The Chance (Thunder Point #4)(89)

“What?” Lou said. “What? He can’t read?”

Ray Anne shrugged. “I never had the guts to ask. I think he thinks no one knows. I suspected by the second date—he just glances at the menu and asks me to order. Or he makes an excuse about his glasses—either he forgot them or they’re dirty or something. And he answered a couple of texts I sent him and I know he’s got big thumbs, but seriously, his words were incomprehensible. I bet he can’t read. He listens to books when he’s traveling or falling asleep and he’s listened to some mighty heavy titles, but I asked him once to put vinegar on my shopping list and he just didn’t do it. Maybe it’s dyslexia or something. Or he just never learned, growing up on a farm.”

“But you didn’t ask him?” Lou queried.

She shook her head. “I thought he’d tell me eventually. But I don’t think that’s why he left. He left because...”

“There was a friend in need,” Lou said. “That’s what I heard.”

“Maybe,” she said. “Maybe that’s why he left. But why didn’t he say goodbye? Why didn’t he just tell me he had to leave? We could’ve kept in touch. I didn’t expect him to marry me! So why?”

“I don’t know, kiddo. Men are idiots sometimes.”

Ray Anne sighed. “He was so considerate. So tender. You just don’t expect this from a man like that. When we made love, he was such a wonderful gentleman. We made love up here when there was lightning over the bay.”

“Ew,” Lou said. “It wasn’t on this beanbag, was it?”

Ray Anne made a face and tipped the wine bottle over Lou’s glass. “Just drink.”

A soft snore came from the direction of Carrie’s beanbag. Lou reached over and extracted the plastic wineglass from her hand and put it on the deck.

“She gets up real early,” Lou said. “We’ll wake her when Joe gets here later. We’ll just get a little drunk and talk about Al. When you’re done extolling his virtues we can start to bash on him—that helps. And it better not have been on this beanbag—I’m serious.”

Twenty

Laine saw Genevieve about three times a week when she stopped by Senior’s house. If she came later in the day, she often brought the girls with her. Pax, not so much, given his crazy schedule, but he checked in with her by phone almost every day. Senior was doing very well most days, as long as he was in familiar surroundings. She tried to get him out daily—she took him along to run errands, to drop by the driving range, he even played eighteen holes a few times with a couple of his friends, although that made her terribly nervous, afraid he’d have one of his episodes of dramatic confusion and maybe wander off on the golf course. They also worked out together in the small gym he kept at the house. Exercise almost always had positive results.

For the most part he was lucid, but a day didn’t pass that he wasn’t on another planet—sometimes briefly, sometimes for as long as several hours. There was no question about it, he wasn’t going to get better. It was all about quality of life and realistic expectations. Mornings were usually Senior’s best time, though Laine did catch him headed for the garage one morning, carrying his bag and saying he was going to the hospital for rounds. Convincing him that he wasn’t was quite the battle. It was Mrs. Mulligrew who sidetracked him with “Not until you’ve had your breakfast, Dr. Carrington. Come with me—I’m getting it ready for you right now.”

They went to a support group. Laine went alone at first, then she took Senior with her and he was devastated to see the more critical Alzheimer’s patients there with family members or caregivers, so she was back to going alone. The people were mostly cheerful and encouraging but their lives were changed forever by this thief of the mind. Those afflicted ranged in age from sixty to ninety; some families had been living with Alzheimer’s for almost twenty years!

Senior had been doing a lot of crying. That was one of the ways Laine knew he was having a hard time. He whimpered softly and great big tears rolled down his cheeks when she told him she was going out for a little while. Not every time, but often enough that it filled her with such concern she phoned his doctor. The doctor said this was not unusual and to reassure him that she’d be back.

This was somehow more devastating to her than his blustering, than all the criticism and doubt he’d cast on her for years. To see this big, strong, stubborn man reduced to tears so often just wounded her. But she refused to let it show. “Now, don’t be upset, Dad, I’m just going for a run and I’ll be right back. Jed will be here with you. Why don’t the two of you play some cards or cribbage or something?”

Laine, so good at stiffening her spine, being strong and capable, left her father in the hands of his nurse’s aide, a very agreeable young man who had been with them two weeks and things were starting to fall into a routine.

Until she got back from her five-mile run. Something was not right. While she was cooling down, walking in slow circles around the driveway, she smelled something in the air. Something that smelled like talcum powder mixed with something. So she walked around the garage. She had to edge through some bushes to get to a pretty secluded part of the backyard, where good old Jed was smoking a joint.

“Well. Hello,” she said.

“Oh, shit,” he said. “Look, it gets a little tense sometimes, okay? I’m perfectly good. I’m a hundred percent. Seriously.”