Back on Blossom Street (Blossom Street #4)(79)

I sat down on the stool by the cash register. Anything to do with our mother drains me physically and I discovered I think better when I’m sitting. Everyone else needs to stand; it’s the opposite for me.

“When’s the last time you were by to see her?” I asked.

Margaret’s smile disappeared. “Sunday afternoon I went over and I took her out for a while.”

Mom’s symptoms appeared more pronounced to me after the nurse had pointed them out. “How was she?”

Margaret considered the question and lifted one shoulder in a halfhearted shrug. “In a word—confused. We walked around a bit, because I thought the fresh air would do her good. I said you’d been checking out a few new facilities. Afterward she seemed to think I was looking at these places.” Margaret hesitated. “When I brought her back to her room, she gave me the biggest smile and said, ‘Look, this place has furniture just like mine.’”

If it wasn’t so sad I might have laughed.

“I saw Mom on Tuesday, and she didn’t remember Dad had died,” I told my sister. I’d had to fight back tears. It’d nearly broken my heart to tell my mother that our father had died four years ago. At first she refused to believe me and then, after a few minutes, she’d started asking about other people. Like her sister, who was gone, too. She and Mom had always been close. Then she wanted to know about a favorite neighbor. After a while, Mom just sat and stared at the wall. I had no idea how to comfort her, so I left, my stomach in one giant knot.

“This memory loss isn’t all that recent,” Margaret commented. “I can’t say I see that much difference.”

I frowned. Before Dad died, Mom was as mentally fit as anyone I knew.

“Dad was aware that she was losing her memory, but he didn’t say anything to you.”

I stared at her in shock. And yet, I suppose it made sense that my father would share his concerns with my sister and not me. I’d been recovering from my second brain tumor and undergoing an ordeal that would forever mark me. It was just like my father to spare me any additional worry. Naturally, he would’ve discussed his apprehensions with Margaret.

“In the beginning, after Dad died, the decline in Mom wasn’t all that noticeable,” I said. “To me, anyway.” I was still living at home. She seemed lost and grieving but that was to be expected after the death of her husband.

“Dad was her brain,” Margaret said matter-of-factly. “For a while, after you opened the yarn shop, Matt and I thought about having her move in with us so I could keep an eye on her.”

“You talked to Mom about this?”

Margaret nodded. “She wouldn’t hear of it. Nevertheless, we didn’t like the idea of her living alone.”

That caught my attention. Since I’d lived with my mother until I started my business, it was no wonder Margaret had felt so angry with me. My sister saw the fact that I’d launched my own life as an abandonment of our mother. I longed to explain the situation from my point of view so Margaret would appreciate my need for independence. But I couldn’t think of any way to do that without sounding defensive. Or selfish…

“Last year, her health took a turn for the worse,” I said, returning to the subject of Mom’s condition. “And everything started to fall apart for her.”

“Now the doctor’s taken her off the medication, too,” Margaret said.

“The one that helped her memory,” I murmured.

Margaret shrugged, not looking at me. She straightened the yarn on the worsted weight shelves, making busy work, I realized, because she didn’t really want to talk about this. Then, bluntly and to my complete surprise, she said, “Mom’s ready to die, you know.”

An immediate protest came to my lips but I managed to swallow it, although I couldn’t hold back the tears.

“I don’t think it’ll be much longer.”

“No!” Every adult faces the loss of his or her parents sooner or later. It comes with the territory, as Brad once put it. But I didn’t feel ready to deal with Mom’s death four years after Dad. Not so soon, I prayed, pleading silently with God, willing to bargain. Dad had been gone nearly four years; sometimes it seemed like only yesterday and at other times it felt like eons ago.

“Did you find a new place for Mom yet?” Margaret asked. “Because I want to talk to the administrator when you do.”

I nodded. “I meant to tell you. A memory care facility. It’s one the nurse at the assisted living center recommended.” Brad and I had gone there late Monday afternoon and were impressed with how kind the staff was. We had an appointment later in the week to meet with the administrator.

“Matt and I can help with the move,” Margaret assured me. “We’ll rent a truck. There isn’t much furniture anymore….”

It went without saying that this would likely be our mother’s last home.

The bell above the door chimed and I looked hurriedly away, wiping the tears from my cheeks. The last thing my customers needed was to find the store’s proprietor weeping.

Before I could turn back, Margaret let out a bellow of welcome. “Detective Johnson! This is a pleasant surprise.”

My sister was nearly animated with delight. I’d heard her mention Detective Johnson many times. Before Danny Chesterfield had been brought in for the lineup, Johnson’s name had been followed by murmurs of disgust and an occasional swearword. Ever since Julia had identified her attacker, the detective walked on water. Margaret believed in the system again, believed that justice would be served. Soon the world would be made right once more.