“Dogs. Myrna don’t like ’em.”
Old folks can be so random. Baldy’s voice is gruff and irritated, like I am an inconvenience, even though he’s the one who started talking to me.
“Oh.” I sit back as a lady—Liesel, according to her name badge—arranges the world’s fattest rabbit in my lap. I call it Sumo Bunny. “Myrna and I have something in common, then.”
Young Guy grins. He’s been my right-hand man these last few weeks—where I go, he goes. I’m not sure if it’s because he’s worried I’m going to try to kill myself or if he just enjoys my company, but the result is the same—we’re always together. It’s actually pretty convenient. A couple of times when I’ve been disoriented, he’s been able to help me find my way. And one time, when we were both a little disoriented, we decided there was safety in numbers and just stayed where we were until someone came to find us.
I watch him now. He’s looking at the animal in his lap, his eyelashes dark against his pale face. The top two buttons of his shirt are casually undone and the sleeves are rolled up. I stare at his chest but when he notices me looking, I quickly look back at Sumo Bunny.
Young Guy generally doesn’t say a lot, and I don’t know if that’s because of his type of dementia or if he’s always been a man of few words. Either way, there’s something nice about the lack of chatter. When he does talk, he asks me questions. It’s funny the things he wants to know—my favorite films, the music I listen to. My answers are boring and predictable, but he listens with absolute attention, like there’s nowhere else he’d rather be. I ask about his favorite things, too, and he tells me a few, but I can tell speaking makes him tired. After a while, he starts to look frustrated, so I let conversation drift back to me.
“Can you turn that damn TV off?” Baldy shouts suddenly. Grumpy old bastard. He points to the arm of my chair, where the remote control is resting. I pick it up.
Just so you know, there are about a million buttons on a remote control. Some are green. Some are red. Some are gray. The writing below each button is all gobbledygook—INPUT, AUDIO, AV. I try a gray one. The room fills with loud static noise.
“Are you trying to burst my eardrums?” Baldy yells.
I quickly press another button, a green one. The noise remains, but the picture on the screen changes, then changes again.
I wish Ethan were here. Or Brayden or the other nephew. Kids are so good with electronics.
“What are you doing?” he asks.
“I’m trying,” I say, because I really am. I press a red button, but it just gets louder. I look at Young Guy desperately.
He grabs my hand. “Quick,” he says, standing. The animal on his lap jumps off and scampers away. He grabs my hand, and even through the noise, I feel a rush of energy at his touch. Sumo Bunny slides off my lap as he pulls me to my feet. “Let’s … go … out of h-here,” he says.
“Hey!” Baldy cries. “Where are you two going?”
We turn a corner, then another, and finally we stop next to a small table and a mirror and a vase of flowers. My eyes roll over his strong jaw, his dimple, his tea-colored eyes. A warm tingly feeling rises through my body. I’m so transported; I don’t even break his gaze when a woman in a green T-shirt enters the room. Her name badge says LIESEL.
“There you are, Luke!” she says. “We’re just feeding the dogs. If you want to see them, you’ll have to come outside now.”
“Not … t-today,” he says.
“You should go,” I tell him. “You love those damn dogs.”
He shakes his head firmly, definitively. And despite my protests, my heart begins to sing. “No,” he says again. “I’m h-h-happy right where I am.”
*
There’s a knocking sound, somewhere in my room. It sounds like a woodpecker. Knock, knock, knock. I glance at the window at the same time as the door opens.
Suddenly the manager guy is in front of me. “Anna? You have a phone call.”
“A phone call?”
I feel strangely untethered today, on edge, like I’m waiting for someone to sneak up on me, but they never do. I know I’m in my room, at Rosalind House, but when I look for the familiar, I don’t find it. It’s like I’m straddling the line between dementia and reality, and I can’t tell which is which.
“Yes,” he says, “a phone call. Follow me.”
I haven’t had a phone call since I arrived. Not that I’d remember, I guess. I don’t have a phone in my room—too distracting for people with dementia, they say. I’m okay with this. I find it hard, talking on the phone: no facial expressions to rely on, no rising eyebrows or conspiratorial glances. Still, it’s a little excitement, I suppose. A phone call.
As I weave my way to the manager’s office, it occurs to me that it could be bad news. A death? An accident? One of the nephews? By the time Eric hands me the talking end of the phone, I’m fluttery in the chest. I hold it next to my ear, but it takes me a few seconds to remember to say something. “Um … hello?”
There’s a deep throaty-noise, and then … “Anna?”