Time is a Thief

Sick and Lonely in the Land of Dementia (cont.)

Photo by Aron Visuals on Unsplash

Mom brings dinner to the table, and it is clear that despite her current mental state, her cooking ability hasn’t suffered. The chicken, seasoned with rosemary and thyme is tender, the baked potato flakes under my fork, and the asparagus is vibrant and crisp. Farm-to-table is best and that’s how she always shopped; no processed foods for our family, not even when I was a kid, and my friends’ mothers served Hamburger Helper topped with Velveeta cheese.

Some mornings, Mom would drink Bloody Mary’s with enough vodka I could smell it while salting my eggs. Unprompted, she explained, “Tomato juice is natural and filled with vitamins,” which was also the case for the celery stalk she noshed. “Good for the skin, too.” Hers flushed when she drank, a tiny vein flaming alongside her nose.

After, she lit a Pall Mall, which draped like a prop from her long fingers, the painted nails clicking along the table, telegraphing her wish to be out of the cramped apartment, out of subsidized housing altogether, get the two kids moving into the rest of their lives while she weaved one that would accommodate her beauty and intelligence better than her current situation.

Mom’s yearnings were most palpable on Saturday nights when she selected a Bobbie Brooks combo—polyester slacks and a blouse with bold, geometric designs—which hung beautifully from her slender frame. Perched nearby, I watched her add lift at the crown of her home perm using a curling iron and setting it with a spray of Final Net. Moving closer to the mirror, she spread a thin film of foundation over her skin and spoke aloud. I leaned in believing she was imparting details of the feminine mystique. In retrospect, I recognize she was pumping herself up for the night ahead.

Yes, her reflection agreed, the men she met at Par 3, Cathay Island, and other restaurant-bars in town were right, she was foxy, and her smile beautiful thanks to good genes and Pearl Drops tooth polish. And those eyes, a lovely green, did not need shadow, just a flick of the mascara wand and presto, perfection. Her platform shoes laced on, she twiddled her fingers at the babysitter then twirled off into the night. Alone after school, I sometimes slipped my feet into those shoes. Stumbling along the linoleum, I imagined I was liberated too.

*

Throughout dinner, Mom sneaks glances at my face and figure, unsolicited attention that curdles my stomach. As with her rivals at those bars, she compares herself to me, someone who abhors competition. Finishing as first-runner-up in the beauty contest Mom entered me when I was four, was solely due to the comedic effect I had on the judges. I’d headed for the pool in my filmy blue dress and patent leather shoes, and steered away, forbidden to swim, I stomped most uncongenially through the rest of the pageant. I wonder why Mom compares herself to me at all—I’m her daughter after all and besides, she was stunning in her day. But time is a thief, and I can see it has stolen her beauty over the last ten years. The peaches-and-cream skin has aged and her lips purse reflexively as from a lifetime of sucking lemons, the runnels alongside them deepening through years of imagined slights.

I think of the dead dragonfly Mitch, and I once found outside our home. Long as my forefinger, the relentless sun and wind had drained it of color, yet the veins of its translucent wings were markedly visible, still beautiful. Like Mom in her mid-sixties in the photograph I’ll tape to my fridge after she dies. There she sits before a Christmas tree in a plunging red dress, a hint of cleavage for the boyfriend, her hair grown out of its champagne pixie, the words, “Red Dance!” scrawled on the back. At 75, the woman drinking wine across from me bears only a faint resemblance to the one in the photograph.

Apropos to nothing Mom asks, “Have you seen the movie, The Picture of Dorian Gray?”

“Not the movie,” I say, surprised by the question. “But I had to read it in high school.” I finger the base of my wine glass, wondering about her angle. Questions like these are often snares and I can’t be sure if this is about her or me, or nothing at all. “Why?”

“It was on TV a few days ago and I watched it.”

“Oh?”

Maybe this is an opening, an opportunity to discuss more than her television viewing habits. Maybe she saw a reflection of herself in the movie, how every selfish act she’d conducted in her life had slipped from her soul and become permanently etched on her face.

Turns out it’s mostly about the dead boyfriend.

“A few years ago, he said I should get a face-lift. What do you think?” She turns her profile to me and strokes along the base of her neck toward the chin, temporarily tightening the skin.

Shrunken from osteoporosis and rage, the woman before me is a husk of her former self. Gazing across the table, I cannot tease out that quick-witted, wise-cracking woman from this new resident. Her eyes, hard as dried peas, dart petulantly if the conversation displeases, or the focus veers too quickly from her needs.

“I think that’s mean.” What kind of man said that to a woman? To my mother? “You’re still pretty, Mom.”

“You think so?” The plaintive sound of her voice is Mitch’s with friends when he was small. You want to play? Be my friend?

I hope my smile appears sincere.

I sip wine, surveying her beautiful new kitchen with its granite-topped island and cabinets painted in a dark, satin finish, a far cry from the HUD kitchenette with its yellow contact paper, where I stood, at age 14, for a ‘tough love’ session with Mom. Giving me the once-over, she paused stirring spaghetti sauce and declared, “You like a slut in that thing.”

I looked down at the halter top, my small breasts pressing against the cotton. Her words scalded like the muffin tin I’d pulled from the oven that morning— where was the ice or ointment for this burn? Stalking from the room wasn’t an option—she’d barge in, tell me her words were my fault, then advise me to grow a thicker skin. Instead, I listened as she continued, practicing the art of hiding in plain sight.

“What you need is the right bra or better yet,” she said, her voice switching to the helpful tones of the syndicated column, Hints from Heloise, “put on that t-shirt I gave you.”

She meant the cast-off she no longer wore, the one she’d ordered years before from Cosmopolitan Magazine that featured a red-ribboned, hot-pink, svelte cat whose speech bubble read, stroke me and i’ll purr.

“That’ll cover your ass too,” she added, pivoting to the fridge to pull out a Miller Lite. “I mean Jesus, Lorie, show some class.”