never given birth to them—treason, high treason, betrayal! I am radiating such anger—yet, when I listen to myself, I have to sit back and wonder—I sound like a weak, silly old woman. I am crying. This doubles my anger.
You have to submit. When you are going to the dentist, knowing that life is waiting for you at the end of the ordeal, or you play possum and part of you dies. You let go of everything you have ever hoped for.
They say that wild geese have something in their brains like a compass—so they always know where they’re going when they migrate.
If Jeanne did recall that Domani had tricked her into going inside, telling her that it was only for a few minutes, because she had to go check on something, Jeanne made no sign that she remembered. Domani understood that was the way the brain works. The effect (or whatever it was) would still be there, although it would be unfocussed and without an object to attach either blame or censure.
Like a pre-natal dialog, between a mother and her child in the womb, Domani’s rationale was muffled by Jeanne’s amnesia. “Mom—I didn’t know what else to do. Maybe things would have turned out differently if you hadn’t gone into those other people’s yards. I felt I had to do something—and you made it clear that you weren’t going to be happy staying with either me or Robert or Julius. So, this was our only option.”
The interior details of her prison mattered not at all. All she knew was that she was someplace far from home, and she was apparently traveling with Domani. When she looked out of the big picture window, she could see a river and a distant town. Judging from the view she guessed that she must have been in a building several stories up.
It’s just like when you go into a waiting room. You cannot relax because every moment you expect your name to be called out. You wait and you wait. But where are you really? You’re nowhere. You’re between places. You’re in a holding zone. You hold your breath.
A day and a night passed, and after that another day and a night, and after that another day and a night. Every morning was like the first day. Jeanne wakes up wondering where she is. She goes to the window and looks out, beholding a strange landscape.
Jeanne learned about the benign influence of strange people. She did not always know what happened but afterwards she was left with a good feeling.
Now, Jeanne ventured out a little more confidently—although she still didn’t know what was going on. People came and went. They walked this way and that, past her door and down the hall. They were getting on elevators and going someplace.
“Are you coming in?” asked a woman, standing inside the elevator.
Jeanne, who had been standing there, watching, shook her head. After a moment, she stepped back and turned as though to leave. But then she hesitated. She stood there trying to remember something. Meanwhile, the elevator door closed.
The next bunch of people appeared, the elevator standing empty for a few moments, the door closing on its own, and then a little later reopened with another batch of people.
A woman who owned a cat that was allowed to run free in the hallway the conversation faded and Jeanne found herself, alone once again. She surveyed this place, now with less terror than before, and when she looked out of the picture window at the scene of the river and distant town, she remarked to herself (not realizing it was for the hundredth time) “Hmmm—this must be some hotel.” The next thing she did was to look around the apartment for Domani—who must be the one who had taken her here, “for we must be traveling,” looking in every room and behind every door for Domani, her daughter. When she had completed the circuit of rooms, she repeated the process, for it had just occurred to her that Domani might be here somewhere. And now she called out tremulously: “Domani, are you here?”
The pinecone-topped bedstead, in the bedroom and the dresser and the upholstered rocker were so very like the ones she had at home. The couch and the television in the front room also had the air of sameness to them. Whenever she thought about them critically in that way her nose crinkled with disgust. It followed that somebody set this all up and whoever did it must be watching and checking up on me.
It was not out of the ordinary for her to find the furniture moved around in strange ways, for the drapes to open and close, for the cords to be inextricably knotted, for the drawers and closets to be found empty, for her to discover her clothes stuffed into a couple of laundry bags. All this was apparently normal in this region of the universe.
One of the things she learned was not to be surprised if some morning she woke up to find herself sleeping in a strange place, looking out the window and realizing that she was in a tall building—looking out onto a river and a distant town. By surprise she meant not alarmed. In her part of the universe it paid to remain calm, to play it nice and easy.
The people came and went, walking down the hallway to and from the elevators. And this became an object of curiosity. She would follow a person to the elevator and stand there and watch as more and more people went into it and the doors closed. She could go too, she told herself. Someone might ask, “Are you coming?” There was nothing to prevent her—but then why should she? Where was it going anyway? Maybe she was meant to stay on this floor. Because, if she left to go somewhere, how was Domani going to find her when she comes back? That Domani had just stepped out and was shortly to return, for them to continue their trip wherever that might be, never left her mind. In addition to that, she had come to believe that they were a long way from home and that they had been gone for a long, long time.
Jeanne thought of the farthest place in the country where they might have gone and rejected that notion, because it didn’t fit the surroundings. She was pretty damned sure it wasn’t New York City—because that little piss-ant town out there was too small. Maybe it was Kansas City and this was the Missouri River. Those people down there, rushing around who knows where—tiny, insignificant: Fie on you! Pfaaah! I spit on you! I spit on you! Ha, ha, ha! How do you like that?
When she had lived on the farm, she could play for hours with her corn-shuck dolls and with her wagons made out of tree-bark. She could be a child again—for inside of a person is contained all the ages of a person. They never go away, residing there, hidden away.
The parking lot was five or six stories down. A little to the left was the entrance to the building, the roof black tar, with gravel sprinkled over it, like the roof of the McKinley School in Riverton, with a short balustrade around it so people didn’t fall off.
The people come and go, rushing, rushing, endlessly. But where do they all go?
Later, after lunch—or it could have been the next day, she went to the window. Below it there was a parking lot with people emerging from cars, cars circling past what appeared to be an entrance. She was up high, possibly five or six stories. Someone was walking along a sidewalk, opposite the parking lot. A road ran past a drive, going down to meet the road, and the river off in the distance and a town.
There was a strange little old woman with something wrong with her mouth; and a cat—a yellow cat; funny that they would allow a cat here to just wander around like this. It doesn’t seem like something that should be allowed in a hotel. Good--some people! I don’t mind if I do join them, wherever they’re going. When you’re new to a place, they don’t expect much from you and you can do what you want. I think I’ll just follow them to see where they’re going. If I was at a place for a while I’d know it, wouldn’t I?
Then why do I keep getting the funny feeling that I’ve been here before? Domani must be around here someplace. Whenever there’s some traveling going on, Domani’s always behind it. Ha, ha! I do wish she’d hurry up and get back from wherever she went to.
This isn’t much of a pond. Hmm! But I can see some geese over there. That’s always nice to see geese around. I like geese because the males and females mate for life. Oh, well—I’m prepared for anything. Who would turn down a walk? June, oh June, walking ahead of me in a grey trench-coat, a dreary, overcast day. Where did the sun go? I could really go for some spring flowers right about now. Hurry up, Spring-time!
Domani handles the car like a real pro. I remember when she was just learning to drive, how nervous she was—how she veered from side to side. We were out on Hopp’s Road out in the country. Martin would keep telling her: Don’t turn the wheel so much! Why are we turning into this parking lot? That tall building over there—oh my, it must be six stories tall! Why are we stopping? We’re not going inside? Just for a minute. Alright-- if it’s only for a minute.
The people walked past her door, attracting her attention—anything in this dull place, where nothing ever happens. She had been here for a long, long time. Just how long she had no idea. But that didn’t mean she hadn’t made up her mind that it must have been a while ago and that she was traveling far, far from home; because she was not able to recognize anything from the front window. Who else could she be with but Domani? Whenever there was some traveling going on--whether it was to the supermarket or to the doctor, Domani was behind it!
The friendly people in the elevator—they smiled at her. Jeanne was surrounded by conversation, the way she used to have been when she was little. She would be sitting on the floor, in the parlor, and the grownups would be all around talking. The sound would be there keeping her safe and happy.
Jeanne’s footsteps naturally gravitated toward the outside world, where there was sunlight and grass and trees and wide open spaces; and what a welcome feeling it was, to be under the great, overarching sky. The dull grey clouds outlined with sunshine, the trees standing perched on a ridge, the deep, shaded gullies chock full of rotting leaves and wet dirt—all this stirred in her the desire to explore and get moving, to inhale the aroma of damp woods.
Jeanne rejoiced in the openness of the sky and the blacktop road leading downhill. She was walking against traffic—the cars and trucks zooming larger and faster than she was used to; enormous trailers zooming past almost blowing her off her feet; little cars whizzing by in a blur. The town was on the right all the way on the opposite side of the river. That was nothing to worry about. A person could always find a way to get across the road.
Jeanne was walking along, feeling good—anxieties bubbling to the surface were burned away by the slogging, repetitive motion of walking.
A car was slowing down—was pulling over to the side of the road. Without an abundance of information to tell the driver, she allowed him to drop her off close to the downtown area, thinking that, from there, she would be able to make her way west, along a straight street. Home was a good distance away toward the west. Instead, he drove her to the police station, of all places! Such a polite man, he escorted her inside.
It was all very nice; and she got to sit down and have a drink of water.
Jeanne exploded with pleasure at the appearance of her daughter.
“Domani! What a pleasant surprise.”
“Hi, Mom. I came as soon as I could. They called me at work.”
Oh, the sense of elation, the moment Jeanne walked through the front door—home at last! But—oh, no! Something is wrong, terribly, terribly wrong. She turned to Domani. “Oh, I think you had better call the police. Somebody broke in and stole all the furniture.” The living- room couch, the coffee-table, the green, upholstered rocker and television set—all were missing. Thieves had broken in and had cleaned out the place. She hurried into her bedroom fearing the worst. Oh, my! Everything there had been cleaned out too. Her pinecone four-poster bed was gone, her dresser and RCA Radio were gone. She went to the closet—all the burglars left were some wire clothes hangers. My word! They had to work fast to clear out all that furniture—and here it is the middle of the day! Why—this is just unheard of. Every time she came back in, she banged into this unexpected circumstance; this unparalleled crime that had taken place. It was not so much of a surprise, as it was a curious happenstance that would probably never occur again in a hundred years. She was tempted to scold her daughter for her lackadaisical disinterest in the matter—but then an inner voice told her that Domani holds the strings and probably knows what is behind all this. Still, Jeanne walked about with a worried expression. It was some reassurance that Domani was here. She would certainly have felt worse had not her faithful daughter been there with her.
All the noise and excitement—something was happening. A moving van was out front of her house. Big, burly men were coming to the door. You handle it, Domani. Thank you very much, but just leave me out of this. I’ll just sit over here quietly in the corner and keep out of everybody’s way. Of course, nobody would bother giving me any advanced warning. I’m always the last person to know. They came, with big pieces of furniture. Who ordered all this; what is it all for?—oh well; she had learned to keep her mouth shut. There was a big, beige-colored couch—a green upholstered rocker. That item, just one man brought in, holding it over his head--dipping down from the knees, to clear the doorframe and stepping inside. Next to come were two men with a mattress—and they were followed by a man with a headboard. All of this went on for a long, long while—with Jeanne looking on with wonder.
Jeanne stood looking out the front door, watching, as the moving van pulled away from the curb and went down the street. “Wonder what they were doing on our street,” Jeanne remarked. “I suppose they were looking for some other address.”
“They just delivered your furniture,” said Domani.
“Here?” asked Jeanne, incredulously.
“Here; just a few moments ago.”
“Oh, you’ve got to be kidding.”
“They were just here. They brought all your furniture back.”
“My furniture?” Jeanne still had no idea.
“You have been staying at the Riverbluff Towers, and all your furniture has been over there. Now you’re back here, and it’s all come back, too. The movers just came from Riverbluff Towers, where they had to pick up your furniture. We got back here in a kind of a hurry, so we had to wait for your furniture to be delivered.”
“Alright,” Jeanne said with a laugh, still not believing her “if you say so.”
Lots of weeds had come up and there were sticks all over the yard. How did it get this way so fast? Maybe it warmed up a few days after a frost, and things have just started growing again; a blanket of snow over everything, preserving it during the whole winter. Now it must be spring—so it’s time to clean up everything.
Jeanne tackled the easy job first. That rose bush, a classic variety with a strong scent. Snip. This was her favorite job. Snip. She was using a pair of pruning shears. Snip. Cutting off the long stems. Snip. She was evening it up on both sides so that it was balanced. Snip. That’s better. Done. Without the long stems, the nutrients will go where they’re supposed to go. Now she began raking the flower bed. When she had filled up a bushel basket with leaves, she emptied the basket behind the shed. Something should go along the front of the flower bed. It was easy to plant.
She discovered that a paper packet of seeds were just like the ones she had had when they had lived on the farm. Jenny—mother’s little helper helps Mommy plant marigolds. Gingerly, she bent the stems with her work gloves to tie together with pieces of twine. The medium of change awakened Jeanne to things taking place in her environment. Strangely lifeless, there was the sound of a dog barking somewhere in the distance. Quivering shadows from the cottonwood tree moved restlessly over the brick wall in back of the house.
Other shadows moved past—the grim procession of elderly persons, some using those awful things called walkers. She was, in fact, in a state of transition. She was looking at a door, a white, metal door with a numerical keypad next to it—a keypad like that of a telephone. A loud bossy-sounding voice brought her out of her reverie.
“Hey there, Jeanne, it’s good to see you! We’re having a little get-together in the lunch- room in just a few minutes. You’re welcome to join us.”
There were sunflowers. Brilliant yellow they were; and the sky such a clear blue. She would lie in the grass for long stretches of time with nothing to do. She would be close enough to hear everything going on, and they didn’t even know she was there. There were colors everywhere, and she would discover that everybody she knew was just as red as could be, because they had gotten burned in the sun. She seemed to recall a path, which lead to the outhouse. The individual rocks, embedded in the ground, were always the same, all the years that she lived there.
She knew each one of those rocks. All of her kinfolk were just as red as could be, because they had been burned in the sun. But when she closed her eyes and pictured them in her mind they are all gray, because they had gotten mixed up with pictures in the photo album. She remembered Pop, who seemed to ambulate through the pictures, articulating his own personal thoughts, as he would later on when she got older and could remember everyone, separately, apart from the photo album.
These old people were creating a traffic jam in the hallway. Not to be impeded in her desire to be mobile, nor was she yielding to laziness or old-age. Elizabeth Bottle had been the same way talking about “these old people” when she had been old, herself, right close to being seventy-eight. Jeanne pushed her way through, firmly but not too firmly. Ahead of her, curving slightly to the left was a long corridor. Where it went she was going to find out. She had no expectation of it leading to an exit. But if it did, she would not be disappointed.
She looked through a row of windows, on the left and noticed that it was winter outside. She could also see across an inner courtyard, to an opposite corresponding row of windows, like the ones on this side. Snow has formed round pillow shapes on everything, the way it does when the snow is wet and compact and there is no wind. There were planters—although little could be seen, whether or not they had flowers growing in them.
Next to be seen was a lounge, with polished wooden tables and plaid upholstered chairs, a brick fireplace and bookcases, bookcases containing real books. There were picture frames on the walls with faded reproductions of scenery and something like two golf clubs.
There was more to see for she had just arrived at this facility and this was her first attempt at exploring it. Passing an open doorway, she heard a woman calling after her, “Having yourself a walk are you?”
Jeanne replied (with bonhomie): “I am but I don’t seem to be getting anywhere.”
Jeanne basked in the mirthful sounds of appreciation for her little witticism.
It’s just for a few hours. Surely, I’m not going to have to spend a whole night here. Surely I’m not going to have to spend a whole night here.
Jeanne glanced down at the several pages, which the nice lady had handed her, stapled together in the upper left-hand corner. Colored construction paper like what she had had in elementary school for making into paper chains, with those little rounded scissors and white school paste. Oh no and now I’m supposed to sing. Everybody in the whole place commenced to sing—but after the first couple of lines, Jeanne looked around and realized that nobody was paying attention to her. So she simply got up and walked out; thinking life was too short to worry about what other people might think. She was not against singing. It was just too awful, this caterwauling of theirs. She thought there must have been a grace period, so that if you participated in an activity long enough, you should be able to excuse yourself.
She entered one of the bedrooms off the main corridor. Somehow this did not seem inordinately impolite or nosy. Surely, they don’t expect me to spend a whole night here. There were two goodly sized beds made up. One side looked lived in, with pictures and plants and stuffed animals. The other side had only a cactus plant sitting on a window sill. There was nothing to see from the window, only this fence with the slats going in and out between the poles. The fresh snow was so white it sparkled in the sun. Jeanne went to sit on the bed with both her feet on the floor. A troubling thought occurred to her. This might be somebody else’s bed.
All winter long their farmhouse had been warm inside. The cat had slept by the stove. Pop used to stuffed bits of cotton in the windows to keep out the drafts. He would go outside in the middle of a blizzard to fix up the shutters. The wind would whip around the house making a whistling sound. Elizabeth Bottle would be stoking the fire. Jeanne and June would be arguing over the crossword puzzle. Elizabeth Bottle would say: “How can you be so selfish? Give your sister some interesting pieces.” Pop, who would be reading the newspaper and smoking his briar pipe—would just chuckle. June, her eyes as blue as pansies, was always so sweet and ladylike.
Jeanne got herself bundled up in her plaid, woolen topcoat—and went and planted herself in front of the main door, next to the front desk. She would wait and wait—the way Walter used to wait, in front of his food bowl. Walter would stare and stare at his food bowl, as though he believed his food would just magically appear. Let them see that I am ready to leave, that I am fully prepared to be picked up by my only daughter Domani and driven home. Look, they can see that I have dressed appropriately for the weather. Jeanne had neglected to find heavier shoes.
A pair of canvas slip-ons had been all she could find. Also her purse had become unaccountably lost. Well, let them mail it to her, for all she cared—just so that she could leave this place. I will just stand here and wait. I have plenty of patience. I’ll show them how determined I can be when I have made up my mind.
The door suddenly opens and somebody slips through—Jeanne catches a glimpse of the foyer and the door leading to the outside that is made of all glass—but alas it is too quick! The door clangs shut and she hears the lock engage with a decisive clack.
There was something ahead, something unexpected, some change of scenery, some new thing happening. She moved forward with the relentlessness of a freight train—nothing hindering her forward motion. She was moving through but slowly, slowly. She didn’t have to study anything or make judgments on it. Everything could be good and right in its own way. You’re in a situation that is always changing, going from one scene to the next. No sooner is one scene gone than it no longer exists, and the one occupying the present moment is all that exists. Yet there is this inner voice telling you that something is not right, that you’re not right. But somewhere out there is a door leading somewhere.
Maybe she can go and seek help. Maybe someone can tell her how to get home. Maybe Domani will come and rescue her. But there was no point in arguing. No one could possibly understand what she was going through.
She could only look about with the vague sense that all of this has come about by accident, and pretty soon it would be made right. But then she hears one of the old ones of whom this place had an abundant supply—everywhere she turned there was one at her elbow, or toddling away all hunched over, and this old person was all hot and bothered, bellowing out: “I don’t belong here! Somebody’s made a mistake!”
That’s just what she had been thinking and he stole her thunder. My word, but it creates a rift in this place. It was like a bad smell—like someone’s burnt the popcorn. You know that smell. Or somebody else is sitting next to her in the lunchroom, raising a ruckus; it was so nonsensical.
There were other reasons for not giving up, besides the fact that sometimes it pays off. You cast your line into the water and you wait. It gives you a good feeling that something good might be just around the corner.
When you turn the corner, there might be a friendly dog waiting for you. Even here, in this dull place, where there was nothing anywhere of any interest, if only you exercise your imagination, something might happen, proving to be the exception to the rule. Something might be hidden around the corner, waiting to spring out at you. You can’t see it now because it’s hidden. If things do not turn out as you hoped, there is always the next time.
There is the continual change as you move forward along the hallway. The perspective changes, as doors move past on either side. You stop at your Snoopy door (all the residents were given the opportunity to personalize their door with something meaningful to them). You go inside and look down at your bed… and the bed is not unoccupied. Who are these people?
Somehow they have managed to capture you and they have plunked you down in a wheelchair and they are feeding you oxygen through a tube. You are still moving forward—although now you also are sitting motionless in a wheelchair. So, in fact, two opposites can be true at the same time. You listen to what is going on around you. Sometimes, you open your eyes, only to discover that you are in motion. You are sitting in a city intersection, watching a yellow school bus go by. No—correct that. You are looking out through a window.
So you must, in fact, still be inside the building. The light is bright and cheerful but it is depressing, because you realize the impossibility of your ever going outside. The forward motion of walking—it has become internalized, like the act of respiration or your heart pumping blood. Your spirit rises from the wheelchair. The perspective lines collapse, and all matter dissolves as though you were passing through a transparent veil into a realm of light.
On your left- and right- hand side appears a great mountain, upon which everything is visible, an index representing a vast encyclopedia of information. Animals of the forest peep out from behind every rock. You walk between the two sides, unable to choose either one side or the other. From your friends the forest creatures—there arise a multitude of voices… like a tumult of water falling over a precipice.
And they are calling out to you in unison:
“Welcome back, Jeanne Harmon. Welcome back to your lost memories.”