Chapter Four #2
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She’d become more withdrawn from him, increasingly agitated and, worse, aggressive.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?”
He nodded. Her concern was evident in the furrowing around her mouth. “We’re fine. We just got back a bit later than planned. I would’ve been here yesterday if I could have.”
“As long as you’re safe,” she replied, patting the underside of his jaw.
Her hands fell from him to pet Riot, who patiently sat in the space next to her chair.
She lowered her brow to the flat of his head and whispered, “I’ve been trying to talk them into letting me keep this one for a couple of nights a week. ”
“He’d enjoy that,” Nick noted. He looked up at Ms. Porter.
She folded her lips and gave a slight shake of her head.
While therapy animals were approved after an extensive application process, pets were strictly forbidden for patients of River House.
If they made an exception for his mother, they’d have to allow others the same privilege.
While his mother hadn’t had a dog of her own since her King Charles spaniel, Hamlet, had passed away two years after Nick’s father, he knew the longing for a companion was there.
Riot stared adoringly at Margot as she fussed and tutted over him. Nick glanced around the room, spotting a new blanket folded neatly at the foot of her bed. Its pattern was authentically Navajo, handcrafted. He’d seen Sassy’s mother’s textile work. This looked similar. “Sassy’s been here.”
“She visited every day you were gone,” Ms. Porter said as she fussed around the room, plumping pillows and hanging Margot’s soft pink robe on the hook by the door to the en suite bathroom.
Nick was grateful. He’d asked Sassy to peek in on his mother. The fact that she’d taken time out of her busy schedule to sit with her every day…
Old feelings worked their way to the surface, warming his chest and winding up through his upper arms. He curled his toes inside his boots when he felt the impact.
He rearranged his feet on the floor and rubbed one palm against the other.
“Level with me,” he said, lowering his chin. “How’ve you been?”
Margot hesitated, and he knew she was running through all her silent issues in her head.
When he’d approached her about moving into River House, she hadn’t been thrilled.
It had been like saying goodbye to the house she’d built with his father, a life choice she wasn’t mentally or emotionally ready for.
Her physical limitations had forced his hand, however, and while he had no doubt River House was the best place for her, he still carried his guilt around like a change purse of weighted coins.
“I can’t complain,” she said quietly, not meeting his eye.
He rubbed the space on his jaw she had caressed moments before.
She could complain. She just wouldn’t. At the end of the day, they both knew the reality of her situation.
Even if some part of her wouldn’t forgive him for failing to save his childhood home or making her transfer to River House, she’d bury her complaints.
Nick noted the way her eyes averted from his, bouncing back to Riot, who asked no questions.
She went back to petting him, and Nick knew to close the subject.
She waited until Ms. Porter stepped out of the room to speak again. “They don’t know this,” she said in an undertone, “but Sassy snuck Rogue in to see me, too.”
Nick’s lips twitched. That sounded like something Sassy would do. Only she could sneak a gigantic Maine coon into his mother’s room without anyone the wiser just so Margot could spend a few minutes with the animal. “She’s mad at me.”
Her gaze snapped to his. “What have you done, Nicholas?”
“She doesn’t want me going back to work tonight,” he explained. “She thinks it’s too soon.”
“She may be right,” Margot cautioned. “Are you not rested?”
He didn’t know what it meant to rest anymore. Not really. “I was always scheduled to go back to work today,” he pointed out. “It doesn’t matter if I got back later. There’s no giving away my shift at this point.”
“I’m sure something could done if you asked.”
“Mom,” he said, then stopped and breathed carefully.
He couldn’t tell her about the extra shifts.
Not without her knowing why he’d volunteered for them.
They couldn’t lose this spot at River House.
He’d do anything to keep that from happening.
He owed her that much. “It’s fine. I don’t want you worrying about me. ”
“Worrying is every mother’s prerogative, Nicholas.”
He took her hand again. “It’s time you accept the fact that it’s me who worries about you.”
“A mother doesn’t stop being a mother,” she told him. “If I lose our memories together, that won’t stop it, either. You know this. Don’t you?”
It was a bitter pill to swallow. Still, this was an argument he knew he couldn’t win, so he said simply, “The only thing I want you to worry about for the time being is you. Trust me to take care of everything else. Okay?”
She searched his face. When Riot placed his paw on her knee, she diverted to him, pointing to the glass biscuit jar on the edge of the dresser. “I’ve got some treats in there. Grab one, won’t you? This boy deserves at least three before he goes to the activity room.”
Nick debated arguing, pushing her for an answer. But he sensed she didn’t have the fight in her today. One day, his mother would see him as nothing more than a stranger. That day wasn’t today. For that, he dropped the subject, rose from the stool and followed her directions.