Elsewhere: A Memoir Part 9

And so we had, until there was nothing left to look at.

MARK, MY MOTHER'S NEW DOCTOR, was less than half her age. Having recently taken on Barbara and me and the girls, he'd agreed to see her as well. He was new in town but already had a reputation as an excellent diagnostician. His manner was no nonsense to the point of being brusque, so I was surprised when he tenderly took my mother's hand. "Okay, Jean," he said, "I'm going to give you four words and ask you to remember them. Then we're going to chat for a while, and then I'm going to ask you to tell me what the four words were. Do you understand?"

My mother nodded, before glancing over at me for confirmation, as if her understanding were an issue I could speak to.

"Here are the four words: bird, window, car, book."

Good, I thought. She'll get book, at least.

Barbara had somehow managed to get her dressed, and we'd only been half an hour late. I'd quietly informed the admitting nurse of the basics, that this was supposed to be a get-acquainted appointment but that my mother had been disoriented when I arrived to pick her up, that for some reason she was obsessing about clocks and time, and that I'd never seen her like this before. We were now-Barbara and the doctor and my mother and me-in one of his small consulting rooms.

"How are you feeling today?" the doctor asked her.

She turned to me. "What time is it?"

I told her (three minutes later than the last time she asked, just before we left the waiting room).

"Jean. Can you look at me?"

Good, I thought again. A strong male voice. She responds well to those. My own the obvious exception.

"How are you feeling?"

"I'm a little worried," she confessed.

"About what?"

"The time."

"Why are you worried about the time?"

"I have a very important doctor's appointment."

"You're at your appointment now. I'm your doctor. You don't have to worry about that anymore, okay?"

My mother looked greatly relieved to learn it and smiled over at me.

"Do you know what time of year it is?"

She thought about it, then admitted she wasn't sure.

"Can you tell me where you live?"

She again looked over at me. "Woodland Hills," I told him, immediately flus.h.i.+ng, because of course he didn't care where she lived. He just wanted to know if she knew. "She just moved in," I explained.

"And who's the president?"

She smiled. Here was an answer she knew. She started to answer, then suddenly couldn't remember. She turned to me. After all, I'd supplied the last answer, so maybe I knew this, too. "Oh," she said, nudging me, "you know."

I tried to send her a telepathic message. George W. Bush. You hate the little twerp. You're hoping to live long enough to see him indicted for crimes against humanity. Remember?

But she didn't. She remembered neither the man nor how much she loathed him. My heart sank then, because the look on her face suggested in addition to being stumped by the question, she was beginning to grasp that something was terribly wrong. Or maybe she was just mimicking the look on my own face.

"How about those words?" the doctor asked. "Can you tell me what the four words were?"

My mother shook her head and then let it hang, completely out of answers.

WHEN HE FINISHED his examination, Mark took me aside. "Your mother is suffering from dementia," he said.

I nodded, not terribly surprised, given what had transpired in the consulting room. Still, something seemed wrong. "But why?"

"We don't know the cause, exactly, but it's not unusual in people your mother's age."

"Yeah," I said, "but overnight?"

"The onset of symptoms can appear rapid."

Something about his use of appear made me wonder if we were talking at cross-purposes. "Yesterday, she was fine."

At this he knitted his brow, clearly dubious.

"She's been very anxious about the move. She's been having TIAs over the last couple years. Is it possible she had one during the night?"

"Where was she living before Woodland Hills?"

"She had an apartment in Winslow."

He looked like I'd just given him a stiff left jab. "An apartment."

"Yes."

"Are you telling me that your mother's been living alone?"

"Yes. The only reason she's in Woodland is that they had a vacancy."

"Yesterday she could have remembered all four words? She'd have known who the president was?"

"Absolutely. She'd have shared her opinion of him, which is low. And she certainly wouldn't have forgotten the word book." When he still appeared doubtful, I added, "She's been living independently," realizing as soon as I said it that she would've been thrilled by this representation.

"She isn't normally confused?"

This question was more difficult. "She likes to rearrange facts," I admitted. "She prefers her own version of things. But nothing like what you saw in there."

"Tell me about her medications."

I did, at least the ones I could remember-for high blood pressure, the thyroid, the anxiety, the acid reflux, the arthritis, a couple other things.