Chapter Two #2
There’d been signs of Eleanor’s forgetfulness, of senility, creeping in—lost keys, missed appointments, odd comments.
After overhearing one of her friends at a Tupperware party discussing her own mother’s dementia diagnosis, Leanne had rushed to the library to find a book.
But there wasn’t one, only the librarian suggesting a title on aging that had a small chapter on senile dementia and a doctor from the 1800s called Alzheimer.
She’d even called her own doctor to ask him questions about it.
However, the information she’d discovered had been part of why Leanne had pushed her mother to visit the doctor in the first place.
But seeing the diagnosis—dementia—in black-and-white made it heavier.
Real. More final. Like the ground had shifted beneath her feet.
With an official diagnosis, things were going to change.
At first it would be little things. Forgetting.
Repeating conversations. Misplacing keys.
But it would progress into possibly getting lost. Mood swings.
Confusion. Delusions. Unable to dress herself or recognize her family.
And near the end, she’d need full-time functional care and possibly be unable to communicate.
The notion that her mother would one day be a shell of the lively woman she was terrified Leanne.
It also meant that soon her mother wouldn’t be able to live on her own. They’d have to make space for Eleanor at their house. And while Leanne might be sending a child off to college, she’d be responsible for another person.
Leanne swallowed hard and crossed to her mother’s phone. Pulling a notepad toward her, she scribbled quickly:
Call me, Mom. Leanne
She left it by the receiver, trying for hopeful. Maybe Eleanor had just run out to buy a new toothbrush. Perhaps she’d impulsively thrown out the old suitcase like she did when she got tired of things or didn’t like the color.
Leanne clung to that thought, though unease kept buzzing beneath the surface.
Her mother wouldn’t leave without telling her. She just knew it.
When Leanne arrived back home, the glow of the Zenith television lit up the family room.
She set her purse down on the console by the door, then glanced over at her daughter.
Nora’s eyes were fixed half on the flickering black-and-white screen and half on her own bare feet, propped on the coffee table, as she painted her toes. She was watching I Dream of Jeannie.
“How’s Grandma?” Nora asked without looking away from the brush putting bright pink polish on her left big toe.
Leanne studied herself in the entryway mirror, sliding a loose hair back into place.
“She wasn’t home.” Leanne tried to be nonchalant but was afraid the pronouncement revealed the anxiety warring inside her body.
Her gaze lingered on her daughter—so young, so sure the world would always stay the same. She wished it would, just for her.
Nora finally glanced up, eyebrows knitting as she shoved the nail polish handle haphazardly back into the jar. “Where is she?”
Leanne hesitated, the words catching in her throat. How could she answer without setting off the same alarm bells in her head, inside Nora’s? “I don’t know. Maybe…she went on a trip.”
The explanation sounded hollow, ridiculous. And ominous. Dramatically ominous, if she was being honest.
Nora snorted, eyes wide, her smile wry. She shook her head, blond hair falling into her eyes as she swept it away with the ease of an unbothered teen. “You’re joking.”
Leanne forced a smile, though her stomach knotted tighter than her apron strings before she hosted Dean’s partners for a dinner party. She was glad that Nora thought she was joking, even if she wasn’t. “Sounds crazy, doesn’t it? But I’m not.”
Nora shrugged, her attention already drifting back to the TV and a second coat of Revlon’s Pink Sugar. “I am sure she just ran to see a friend and she’ll be here for us to sing happy birthday to her soon. When’s Dad coming home?”
“Soon.” The lie fell easily from her lips. And Nora seemed willing to believe it, because she just kept on painting.
Leanne moved into the kitchen before Nora could ask any more questions.
The room’s decor was in stark contrast to her mother’s pink.
The Miller cabinets and counters were a respectable ivory.
A perfect replica of Julia Child’s Queen of Sheba chocolate cake sat on the cake stand beneath its glass dome, waiting for Eleanor’s celebration.
She needed to telephone Dean, her fingers itching to reach for the phone. She picked up the receiver, twisting the cord tightly around her index finger—a nervous habit she hadn’t outgrown since her teens. His secretary answered, brisk but polite, and transferred her without question.
Dean always took her calls. No matter how late he worked or how many nights he spent in the city. She supposed that counted for something.
“Leanne?” Dean’s voice was curt and hurried on the other end of the line. “Everything okay? I’ve got a meeting in a minute.”
Leanne pressed the receiver tighter to her ear, her eyes drifting closed for a minute as her chest tightened with longing. Longing for the time when he actually worried about her. Cared about her. Wanted to talk to her. “My mother’s gone somewhere.”
There was a pause on the other end that lasted a thousand years. Finally, he said, “Like the grocery store?”
Leanne swallowed, forcing her voice steady. “Only if people take suitcases to the grocery store.” The absurd image of a line of people hauling their suitcases by the handle through produce flashed in her mind.
Dean exhaled rather audibly—whether it was a sigh of concern or annoyance, she couldn’t tell. “Let me get this straight. You think your mother stood you up for her birthday?”
“Maybe. I’m going to call a few of her friends. She might have told them something. It’s possible I missed her message.” Leanne blamed herself even if she knew she wasn’t at fault here. “But, Dean, I think she may have gone on a trip. Out of town.”
Before today, Leanne would have said with confidence that her mother wouldn’t have up and gone on a holiday without a word. But after visiting the house, seeing the weird notes and disarray, discovering the diagnosis lying on the floor. She couldn’t confidently rule it out.
“Okay. Let me know if you need anything.” He was already slipping away, distancing himself from her and her concerns. The evidence was in his tone, even in the way his voice drifted.
Leanne hung up, the phone heavy in her hand.
She spent the next hour dialing every name she could think of—her mother’s oldest friends, neighbors, anyone who might have seen Eleanor. Each conversation ended the same: polite concern, but no one had heard from her. No one knew where she was.
By morning, when her mother’s house was still empty, the sheets on the bed still rumpled from two nights before, panic began to bloom in Leanne’s chest. A panic that was impossible to ignore.
She called the police, who told her she was overreacting and refused to put in a report.
Leanne did one more sweep of her mother’s house, and she found a piece of crumpled paper in the trash she hadn’t seen before.
This couldn’t be real. And yet there it was in black-and-white: The Pink Flamingo, Los Angeles, California.
“Oh, God, California? Really, Mom?”
Scribbled beneath the name of the motel were a few things that looked like maybe…songs? Leanne had no idea, but she knew one person who might. Her daughter.