John Saul - Nightshade

Finally, Joan’s own self-control gave way, and she turned around to face Emily. “Cynthia won’t do anything at all, Mother,” she said. “She’s dead, remember? Cynthia’s been dead for years!” Regretting her words almost as soon as she spoke them, Joan turned back, and for several long moments silence hung in the car. As Bill Hapgood turned through a pair of wrought-iron gates and started up the winding driveway toward the house that sat in the midst of the three hundred acres that had been his family’s home for five generations, Emily seemed totally unaware of where she was. But as the house finally came into view, she suddenly spoke.

“She’s not dead,” she said. “Not Cynthia. Not my perfect Cynthia.”

EMILY MOORE MADE no move to get out of the car as bill Hapgood pulled up in front of the sprawling house his thrice-great-grandfather had begun building as a farmhouse in the early part of the nineteenth century. Originally nothing more than a cabin built at the edge of the first small field that Luther Hapgood had carved out of the forest surrounding the hamlet of Granite Falls in the early part of the nineteenth century, the house had been remodeled and expanded, as had the farm, by the next three generations of Hapgoods. Its architecture was vaguely Federal, but with so many bastardizations that it was nearly impossible to assign it to any particular style. “Eclectic” was how either one of the agents in Bill Hapgood’s real estate business would have described it, though Bill himself refused to label his home. “It’s just what the family wanted,” was all he said if anyone happened to ask how the house had come to be. No one in Granite Falls, of course, would ever ask; everyone in town not only knew Hapgood Farm, but knew its history as well. Emily Moore, though, was now staring suspiciously at the rambling, ungainly brick edifice as if she’d never seen it before.

“Is this a hospital?” she asked, her voice trembling with sudden fear. “I’m not sick — I don’t need a hospital.”

“It’s not a hospital, Mother,” Joan replied. Her frustration with her mother, which had boiled over a few minutes ago, was back under control, and as she opened the rear door of the Range Rover to help Emily out, she explained what was happening once again. “It’s our house, Mother. You remember it — you’ve been here hundreds of times.”

“I don’t want to go to your house,” Emily fretted. “Take me home.”

“You can’t stay at your house, Gram,” Matt said, reaching in to take his grandmother’s hand. “There was a fire, remember?”

Emily’s eyes clouded and she pulled her hand away from Matt. “Of course I remember,” she muttered. “Joan did it.”

“Mom wasn’t even there — ” Matt began, but his mother didn’t let him finish.

“It was an accident, Mother,” she said, knowing better than to argue with the old woman right now. “And I’m sure the damage isn’t too bad. I’ll get you settled in, then Matt and I will go get whatever you need.”

Her eyes filled with suspicion, Emily reluctantly let herself be guided into the house and up the wide staircase to the second floor. Joan opened the door to a spacious guest room in the southeast corner and drew her mother inside. “Isn’t this lovely? You’ll have sun all morning, and most of the afternoon too.”

Emily peered around the room. The walls were papered with a bright floral pattern on a pale yellow background, with curtains and a bedspread to match. Besides the bed, night table, and dresser, there were a pair of wingback chairs flanking a small fireplace, and a door leading to a bathroom that was shared with another guest room. Emily ran a finger over the small occasional table that stood next to one of the wing chairs. She scowled disapprovingly at the dust she saw on her finger.

“I’ll dust it in a little while, Mother. Would you like to take a nap?”

Clearly not yet certain where she was, Emily eyed her daughter suspiciously. “Why do you want me to go to sleep?” she demanded. “What are you going to do to me?”

It’s the sickness, Joan reminded herself. It’s just the sickness, and it doesn’t mean anything. She silently repeated once more what Dr. Henderson had explained to her when Emily’s Alzheimer’s had first been diagnosed: “There will be times when she’s angry about everything, and times when she gets paranoid. But for a while at least, there will also be times when she’s just like her old self, and you’ll think she’s actually getting better. But there’s no way of reversing her condition, and in the long run she’s only going to get worse. You just have to try to be patient with her, and remember that she doesn’t always even understand what she’s saying, let alone mean anything by it.” And as the illness progressed, Joan had managed to deal with it.

She’d learned to ignore the criticism her mother heaped on her.

She’d tried to keep her patience as she explained to her mother again and again that Cynthia would not be coming home. But Cynthia’s death was only one of the things she had to explain over and over again, for as the months of Emily’s illness turned into years, and the fog of the disease clouded more and more of her mind, Joan found herself having to repeat almost everything over and over again.

Twice recently Emily had failed to recognize Bill when they stopped by to bring her groceries, and last week she hadn’t been sure who Matt was. But perhaps that would change, now that she was going to be living in the same house with her son-in-law and her grandson. Maybe if she saw them every day, she’d remember who they were. Except that Dr. Henderson had also explained to her that as the disease progressed, it would become nearly impossible for Emily to assimilate anything new.

Joan pushed the thought away. Somehow, it would work — she would make it work! Because if her mother couldn’t adjust to living here, then there was only one alternative.

She would have to do what her mother had been accusing her of wanting to do for years: she would have to find a nursing home.

Her mother would never forgive her for that.

But worse, Joan would never forgive herself for it.

No matter how bad Emily’s condition got, her mother was still her mother, and it was her duty to take care of her.

Once again in firm control of her roiling emotions, Joan put a gentle arm around her mother’s stooped and rounded shoulders and tried to ease her toward the chair. “I’m not going to do anything to you,” she soothed. “I’m just going to take care of you, that’s all. You’ll see — everything is going to be fine. You’ll like it here.”

Emily’s mouth worked as if she were about to say something, but finally she sank into the chair. Her eyes darted around the room as if searching for a hidden enemy, and then she rubbed her arms, shivering despite the warmth of the room.

“Would you like me to light the fire?” Joan offered.

For a moment Emily seemed not to have heard her at all, but then she looked up and her eyes fixed on her daughter. Joan could see the unreasoning anger of the disease start to burn in her mother’s eyes, and braced herself against whatever her mother was about to say. When Emily finally spoke, she confirmed Joan’s fears: “Isn’t it bad enough that you tried to burn me up in my own house?”

Joan flinched not only at the words, but at the bitterness in her mother’s voice, but forced herself to turn away from the pain they caused, telling herself once again that it was the disease talking, not her mother. “I’ll put on a pot of tea,” she said. “You’ve always loved tea — it will make you feel better.”

As Joan started from the room, she braced herself for whatever parting words her mother might have for her, but Emily said nothing more.