Author: Robyn Carr
In the briefcase she found the car rental papers—he’d rented the car in Portland. His plane ticket was from Boston to Portland, one way, and there was a luggage receipt but no bag. His wallet was inside along with his cell phone. She checked the phone—he had missed calls from several people, from Pax, from his practice. She read a few text messages:
Dr. Carrington, Dr. Ellis of the American Association of Orthopedic Surgeons has been trying to reach you and would like you to call him....
Dr. Carrington, Dr. Sorenson from Women and Children’s is still waiting for your consult....
Dad, call me as soon as you get this message....
Dad? Just give me a call and tell me what’s up—I heard from your office that you were a no-show in San Francisco....
There was a sleeve of pills. It looked like so many of the samples her father had always had on hand from pharmaceutical reps—Cognex. She went to her computer and looked up the drug, already knowing what it was going to say. Treatment for mild to moderate symptoms of Alzheimer’s.
She looked in his wallet. The usual cash and credit cards and driver’s license were there, but there were also lists on small slips of paper. Notes to himself. Phone numbers for his office, Pax, his partner in the practice, reminders about appointments, medication schedule—there was no other medication in the briefcase but he was supposed to be on cholesterol and blood pressure medication.
Whew.
She left the briefcase under her desk were it wouldn’t be visible. She went upstairs. She’d call the Portland airport and find out if they still had the luggage Senior had checked, but that was hardly urgent now. She found Eric just smoothing the comforter over the sheets. “Do you have any sweats or boxers Senior can borrow?” she asked. “There’s no luggage.”
“No luggage?” Senior asked. “No luggage? What’s that about?”
She just looked at her father. “You must be very tired. Eric will get you something to wear to bed....” Ten minutes later he had brushed his teeth with a new toothbrush and was tucked into bed. “I’ll be downstairs for a while before I go to bed and I’m going to leave a light on the stairs so you don’t forget about them.”
“I won’t forget,” he said.
“I’ll leave the light on anyway.”
Once she was downstairs, she walked into Eric’s arms and let him hold her. She rested her head against his shoulder. “God,” she whispered.
“You had no idea?”
She shook her head. “This seems pretty sudden.”
“But you said you haven’t spent that much time with him.”
“I haven’t. Pax sees him occasionally, much of the time they’ll see each other at the hospital. But he’s got it bad—that can’t just have happened. I have to look this up.” She went to the kitchen for a glass of wine.
“Wouldn’t your brother know?”
“Not necessarily. His specialty is children and what you have to know about specialists—they concentrate on that one thing. I’ve heard my dad say he barely knows what to do for a heart attack—not his part of the body. Of course he was being flip—he knows what to do, but he isn’t the right person to treat it. They all went to medical school, basic training, but then they studied in one area in residency and in that, learned how to refer patients. But...” She paused as she poured the wine. “But our paternal grandmother had Alzheimer’s. My dad was always so afraid of that. Going to the kitchen and forgetting what you were there for—that’s normal. Going to the kitchen and forgetting it’s a kitchen, that’s dementia. Forgetting names, that’s a natural thing for aging people. Forgetting what words like add and subtract mean and still not remembering them in five minutes—that can be dementia.” She took a sip. “This is a complete waste of good wine. I don’t think anything short of an injection is going to relax me right now.”
“Maybe you should just call Pax,” he suggested.
“I was in grade school when my grandmother started getting dangerous—running stop signs, forgetting the way home, leaving the stove burner on. And the final straw was when she went for a walk one night at about 1:00 a.m., barefoot and in her nightgown, in Boston, in January. That’s when she had to move in with us for a while and with two working doctors in the family, that was impossible. She was moved to a special facility. I thought it was pretty nice. Of course I was a kid. My dad was horrified. I remember him saying if that ever happened to him, he’d want to die. But my grandmother—she thought she was on the farm. What farm we never did figure out since she grew up in the city. But she was pretty passive. She stopped remembering who people were, but she talked a lot about the farm. Wonder what farm she was on?”
“Tell me what I can do,” he said.
She just shook her head. “I need a little computer time. I’m grounded in facts—I investigate for a living. Then I have to call my brother back. This is one of those times I have to wake him. I’m sorry, Eric. I know you didn’t sign on for this.”
“Laine, some things just come with the territory. We’ll work this out. Just tell me what you need.”
“Right now I need to think and talk to Pax.”
He gave her a brief kiss on the forehead. Then he went out onto the deck to check out the sky.
Sixteen
It had been a long night for Laine. She’d barely slept. She was listening for any disturbance from her father’s room. They hadn’t slept under the same roof since her mother had died so she was completely unaware of his after-dark habits. Was he going to be sun-downing, a common Alzheimer’s symptom of becoming active and agitated after dark?
Eric was concerned and offered to go open the station, leave everything in the hands of Manny or Norm and come right back to make sure she was all right on her own with her father, but she told him to go. The station was probably far less stressful. And she needed time alone with Senior.
Eric had the coffee on at 5:00 a.m. and she was sitting at her kitchen table by six, making a list for herself. There were questions for her dad and Pax, decisions about what to do next. She was definitely not sending him back to Boston alone.
Before she had many items on that list, Senior came into the kitchen. He was wearing last night’s clothing, of course. “I guess I didn’t get my bag inside last night. I couldn’t find my shaving kit.”
“Sit down. Let me get you a cup of coffee.” She got his coffee. She sat down at the table, too, waiting while he dressed it. It was impossible not to notice he was possessed of the very thing that always set her on edge, warned of a potential storm—his puffed-up chest, his lifted chin, his confidence. This morning it gave her some relief. But she knew it was going to be temporary. She pulled the pill pack out of her pocket and slid it toward him. It sat next to his coffee cup.
“How long have you known?” she asked. And his chin immediately lowered.
“I suspected not long after your mother died....”
“Oh, my God! Dad!”
“At first I thought it was grief. And I’ve had great success with medication, with vitamin therapy. In fact, I’ve wondered for years if maybe I had been wrong. It could’ve been the normal aging process. A little forgetfulness... Who doesn’t put the milk in the cupboard or the cereal in the refrigerator sometimes?”
“You self-diagnosed? You self-medicated?”
“It’s not as if I’m some amateur.... I’m capable of research.”
“You’ve been operating!”
“I’ve been reducing my O.R. schedule since your mother got sick. I haven’t been operating very often the past five years and never without an excellent team. There’s always a qualified surgeon scrubbed in with me. And my nurse—she could do it if she had to. Hell, she’s as good as I am any day.”
“But now you’re done! You’re absolutely done!”
“Laine! I have managed this for five—”
She reached over and touched his hand but she spoke with a low and threatening voice. “Don’t even start with me. I’ve talked to Pax. The past six months to a year there were issues. We didn’t put two and two together, but now we know. You had a flood at the house and we thought it was an accident, but it wasn’t—the water was left running. You left a patient on the table and went to the golf course. You were a no-show in San Francisco and they’re still trying to reach you to find out what happened but you haven’t called them back because you don’t know what happened. You have to write yourself notes and set your phone alarm to take medicine. You know what’s going on and you need a neurologist.”
“It’s gotten worse recently.”
“Which is what happens. I was up late reading. These drugs can be very effective for mild to moderate symptoms but there comes a point they stop working. You can get by for years with occasional, brief episodes until...” She just shook her head because she knew that putting it into words could shatter him. He was proud of his intelligence, his strength, his robust health. It was hard to imagine what he felt at the thought of deteriorating.
As if he’d read her mind, he said, “Maybe if I was ninety... Maybe then I could deal with it....”
“That isn’t how this works, Dad.” She squeezed his hand. “You seem to be feeling quite all right this morning.”
“Mornings are best. If I’ve slept.”
“Do you know how long you might have between periods of confusion?”
He shook his head. “Not anymore,” he said. “At first it was very noticeable but not real to me. You forget things, you know? Especially if your mind is elsewhere, like on work or your dead wife. Your mind wanders and it takes a second to reorient. But then one day you miss the turn to your neighborhood and drive around for a long time. A long, long time, like hours, wondering where you live. And everything around you looks like another country. Then finally you have to pull into a service station for gas and to ask where you are. It’s humiliating. It’s horrifying. There’s no mistaking that for a wandering mind.”
“You must have been terrified,” she said, her voice soft.
“My wife is dead. I’m alone. And I don’t want to live this way.”
“You’re not alone,” she said. “You should have told us.”
He laughed bitterly. “Just what you need—a sick old man to look after.”
“You’re not sick. Not yet, anyway. We need to get a better diagnosis than yours, probably new medication. We’ll worry about how sick you are when you can’t play chess anymore. But for right now, you just don’t operate ever again. It will be a hard transition for your patients, but—”
“What am I supposed to say? I’m not operating because I have Alzheimer’s?”
She leaned toward him. “You’ll say, I’m seventy. I’m financially set. I have grandchildren. I’m retiring. You don’t have to say anything more. I have a feeling your partners will be relieved.”
He seemed to relax a little. “I’ve been asked if anything is wrong. I insisted nothing was wrong. Now what?”
“We’re going to go out today to buy some clothes, since you forgot your bag at the Portland airport. They’re holding it. You’re going to visit for a few days. Pax is going to talk to some people, line up some appointments for you at home. We’ll coordinate by phone. Then I’m taking you back to Boston.”
He looked down. “I’m sorry,” he said.
“Dad, you have nothing to be sorry for. There’s nothing you could have done about this.”
“For one thing, I’m sorry I’ve been so hard on you. I have no excuse. Janice always said I’d regret it and I do. It was more than I could handle.”
In the briefcase she found the car rental papers—he’d rented the car in Portland. His plane ticket was from Boston to Portland, one way, and there was a luggage receipt but no bag. His wallet was inside along with his cell phone. She checked the phone—he had missed calls from several people, from Pax, from his practice. She read a few text messages:
Dr. Carrington, Dr. Ellis of the American Association of Orthopedic Surgeons has been trying to reach you and would like you to call him....
Dr. Carrington, Dr. Sorenson from Women and Children’s is still waiting for your consult....
Dad, call me as soon as you get this message....
Dad? Just give me a call and tell me what’s up—I heard from your office that you were a no-show in San Francisco....
There was a sleeve of pills. It looked like so many of the samples her father had always had on hand from pharmaceutical reps—Cognex. She went to her computer and looked up the drug, already knowing what it was going to say. Treatment for mild to moderate symptoms of Alzheimer’s.
She looked in his wallet. The usual cash and credit cards and driver’s license were there, but there were also lists on small slips of paper. Notes to himself. Phone numbers for his office, Pax, his partner in the practice, reminders about appointments, medication schedule—there was no other medication in the briefcase but he was supposed to be on cholesterol and blood pressure medication.
Whew.
She left the briefcase under her desk were it wouldn’t be visible. She went upstairs. She’d call the Portland airport and find out if they still had the luggage Senior had checked, but that was hardly urgent now. She found Eric just smoothing the comforter over the sheets. “Do you have any sweats or boxers Senior can borrow?” she asked. “There’s no luggage.”
“No luggage?” Senior asked. “No luggage? What’s that about?”
She just looked at her father. “You must be very tired. Eric will get you something to wear to bed....” Ten minutes later he had brushed his teeth with a new toothbrush and was tucked into bed. “I’ll be downstairs for a while before I go to bed and I’m going to leave a light on the stairs so you don’t forget about them.”
“I won’t forget,” he said.
“I’ll leave the light on anyway.”
Once she was downstairs, she walked into Eric’s arms and let him hold her. She rested her head against his shoulder. “God,” she whispered.
“You had no idea?”
She shook her head. “This seems pretty sudden.”
“But you said you haven’t spent that much time with him.”
“I haven’t. Pax sees him occasionally, much of the time they’ll see each other at the hospital. But he’s got it bad—that can’t just have happened. I have to look this up.” She went to the kitchen for a glass of wine.
“Wouldn’t your brother know?”
“Not necessarily. His specialty is children and what you have to know about specialists—they concentrate on that one thing. I’ve heard my dad say he barely knows what to do for a heart attack—not his part of the body. Of course he was being flip—he knows what to do, but he isn’t the right person to treat it. They all went to medical school, basic training, but then they studied in one area in residency and in that, learned how to refer patients. But...” She paused as she poured the wine. “But our paternal grandmother had Alzheimer’s. My dad was always so afraid of that. Going to the kitchen and forgetting what you were there for—that’s normal. Going to the kitchen and forgetting it’s a kitchen, that’s dementia. Forgetting names, that’s a natural thing for aging people. Forgetting what words like add and subtract mean and still not remembering them in five minutes—that can be dementia.” She took a sip. “This is a complete waste of good wine. I don’t think anything short of an injection is going to relax me right now.”
“Maybe you should just call Pax,” he suggested.
“I was in grade school when my grandmother started getting dangerous—running stop signs, forgetting the way home, leaving the stove burner on. And the final straw was when she went for a walk one night at about 1:00 a.m., barefoot and in her nightgown, in Boston, in January. That’s when she had to move in with us for a while and with two working doctors in the family, that was impossible. She was moved to a special facility. I thought it was pretty nice. Of course I was a kid. My dad was horrified. I remember him saying if that ever happened to him, he’d want to die. But my grandmother—she thought she was on the farm. What farm we never did figure out since she grew up in the city. But she was pretty passive. She stopped remembering who people were, but she talked a lot about the farm. Wonder what farm she was on?”
“Tell me what I can do,” he said.
She just shook her head. “I need a little computer time. I’m grounded in facts—I investigate for a living. Then I have to call my brother back. This is one of those times I have to wake him. I’m sorry, Eric. I know you didn’t sign on for this.”
“Laine, some things just come with the territory. We’ll work this out. Just tell me what you need.”
“Right now I need to think and talk to Pax.”
He gave her a brief kiss on the forehead. Then he went out onto the deck to check out the sky.
Sixteen
It had been a long night for Laine. She’d barely slept. She was listening for any disturbance from her father’s room. They hadn’t slept under the same roof since her mother had died so she was completely unaware of his after-dark habits. Was he going to be sun-downing, a common Alzheimer’s symptom of becoming active and agitated after dark?
Eric was concerned and offered to go open the station, leave everything in the hands of Manny or Norm and come right back to make sure she was all right on her own with her father, but she told him to go. The station was probably far less stressful. And she needed time alone with Senior.
Eric had the coffee on at 5:00 a.m. and she was sitting at her kitchen table by six, making a list for herself. There were questions for her dad and Pax, decisions about what to do next. She was definitely not sending him back to Boston alone.
Before she had many items on that list, Senior came into the kitchen. He was wearing last night’s clothing, of course. “I guess I didn’t get my bag inside last night. I couldn’t find my shaving kit.”
“Sit down. Let me get you a cup of coffee.” She got his coffee. She sat down at the table, too, waiting while he dressed it. It was impossible not to notice he was possessed of the very thing that always set her on edge, warned of a potential storm—his puffed-up chest, his lifted chin, his confidence. This morning it gave her some relief. But she knew it was going to be temporary. She pulled the pill pack out of her pocket and slid it toward him. It sat next to his coffee cup.
“How long have you known?” she asked. And his chin immediately lowered.
“I suspected not long after your mother died....”
“Oh, my God! Dad!”
“At first I thought it was grief. And I’ve had great success with medication, with vitamin therapy. In fact, I’ve wondered for years if maybe I had been wrong. It could’ve been the normal aging process. A little forgetfulness... Who doesn’t put the milk in the cupboard or the cereal in the refrigerator sometimes?”
“You self-diagnosed? You self-medicated?”
“It’s not as if I’m some amateur.... I’m capable of research.”
“You’ve been operating!”
“I’ve been reducing my O.R. schedule since your mother got sick. I haven’t been operating very often the past five years and never without an excellent team. There’s always a qualified surgeon scrubbed in with me. And my nurse—she could do it if she had to. Hell, she’s as good as I am any day.”
“But now you’re done! You’re absolutely done!”
“Laine! I have managed this for five—”
She reached over and touched his hand but she spoke with a low and threatening voice. “Don’t even start with me. I’ve talked to Pax. The past six months to a year there were issues. We didn’t put two and two together, but now we know. You had a flood at the house and we thought it was an accident, but it wasn’t—the water was left running. You left a patient on the table and went to the golf course. You were a no-show in San Francisco and they’re still trying to reach you to find out what happened but you haven’t called them back because you don’t know what happened. You have to write yourself notes and set your phone alarm to take medicine. You know what’s going on and you need a neurologist.”
“It’s gotten worse recently.”
“Which is what happens. I was up late reading. These drugs can be very effective for mild to moderate symptoms but there comes a point they stop working. You can get by for years with occasional, brief episodes until...” She just shook her head because she knew that putting it into words could shatter him. He was proud of his intelligence, his strength, his robust health. It was hard to imagine what he felt at the thought of deteriorating.
As if he’d read her mind, he said, “Maybe if I was ninety... Maybe then I could deal with it....”
“That isn’t how this works, Dad.” She squeezed his hand. “You seem to be feeling quite all right this morning.”
“Mornings are best. If I’ve slept.”
“Do you know how long you might have between periods of confusion?”
He shook his head. “Not anymore,” he said. “At first it was very noticeable but not real to me. You forget things, you know? Especially if your mind is elsewhere, like on work or your dead wife. Your mind wanders and it takes a second to reorient. But then one day you miss the turn to your neighborhood and drive around for a long time. A long, long time, like hours, wondering where you live. And everything around you looks like another country. Then finally you have to pull into a service station for gas and to ask where you are. It’s humiliating. It’s horrifying. There’s no mistaking that for a wandering mind.”
“You must have been terrified,” she said, her voice soft.
“My wife is dead. I’m alone. And I don’t want to live this way.”
“You’re not alone,” she said. “You should have told us.”
He laughed bitterly. “Just what you need—a sick old man to look after.”
“You’re not sick. Not yet, anyway. We need to get a better diagnosis than yours, probably new medication. We’ll worry about how sick you are when you can’t play chess anymore. But for right now, you just don’t operate ever again. It will be a hard transition for your patients, but—”
“What am I supposed to say? I’m not operating because I have Alzheimer’s?”
She leaned toward him. “You’ll say, I’m seventy. I’m financially set. I have grandchildren. I’m retiring. You don’t have to say anything more. I have a feeling your partners will be relieved.”
He seemed to relax a little. “I’ve been asked if anything is wrong. I insisted nothing was wrong. Now what?”
“We’re going to go out today to buy some clothes, since you forgot your bag at the Portland airport. They’re holding it. You’re going to visit for a few days. Pax is going to talk to some people, line up some appointments for you at home. We’ll coordinate by phone. Then I’m taking you back to Boston.”
He looked down. “I’m sorry,” he said.
“Dad, you have nothing to be sorry for. There’s nothing you could have done about this.”
“For one thing, I’m sorry I’ve been so hard on you. I have no excuse. Janice always said I’d regret it and I do. It was more than I could handle.”
