“I’m fine, just fine,” she said. “Have either of you had a chance to rest since you got back from canyon lands?”
“For the most part,” Nick fibbed. When they’d finally returned home from the hiking trail, Nick had had only enough time to shower, change and guzzle another jug of water before meeting Sassy for dinner at the Sauce Spot. He’d returned late and found Riot exactly where he left him, curled up in a nest of throw pillows in his favorite spot on the couch, chasing z’s to the tune of raucous snores. They’d gone to bed shortly after. However, Nick had slept fitfully, his mind on everything he needed to do before he went back to work. “I thought we’d start today with the patients who aren’t able to leave their rooms. Then Riot can socialize more freely with others in the activity room.”
“We’ve got the chairs set up already,” she explained, pulling her sweater closed tight over her generous bosom as she led him down the hall to the suites. “You’ll want to see her first.”
His mother. “Yes.”
“She missed you two,” Ms. Porter noted.
“I hear that,” he said, trying to swallow the heavy well of guilt. Had his mother watched the calendar in her room, counting the days until his return? Or had his trip slipped her mind, leaving her with the vague sense of absence she fell victim to on days that were worse than others?
He was the child Margot Malone had thought she would never have—the one she’d wanted with all her heart and soul. He’d arrived late, to her and his father’s surprise. They were both in their midforties when he was born. The pregnancy had been high-risk. Margot had admitted to coddling him often throughout the early years of his life.If you’d waited all your life to hold your child in your arms, she’d told him often,you’d have wanted to save him from the world, too.
His father had countered Margot’s overindulgence with regular trips to Manti-La Sal National Forest. He’d been as at home in the great outdoors as he had been on the lecture circuit or in the classroom.
He’d been a kind and attentive husband. When he died, the hole he’d left in her life had been impossible to fill. Trying to step into his father’s shoes had been an exercise in futility.
The shock of losing him had led her here. At first, the signs had been subtle. She’d stopped caring for herself. Once a social person and a regular volunteer in the Dark Canyon community, she had stopped leaving the house. She’d stopped seeing people, ignoring those who had come to the door.
Nick hadn’t known she’d stopped paying the bills until the debt collectors had started calling him, day and night.
They’d lost the family home. Nick hadn’t been able to save it for her. Her depression had taken a hard left turn. Her prescription drug abuse had started.
She’d quietly resented Nick for moving in and trying to stem the worst of it. By that point, the intensity of loss and everything that came with it had whittled her down to the bones of a stranger. He’d started to notice what the pills had been masking. She’d stopped bathing or dressing. Her inability to get out of bed had been less to do with doldrums and more to do with decreased mobility.
She’d become more withdrawn from him, increasingly agitated and, worse, aggressive. When she’d started losing touch with reality altogether—often referring to Nick’s father in the present tense, as if he were away on a business trip—his constant worry for her had morphed into full-blown fear.
A consultation with a neurologist, followed by the results of an MRI, had confirmed it. She was in the early stages of dementia.
The savings from his father’s life insurance hadn’t been enough to make her comfortable in the only long-term care facility in Dark Canyon, where Nick felt his mother would receive the best treatment. He’d considered transferring to Moab—the need for paramedics wasn’t limited to his hometown, and his mother’s living situation may be easier to solve and afford elsewhere.
But he couldn’t fathom leaving. During her more lucid moments, she’d balked at the idea, too. She and his father had planned to retire in Dark Canyon, live out their lives there. Nick was determined to see to her wishes. Even if it meant working himself to the bone to keep her installed here at River House.
Ms. Porter escorted him down the well-lit hall. They passed a woman in a wheelchair being pushed by an orderly. The older lady beamed at Riot and reached out to brush her hand across his back. “Hello, Riot. Nicholas.”
Nick nodded politely to her. “Good to see you, Ms. Redmont. We’ll be in the activity room shortly.”
He and Ms. Porter bypassed several more doors and turned right down the corridor. The second door to the left was closed and decorated with a daisy and lavender wreath at its center, a gift from Sassy. She delivered a new wreath to his mother every season. The last had been fir with red berries.
Ms. Porter rapped her knuckles lightly against the door. “Margot? You have some visitors.”
The first thing Nick saw was his mother’s dainty feet appointed on the needlepoint footstool she’d brought from home. Someone had painted her toenails a spicy red—again, probably Sassy. There was no swelling around her ankles, but the veins in the tops of her feet stood out in stark relief.
He stepped into the room, Riot beside him. She was awake, a book open across her lap, her knitting needles on top of it. She’d once been a voracious reader. Before his father had published his work, she’d edited his manuscripts. They’d spent hours together locked inside his study working at the same desk, her on one side, him on the other, their toes touching underneath, heads bent close over the desktop…
Nick knew she now struggled to organize her everyday thoughts, much less read more than a few pages at a time. Dementia had taken so much, even in its early stages. To take her enjoyment of reading as well…it felt like another betrayal of the mind.
As his mother blinked at him in the bright stream of sunlight through the lace curtains he’d hung over the room’s single window, her eyes were so blue they looked watery. He waited for recognition…prayed for it. He didn’t know what he would do the day she didn’t recognize him. She glanced down at the leash in his hand, then at Riot. A smile touched the corners of her mouth and bloomed across her thin lips. “My boys,” she said in the same quiet tone he’d known since birth.
“Mom,” he murmured, bending down to touch a kiss to her cheek. When she’d first come to River House, the skin there had stretched taut across the bones, thanks to her inability to feed herself properly in the months previous. Her plump apple cheeks had returned since she’d settled under Ms. Porter and her staff’s care. With time, circles of healthy pink had reappeared there as well.
Ms. Porter helped her into her house shoes, but when Margot made to stand, Nick held out a hand, squatting low to park himself on the footstool. His mother reached for him. He grasped her hand. “I’m late,” he acknowledged.
She leaned forward in the comfortable tufted armchair and touched the hair starting to slant across his brow. In a practiced motion, she swept it back, only to grin fully when it stubbornly fell back into place. Like his father’s hair, she often said. “Where’ve you two been off to?”
He tried not to frown over the question. “We went on a hike,” he said, affecting an easy tone he didn’t feel.
Her smile dimmed noticeably. “The canyons?”
