Chapter 32
Winter
I don’t know what month it is. We had Christmas—I remember the tree, or I think I do—and there’s snow on the ground, so it is winter. I thought it was summer when I woke up. I don’t know why. Right now, the clouds are pinkish, which means more snow is coming. I know this. I still know some things.
I can still talk and eat. I now wear clothes that have no buttons or zippers, because those things are hard.
Someone has to cut my food for me, but I can still use a fork.
I forget so many words, but when I’m having a good day, I can make people understand.
But I don’t talk a lot. My mind is clearer if I stay inside it.
When I have to get the thoughts out of my mouth, they wander, and my brain jumbles.
The last time I lost myself was like falling through space.
It was different and worse and scary. I don’t know how long it was—hours or days.
I was terrified and angry and confused. I thought people were stealing from me or poisoning me.
I thought Clay had another family living in the cellar, and they hid in various rooms, waiting to stab me.
I cried and cried, and I just wanted to go home. But I was home.
So it’s time. I don’t want to go back to that spinning dark space of being lost and afraid and alone.
Right now, I’m standing in the . . . what’s the name of this room?
Not a library, but . . . gosh . . . same word for a house for little animals?
I won’t waste energy trying to remember.
I’m here now. I open the sliding glass wall to the deck.
Snow is thick on the ground, and the skies are heavy and low with a hint of pink to them.
It will snow again soon. I just thought that thought, didn’t I?
But I can smell the snow, that sharp, clear air mixed with pine.
I still know things. At the moment, I’m still me. For now.
I close the door and turn. A fire is making little waves of yellow in the fireplace, and a blanket is on the couch. I guess I was napping. Clay or Mathilda or Stephen made the fire. I can’t do fire things. I know this.
My sickness has taken more of me. I don’t feel things as much as I’m supposed to.
That might not be a bad thing. When I am in the now, I don’t feel as sad.
I’m not lonely. I don’t feel that . . . what do you call it?
. . . that wishing anymore. Learning? No, yearning.
I’m glad for the bottle of pills. I’m so, so glad I haven’t forgotten. Thanks, Alice.
Today is the day. The day I die.
“Hey.” Mathilda stands in the doorway. “I thought I might go into town, grab lunch with Everest. Maybe go to the movies this afternoon.” Her voice is like that wolf-dog. Husky. Her voice is husky. I think someone is sending her away. Stephen, probably.
“That sounds nice, honey,” I say. I’m glad she is going to be not-here.
“Everyone’s in the living room,” she says.
“I know,” I lie. I don’t know who everyone is, but at least it’s someone.
“Hey,” she says. “Um, Audrey. Thank you.” Her eyes go wet. “I’m sorry for being a shitty kid. Thanks for being so good to me.”
I feel my face hotten with love. “You’re welcome, honey.” Her tears spill over like a waterfall. “It was my pleasure.” She was kind of a shitty kid, I guess, but who cares? I love her anyway. Maybe it’s because she was so awful that I loved her so much. She needed it. She needed me.
She looks at me, all sad, sad eyes. “I’m glad you were my mom,” she whispers. “Even though I didn’t always feel that way, I do now.”
“But I wasn’t your mom. I’m your stepmom.”
“Same thing, sometimes,” Mathilda says, and she hugs me. I feel her jerk and realize she’s crying.
“Shh,” I say. “Everything’s okay. You’ll be okay.” I am like my own mother now as I pat her back and close my eyes. My girl. My little girl. How lucky I was to have her. “I love you, sweetheart.”
Mathilda pulls back—does she have another name? Mathilda is the only one I can remember. She wipes her eyes. “I love you, too.” Her voice breaks, poor thing. “Bye, I guess.” She leaves, her head down.
It seems I am crying, too. There is a huge pulling at my heart, and I know that I need to step around it or be more sad. I wipe my eyes. Take a breath. I have to do things now.
I go upstairs to my room and open the door to the little room where my clothes live.
There’s the blue suitcase, and in it is a container for food, but it doesn’t have food inside.
Instead, there is a small cardboard box, and an orangey medicine round container and a note typed out for easy reading. Today is a day I can read. Hooray!
Hey, Dementia Audrey. I hope you’ve been doing okay.
You wrote this note to yourself before you got too confused so you would remember how you wanted to leave this life. You’ve done a great job and here we are, at the end. You wanted to still be you when you died, and if you’re reading this, you are, and the time has come.
Open the box with the oranges on it, the one called Emetrol, and chew four tablets. They don’t taste bad. It’s regular medicine you bought at the store, so it won’t hurt you. Do that right now. This will help you not throw up later. Then go to where you want to be for your last little while.
When you’re settled in that place, you will need to swallow all the pills in the prescription bottle.
Swallow them five or six at a time and wash them down with alcohol, like vodka or gin.
Think of it as your last cocktail hour. Seriously, it will help.
Take Them All, okay? You can do this. You want this. We both do.
I’m glad we’re here. I’m glad we didn’t forget.
I think there’s life after this, Audrey.
I think Mom will be waiting for us. I think everyone will be okay after we’re gone.
So we can take the pills, or we can become a potato person with no brain function, just a body.
When you wrote this letter, you thought we should go before we became potatoes.
I don’t think the ending will be scary. I think it will be gentle.
Let’s go while we’re still us.
I love you, Dementia Audrey. That’s why I took care of us this way. Be brave for us.
—Regular Audrey
Potato person. I snort with laughter. I like this Regular Audrey. It’s funny that she’s me. And I will be brave. Definitely. I take out the box with the orange on it and check the letter again, then chew on four round things. Regular Audrey is right: They don’t taste too bad.
Where do I want to be for the end? Hm. Outside, I think. I take the medicine container and the letter and go downstairs. My brother, Beck, Jasmine and Micah are here. “Hi!” I say. “So good to see you!”
“Hey yourself,” Stephen says. He looks like he’s been crying.
“Have you been crying?” I ask. He is sad because of me, and that is not a good feeling.
“A little, yeah.” He pretend-smiles, but his mouth wobbles.
“So why are you guys here?” I ask my friends.
“You asked us to come,” Micah says. “We all slept over last night.”
“A sleepover! Awesome! Did we have fun?”
My brother chokes on a laugh and nods.
“It was wicked fun, Auds,” says Beck. But they are sad, too, like Stephen.
A memory flies into my brain like a pretty springtime bird.
All of us, the family room, food, laughing so hard.
That was last night. That was a lot of nights.
Clay was there, too, last night. “I remember,” I say.
There is a bottle of pills in my hand. Right.
Right. “Okay, then. I’m ready.” I give the bottle a shake.
Jasmine jumps, Micah makes a sobby noise and Beck’s eyes are shiny.
I love her sweater. Such a reddy-pink softness.
“Where’s Clay?” I ask. “My husband, Clay.”
“He’s in the barn,” Stephen says, clearing his throat. “You didn’t want him to be there for . . . the last little bit.”
Another springtime bird of memory . . . Clay and me in bed, warm, safe, his arms around me. A kiss. A happiness. That was today, I think.
Poor Clay.
“Auds,” my brother says. He puts hands on my shoulders. His eyes are full of tears. Gosh, everyone’s crying. “You don’t have to do this. I’ll take care of you till the bitter end. It would be my honor.”
I try to picture that, my little brother—no, he’s a man now—taking care of me. Funny, that love can feel like a knife. “I know,” I say. “But I’m ready. I want to say goodbye to Clay.”
Stephen helps me on with my coat, because I can’t work the . . . long tunnels where my arms go. He zips me up. “Like Mom used to do,” I say, and his face cracks a little.
“Yep,” he says, pulling mittens over my hands, putting a hat on my head. “Just like Mom.”
“Gracie,” I call, and suddenly, I’m afraid she’s dead. Did she die before me? That would be horrible! But here she is, wagging her tail, her sweet face eager even if she wobbles when she walks. She will be so sad without me, and my eyes are wet because of this.
We all go outside, Stephen’s arm through mine because I wobble, too.
There is the red building where the horses are in their little bedrooms. Oh, the nice, warm smell of a barn, the horses and their chewy grass food.
Clay is leaning against a door. I don’t know why he is out here.
Maybe someone told him to stand here. He’s a good dog.
No, not a dog. A good guy, but like a dog, because he does what he’s told.
That sounds mean, but I don’t feel mean.
Clay wipes his eyes on his arm-tunnel-fabric thing.
“I’ll give you two a minute,” Stephen says, and Clay nods.
“I guess this is goodbye,” I say, and I know that I should be more sad, and this not-feeling has something to do with my sickness. But Clay is sad, and I wish he wasn’t.
“You don’t have to do this, baby,” he says, and his voice is whisper-rough. “You could stay a little bit longer, couldn’t you?”