Someone to Grow Old With
*
It's the second night at home, and I wake up to the shouting again. It's a kind of a feral wail that echoes through the walls and keeps me on the edge despite a pillow placed over my head. Dad's said that it's better if he tries to deal with it rather than anyone else interfering, so I just lie there and listen to the wails punctuated with soft, undetermined murmurings from dad, speaking to her in a calming voice only he could give to her. I don't know how long it goes on - I glance at my phone after a moment and see that it's a bit over five in the morning. I chuff. Still way too early, even if I went to bed before ten after talking with Christian. He's surely still sleeping, unaware of the world and its woes.
I roll over to my side and my arm lands onto a space on the bed that would usually be Christian's, but he is not here. I told him that I didn't want him to have to go through this again, and he reluctantly agreed to stay home. I miss him terribly, in the dark, clutching the sheets and hoping that dad works his magic soon and gets mom to sleep again, with pills, if it goes that far, if needed.
The clock is almost six when I last glance at it.
I finally get out of bed at nine, hearing noise from the direction of the kitchen now, shower, don my clothes, and enter the kitchen where my mother is seated on the table, her oversized reading glasses on, busily looking at a newspaper that's been delivered. Dad is cooking porridge, a sight that never fails to surprise me, considering that dad never used to cook.
"Good morning!" I greet.
Dad gives me a grizzled smile and keeps stirring, and I smell cinnamon, father's favourite spice to put on his porridge. The plates are stacked on the kitchen counter, two normal ones and a plastic one for mom. Dad says he can't really trust her with actual china anymore, at least not in the bad days. I saw the remains of a familiar blue-flowered one in the trashcan when I arrived, so he probably has some sense to it.
"Morning, son," dad manages to keep on smiling.
I turn to look at the hunched, seated tiger woman, wearing a white nightie and bathrobe, her paw moving very busily over the newspaper laid over the table.
"Morning, mom," I say.
She doesn't answer, but her lips keep moving rapidly, but there is no words coming out of her muzzle.
"Was the night bad?" I asked from dad, almost conversationally, as I take bread out of the box and put it in the toaster. This being home, I just do it, not wait for dad to do it, which he'd insist on doing, if I gave him the chance. Even worse, mom might try to do it.
Dad keeps observing the boiling porridge through his thick glasses, and betrays little emotion.
"Oh, just a nightmare, I think, and she soiled herself, we cleaned all that up," he speaks, and manages a smile, a flick of an ear that's almost flippant, especially in the context of the fact that he had to change diapers to his wife of 50 years.
"Alright," I reply, and don't pry.
I hear a scratching noise and look over towards mom, who has picked up a blunt little knife that's used for spreading margarine on bread, and she is now moving it over the newspaper, clutching the knife as one holds a pen, mumbling even more intently as she tears into the newspaper. She doesn't seem to notice, she simply puts the knife down and keeps mumbling, following text with her fingers.
"What's that?" I ask dad.
"She's working," he said, "doing the accounts again. She woke up at six and said she was leaving to work and would leave the casserole in the oven."
Dad sounds almost fond, speaking of her cooking. Mom's been unable to cook for about a year now, I think. Dad had a safety stove installed, the kind where you have to hit a special switch before you can actually turn it on, just so that she can't accidentally burn down the house. You hear that kind of things happening. Now mom seems happy enough, though, working on the accounts of the Lindeman Sawmill Company, having returned to the post she held for 27 years before retirement. The newspaper is her ledger and the knife is her pen, and she seems to be busy at work. I wonder how breakfast will go.
"I see," I say, not really knowing what else I can say.
My bread pops, and dad seems to think the porridge is ready enough, too, for he takes it off the hot plate and turns it off. Soon it's being ladled onto the plates by dad, and he sprinkles all the portions with cinnamon without asking, and I accept mine with a smile.
"I'll have to get your mother's apple sauce," he says, going for the fridge.
I sit down opposite to mom and watch her curled fingers move while she whispers to herself and does a few extra notes on the paper with the knife. She scrapes against the wax cloth tablecloth, but I don't think she does any damage, now.
Dad scoops apple sauce from a jaw onto the plastic plate of porridge and then sets it in front of mom, along with a spoon.
"It's lunch hour now darling, "dad murmurs, touching her shoulder with the utter softness of a husband.
Mom's head lurches up and he stares at her through her immense spectacles, her lips finally stopping, as she faces the man of her life.
"Where's the corned beef I ordered?"
"They were fresh out, I'm sorry, but this is very nice," dad points at the porridge. "It's fresh."
Mom looks at the plate and stares at it mournfully for a moment, but then picks up the spoon and begins to eat. It is slow and messy ,and I almost feel guilty of how neatly I eat, and almost interfere, until she drops the spoon full of porridge onto her lap, and then it clatters to the floor.
"Let's get a napkin," dad says, and he has one ready, and cleans her muzzle.
Dad feeds her the rest of the way, and I watch the steam rising from his own plate die out while he tends to mom.
*
A text from Christian brightens up my morning after the breakfast, and I answer, smiling broadly at the thought of him. I tell him I miss him and love him, and then, pocketing my phone, go back to seeing the bizarre everyday life at my home. Dad's gotten out their drug boxes and is now administering pills for himself and for mom - blood pressure medication, cholesterol medication, heart pills, diuretics, prostate pills, and mom's special tablets. Christian and I looked them up once, and Wikipedia said that they were basically made out of nerve gas. Whatever good they do, I don't know. Dad sometimes says they make mom smile more.
Drugged for the day, dad takes mom to the bedroom to dress up for the day. That takes another half an hour I try to spend looking at the knickknacks in the living room, where they haven't moved in the past 30 years or so. I notice that a few of them look exceedingly dusty, and wonder when dad last cleaned. I might have to break out the vacuum and the duster, maybe, if only to pass the time.
I can hear arguing from the bedroom.
*
It's midday, and dad's convinced mom to sit in the garden. With dad working on lunch (on which I can't help on his insistence, because dad is stubborn like that), I sit in the living room enjoying a book while I can observe mom through the glass doors. She's sitting on a garden chair, dressed in a neat cardigan and a skirt now, and looks perfectly happy, just staring at old stained bird bath and flower pots overflowing with weeds. She smiles a little, and even her tail is flicking.
It goes on until she starts waving her paw erratically, as if slapping flies, and I go out to investigate.
"Mom, what's wrong?" I ask.
Mom stops her swatting and sits with her paws neatly on her lap.
"Cocksucker!" mom declares.
I'm taken aback, even if I know that it's just the mess in her head talking again, not her, really...I'm not even sure how much of her still exists, trapped in that exceedingly muddled brain that no longer manages to keep up.
"Is something wrong?" I ask again, wondering what the previous episode was all about.
She spits, like a proper cat, and stares at me indignantly.
"Lick my dripping cunt!"
I almost blush.
"I'll get dad, maybe he'll get through to you," I speak as I make a hurried turn on my paws.
"The pastor likes it between the tits!" mom yells behind me.
I find dad chopping an onion, using a way too big a knife, but I don't have the heart to tell him otherwise.
"Mom's talking dirty," I say.
"Oh, again?" dad muses, shrugging his cardigan-covered shoulders. "Is she taking off her clothes?"
As if the fact that she isn't would make the rest any more acceptable or less shocking, I shake my head.
"No."
"Then it's just her being tired."
It's 12 o'clock and she's already tired, it seems, and there's nothing we can do about it.
"Should I try to get her in?" I suggest, knowing she's only a few steps away but nonetheless unattended.
"You could go and sit with her," dad says.
Defeated, I go back, expecting another rude welcome, but this time she's just smiling again.
"Ohhh, Dennis, you are so handsome in your uniform!" mom claps her paws together.
So now I'm my dad, wearing an uniform, which means that mom has gone back to the sixties and sees dad just fresh out of service.
I sit down next to her and she takes my paw and squeezes it, and giggles.
"I have a secret to you, Dennis," she smiles, rubbing my paw.
"What is it?" I ask.
"We're going to have a baby!" she chirps.
At least it's a happy memory.
*
It's a never-ending cycle of meals that take ages, bathroom visits and overseeing and cleaning up any messes mom makes, sometimes of the body fluid kind, and I still don't know how dad handles it, every day, with only two weekly nurse visits. It must be love, to be able to sit there and just take every day as they happen. He rarely stops smiling, too, and that scares me as much as it...makes me feel good.
I hide in my old room around seven and dial the phone.
"Hi, Alistair," Christian purrs into the phone and makes my chest purr too.
"Hey," I smile to myself happily at the sound of his voice.
"How's home?"
"Don't ask."
"That merry?"
"You know it can only change for the worse."
"I know, I know, I'm sorry."
"It's fine," I lie.
"Are you coming back early tomorrow?" he asks, sounding so damn hopeful that it swells my heart.
"I'll try," I say, "they're going to the church in the morning."
"Ouch."
"I know."
We chitchat about our days, comparing notes. I tell him about how I helped dad clean the living room, and he tells me how he went to the gym and cooked some lasagne. We keep talking until someone knocks on the door.
"Hold on..." I say, and am about to get up to open the door, when it opens and mom steps in.
"Alistair, it's time for school!" she declares. "I've packed your lunch!"
I realize she' got something on her paws and it's a half-empty packet of adult diapers.
"I...gotta call you back, I think," I mumble into the phone, "I love you, Chris."
"Love you too, Alistair."
Mom walks towards me with a cheerful expression, still clutching my so-called lunch in her paws.
"Mom, we should go back to dad, okay?" I speak to her gently as I stand up.
"Was that Christian on the phone?" she asks, suddenly sounding very sharp, and even her eyes seem to change...be more alert.
"Yes, it was Christian," I say, carefully.
"Oh how nice of your roommate to call you when you're visiting your old mom and dad!" she chuckles and purrs, a rattling noise coming out of that old throat. "Did you give him our best?"
"Of course," I say.
Mom keeps smiling and holding her packet, but then she turns it around in her paws and peers down on it through her glasses, and makes a yelp.
"Goodness me, why do I have these on my paws!?" she calls. "Oh, heavens, how embarrassing, no son should see their mother with...oh dear..."
"It's fine, mom," I mumble, softly, "let's go and find dad, okay?"
I took a hold of her by arm, and we walk out together, mom's packet spilling crackers, adult diapers and candy wrappers onto the floor.