Chapter 18
The clouds roll in later that afternoon, chasing Cassie out of town and replacing clear skies with ashen, which is fitting.
The light dims when Cassie leaves a room.
But this time, the colorlessness of her absence is like a black hole.
I walk Cassie to her car and send her off with enthusiasm to mask my melancholy.
As I trudge up the porch steps, I have to steady myself against the rail.
Cassie is going to be a mother; I’m going to be an auntie.
I’m ecstatic for her. But I’m also keenly aware that, as she takes the next step on the path she set for herself, I’m starting over—or maybe still lodged in purgatory, unable to begin again.
I’m like Miss Havisham, letting cobwebs grow in my hair through inaction.
My life has been in a holding pattern since Jeff left, and if I’m honest with myself, long before that.
As I wait for Mom to heal over these next few months, I can’t fall through another trapdoor and get stuck further. I need to feel alive, whole. I need to be well enough that my closest friend trusts me with her good news.
Cassie got the process started for me: clothes, necessities, good coffee.
But I need to move my body, which has always been the fulcrum around which my mental health pivots.
I head upstairs and grab my laptop, checking out the Be Well fitness interface.
A friend of mine from undergrad started the alternative-wellness app a few years ago, which uses your location to curate a set of nearby fitness activities for any age, skill level, or ability.
I reset my address to Grand Trees to check out some local options before an idea takes root.
Mom. My artsy, hippie, new age Mom. What if I can convince her to concentrate on wellness to mitigate her Parkinson’s, versus the medicinal treatments she’s refused so far?
Maybe exercise can be the gateway nondrug to the drugs she needs.
If she feels a bit better, she may want to feel a lot better.
I know something about that. Hope doesn’t have a chance until there’s a tear in the cloak of despair.
I open a new browser and reload the site, this time creating a new profile.
I input Mom’s details—age, diagnosis, strengths, interests, and location.
The results are spare. At the community center, there’s art therapy, which is out.
Asking Mom to take an elementary art class would be as demoralizing as asking me to struggle through basic ballet.
The negative comparison to your former self is crushing.
The local trails are too precarious for someone with balance issues.
The high school pool is an option, but there’s no water aerobics.
But then my brain snags on another idea.
I change her location to San Francisco and wait as the wheels spiral, caught in the tailspin of slow internet.
When the page loads, limitless results fan out before me, fifteen pages of inspiration: a movement disorder clinic at UCSF, Stanford’s Parkinson’s exercise clinic, physical therapy, light therapy, and even boxing.
One option crashes through the screen like a wrecking ball: San Francisco Ballet’s dance classes for people with Parkinson’s.
I shut my laptop as my head spins at the cosmic irony of Mom taking classes at SFB to support her recovery.
But setting that splinter aside, what if she came home with me?
I live alone in a three-bedroom, two-bath house; there’s plenty of space for the two of us.
It’s a single story and well equipped for someone with mobility issues.
I work for myself and could build her care into my schedule.
We’d have world-class clinics and hospitals within arm’s reach in any direction we spin.
She loved San Francisco once. Maybe she could love it again.
Maybe we could love each other again there—where we were happy—away from where everything fell apart.
Maybe we can reconnect away from the place where we imploded.
I know it’s a long shot that she’ll agree.
She’s so connected to Caleb, Abby, this town, and her memories of Sonny.
But if she keeps refusing to see the local doctor, moving may be her only option at some point.
And if we strengthen our relationship over the next few months, if we’re able to put the past behind us, I can introduce the idea gently.
Perhaps if I invite her home once she and I are more at ease with each other, she’ll consider it.
After scrolling through the results from Be Well, I fall down the deeper rabbit hole of Parkinson’s treatment, studies about therapeutic advances, and the extensive list of medical experts practicing in and around my home, which could become our home.
I’m filled with something I haven’t felt in an eternity when it comes to Mom—hope, for her, for us.
Possibility and promise that our future can be better than our past.
When I head downstairs, it’s already late afternoon. I find Mom reading in the Eames chair. She sets her Kindle on her lap when she spots me.
“Hi, honey.”
I must showcase how amped up I am by the ideas I just gathered, because Mom studies me like she’s trying to read my forecast. Her pale-blue eyes are like witch’s orbs, cloudy and reflecting her worry back to me.
But I know she won’t probe, because we don’t ask questions of each other for which we don’t want the answer.
“You were quiet up there. Were you napping?” she asks, keeping us safely in small talk territory.
But if we can’t mention the past, perhaps I should broach the future. It’s what I came for, and I’ve been stalling. I settle on the couch across from her, taking a deep breath. “I was looking into treatment options for Parkinson’s.”
Her face falls. “Eden, I appreciate you staying to care for me. But I have done all the research I need. My doctor and I decided not to start medications right away. My symptoms aren’t that bad yet, and the side effects are terrible.
” I forgot about this tone—calmly defensive, with precise ending punctuation.
In the last couple of decades, once we began a tentative truce, she only showed me her agreeable side.
Her warm, easygoing, I’ll say whatever you want side.
Her isn’t the weather lovely side. But that’s gotten us nowhere.
I’m not even convinced she’s being honest. I have a hard time believing her doctor would advise her to delay treatment. “Mom, you just fell and broke several bones. You need to take this seriously.”
Her posture stiffens, and she sits upright, bracing her ribs with her good arm and taking a shallow breath. “I realize this is a lot for you to absorb because it’s all new to you. But I’ve been dealing with it for a while.”
“No, you haven’t.” I’ve kept a lid on my feelings since I arrived, while she rested in the hospital, while I’ve cared for her since.
I was hoping her injuries might be a wake-up call.
Now my frustration—at her hiding and ignoring her diagnosis—boils over.
“You’ve been burying your head in the sand, and I don’t want you to wait until it’s too late. ”
“I think that’s a bit dramatic. My doctor and I decided—”
“Have you been seeing the neurologist?” Maybe Caleb and Adelaide were wrong.
“Yes. I’ve seen him.” She blinks at me innocently, like a child trying to evade capture in a lie. I see right through it.
“Caleb says it was years ago.”
She sighs. “He’s not a good doctor, Eden. He didn’t listen, and he belittled me.”
I didn’t intend to bring this up yet, but perhaps this is the opening I need to plant the seed. “Maybe Grand Trees isn’t the best place for you if it doesn’t have the care you need.”
“I’ve been doing fine. I just slipped. It could happen to anyone.”
“But it happened to you, and you have Parkinson’s, which affects your balance, especially since you’ve refused treatment.”
She purses her lips. “I know all about my condition, the symptoms, and the available treatment.”
But she doesn’t know all her options. “What if you move to San Francisco and live with me?” I blurt.
The words settle between us like a live grenade, and her eyes go wide. It’s a reminder that this conversation is cutting too close to our emotional arteries, and my ill-timed suggestion may just be the nick that causes a hemorrhage.
“I can’t do that,” she says.
But she could if she wanted to. “My place is big enough. I work from home and can take care of you.”
She’s silent and still, her focus averted. “I appreciate the gesture, I really do. I love having you here, but once my bones heal, I’ll be fine, and you can go home without worrying.”
It’s not surprising that she’s dismissing me, but I can’t understand how she’s delusional enough to think she won’t need help at some point.
Does she not remember falling and breaking several bones a week ago?
Does she have memory loss, too? But I dial back my frustration and try to speak reason.
“Mom, your condition is degenerative, and it’ll get worse faster without treatment.
You don’t know how quickly it will progress or when you’ll need full-time care.
Even if it’s not right away, someday it will make the most sense for you to live with me. ”
“For whom, Eden? For you? You’re young and have your whole life to live. And my life is here.”
A life she’s disregarding and choosing to cut short. “But what kind of life? You won’t be able to enjoy it much longer at this rate. You’re deteriorating and choosing not to do anything about it.”
Mom looks away, rubbing her good hand on the arm of the chair. “I am comfortable with my choices.”