The Double Room for Mom and Dad

Nine days

They moved on a Monday. I took the day off and drove Mom to her new place myself, because Mark had a meeting. It was a decent home.

I want to say that. The staff were kind, the hallway smelled of lemon polish and not of anything worse, and there was a bird feeder outside her window.

She walked down the hall holding my arm and looked at every door. “Which one is Norm’s?” she asked. “He’s in a different place, Mom. Remember? We talked about it.” “Oh.” She patted my hand. “That’s right. We talked about it.”

We had not, really. Mark had told her, and I had told her, and each time she had nodded and agreed, and a half hour later it was gone again, as though water had run over a chalk drawing.

She started calling the front desk on the second day. By the end of the first week the aides knew her by voice.

Every hour, sometimes more. “This is Elaine in 114. Is Norm coming for supper?” “Not tonight, Mrs. Whitcomb.” “Tell him I saved him a roll.”

I drove up the first Thursday and found her sitting by the telephone in the lounge with a dinner roll wrapped in a paper napkin in her lap. It was hard as a rock. She had been guarding it since Tuesday.

Dad was worse, in a quieter way. I went to see him in Estherville every other evening, and each time he looked a little smaller in the chair by the window.

He was polite. He thanked the aides. He did what he was told. He just did not eat. On the ninth day, an aide named Cassie called me at work.

“Patrice, I don’t want to scare you,” she said. “But he’s had three bites of toast since Saturday. He just turns his face to the wall. I’ve seen this before. I don’t like it.”

I was standing at the nurses’ station on the surgical floor, where I work as a unit clerk, with a stack of charts under my arm. I put them down. A nurse looked at me and said, “Go,” and I went.

When I got to Estherville, Dad was in bed. He had lost, by the scale at the nurses’ desk, eleven pounds in nine days.

I sat by him and held his hand, which felt like a bundle of dry sticks, and I said, “Dad. Dad, you’ve got to eat something.” He opened his eyes. “Where’s your mother?”

“She’s all right. She’s in her place.” “Is she eating?” “She’s eating.” This was nearly true. She was eating better than he was.

He closed his eyes. “I’d like to see her,” he said, “before I go.”

I called Mark from the parking lot. He listened. He did not say anything for a long moment. “I’ll talk to the doctor,” he said finally. “Talk to the doctor about what? It isn’t medical.”

“Patrice, I can’t just undo it. There’s a lease. There’s a deposit. There’s, I mean, it’s done.” “Then I’ll undo it.” “With what?” I did not have an answer. I said I would call him back.