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“That’s not the point either!”
“Then, Stephanie, what is the point?” Charlene asked tiredly.
“The point is, I don’t want to be alone all the time. I want my partner, the man of my heart, to spend time with me. To come home to me before I’m asleep!”
Charlene took a deep breath and did not say all the things that came to her mind. Like, You cannot expect the man of your heart to entertain you all the time. And, Didn’t you know he was a bartender when you suggested you move in together? Or even, Oh my darling, my dearest child, you are so rotten spoiled.
Stephanie was bright, adorable, funny and sensitive, but she had an overblown sense of entitlement not entirely rare in a twenty-five-year-old. Especially a twenty-five-year-old only child.
“Mom? Are you there?”
“Yes, Stephanie. Look, you knew all about Grant’s hours and commitments before you—”
“I might want to move back home, Mom,” she said.
Charlene bolted upright. “What?”
“I’ve been giving some thought to moving in with you, Mom.”
“Stephanie, think about what you’re saying. You’d be getting a roommate who would nag you to keep things tidy all the time. You would live with someone who is driven almost homicidal by dust bunnies! And you’re…how can I put this kindly? Simply not up to the job.”
“You don’t have to be mean,” she said.
“And you don’t have to be sloppy, but you are. We’ve been over this before, Steph. I love you more than my life, but I won’t take you on as a roommate again until I can be sure you can hold up your end of the deal. If you’re serious about wanting to live with me, you’d better go home and clean that apartment from top to bottom and prove you can keep it that way.” She sighed. “Honey, I suspect you’d be better off trying to work things out with Grant. I know you love him very much.”
“I don’t want to waste my life waiting around for a man who’s…who’s…”
“Who’s working?” Charlene asked sharply. “You’d better think about this, Stephanie. You made a major commitment to him. The two of you have been together a long time. This bartending, this was part of his plan. It’s an excellent income for a student. Isn’t he almost finished with school?”
“Ha! That’ll be the day. He’s already talking about getting a master’s. And that’s only the beginning of my nightmares. He says he’s going to test for the police academy.”
“Really? Well, I’m not surprised he’s taking that direction. He’s been real interested in forensics and constitutional law and—Are you so completely surprised?”
“I’m horrified! Straight from spending every night at the bar to spending every night on the streets getting shot at.”
“Well Jesus, Stephanie,” Charlene said, out of patience, “what the hell do you want him to do? Win the lottery?”
“I just don’t want to…you know…”
“No I don’t know. What?”
“I don’t want to end up like you!”
Charlene couldn’t get a breath. She didn’t want to hear any more.
“Mom, you know what I mean. Don’t you? I mean, it figures, with what you do for a living, you’d be pretty suspicious of marriage. Bitter about it.”
Oh boy, this was only getting worse. Bitter? Like a dagger. “Stephanie, I have a call on another line. Can we talk about this later?”
“Oh, God, now you’re mad. Mom, look, I can understand why you’d want your kind of life, and it’s right for you and everything, but that doesn’t mean that I—”
“Steph, I’m sorry, honey. I have to go! I’ll talk to you later.”
As she clicked off the line, she felt the rare prickle of tears sting her eyes.
Charlene needed something to shift her emotions back to the stable side, and Dennis came to mind. She decided to surprise him by showing up at his E.R. for lunch, something she made time for only rarely. It was not the nastiness of the Samuelsons that had jolted her—she was used to that sorry business. But Stephanie’s remark about her life—or the lack thereof—threatened to ruin her day. What could she have meant? That Charlene didn’t need anyone? That was entirely untrue. She needed a lot of people, mostly Stephanie, even when she was the worst brat. And her mother, Lois, who had named herself Peaches for her only grandchild. And of course, Dennis, the most dependable man in the world. In thinking about it, the only thing she didn’t have in her life was a marriage. And in the presence of all that she did have, she didn’t need that.
It was true that Charlene was secure as a single woman, had taken to living alone quite easily and felt no desire to have a man’s rowing machine stored under her bed. But did that make her bitter about marriage? No! Certainly not!
The best way to drive out any plaguing doubt was to see her man, her Dennis, to feel his arm around her shoulders, to look into his warm, reassuring brown eyes and have him tell her for the millionth time that she was an incredible woman.
It was really Dennis who was incredible. Almost too incredible to be believed.
When Charlene had reached forty, after twenty years of backbreaking labor as a studying and then working single mother, she had met Dennis—the perfect man. While hiking along the American River she had twisted her ankle and was rescued by the tall, handsome physician’s assistant. His hands on her sprain were gentle, his smile comforting. He helped her to his car and took her to the emergency room in which he worked, where he had her ankle X-rayed. Then he wrapped it himself. Then he took her to dinner. The whole thing had brought about a belief in fate once more, for who could have predicted that she would meet a man so in tune to her every whim. They shared similar tastes in music, in food, in leisure activities. They had both been married once when much younger, though Dennis had no children.
Even though Charlene had declined Dennis’s proposals of marriage, she had not done so because of any doubt about their ability to remain perfect partners, but rather out of the common sense of a family law practitioner. “I don’t want to screw up a really good thing by overindulgence,” she had told him. “Let’s not mess with it, especially since it works absolutely perfectly.”
And Dennis always said, “You must be right, because I have nothing to complain about. I just thought we could check and see if it could get more perfect.”
During their five years together, Charlene and Dennis had set a kind of schedule for their relationship, something that appealed to a woman as strictly organized as Charlene. One night a week they had dinner at her house and Dennis would usually stay over. One night a week they dined at his house, but she rarely stayed the night because she loved her little house in the suburbs. Saturday nights they went out, Sunday mornings they had brunch, and the rest of the time they checked in by phone. They had both togetherness and plenty of time to catch up on work, family, or fulfill other social obligations—he for the hospital, she for the legal community and professional women’s groups. Or, they simply spent time alone, something middle-aged professionals who lived demanding, hectic lives needed.
Dennis was, above all, a treasured friend…and when life threw a few curves at Charlene, he was the one for whom she reached.
Charlene was already feeling more secure just thinking about Dennis and their flawless relationship as she pulled into the St. Rose’s E.R. parking lot. She was soon distracted by evidence of a recent commotion. A Sacramento Fire Department engine was just departing and a paramedic van was still parked outside. A couple of firefighters in full turnout gear stood talking outside the E.R. doors, and the ambulance was backed up to the dock, doors open, a serious cleaning-up going on.
On a couple of occasions she had gone to the E.R. when Dennis was in the throes of triage, and she had been mesmerized by his commanding nature, his confidence and skill. He was impressive to watch.
But today it appeared the chaos was past. There were a few people in the lobby waiting to be seen, all the curtains were drawn around treatment cubicles and there was a grim hush that lay over the room. It seemed things were under control. She saw Dennis standing outside one of the exam rooms, chart in hand, listening raptly and scribbling quickly as a young doctor spoke to him. A young woman.
She seemed awfully young to be a doctor, Charlene observed, but she had to be if Dennis was writing orders; if she wasn’t an M.D., he’d be giving them. She looked about twenty-one and she was very tall. She could look Dennis right in the eye. Charlene, at five foot four, fought down the temptation to feel dumpy. She straightened her spine. She was petite…almost a foot shy of meeting Dennis’s gaze. But this one, with her long legs and long auburn hair…
Dennis stopped writing suddenly to make eye contact with the young woman. She looked down as if shaken by something. He put aside the chart and pen and reached out to touch her upper arm. He gave her a gentle squeeze. Charlene saw that Dennis spoke to her softly but intensely. The doctor leaned forward, rested her head on his shoulder. His arm encircled her, stroking her back, and he murmured to her all the while. Charlene could read his lips: “It’s okay, okay.” The young woman was draped against him, soaking up what Charlene had come for. She wasn’t sobbing or crying, but still obviously upset…and Charlene’s fiancé held her close and secure. For a long time. Charlene made a U-turn and migrated back to the front of the E.R. before Dennis let the young woman go.
Hmm, she thought. She had never before referred to him as her fiancé. Even mentally.
“Hi, Charlene,” Barbara Benn, the E.R. clerk, greeted. “Does Denny know you’re here?”
No, she thought, he didn’t see me because he was busy caressing a beautiful and obviously brilliant fifteen-year-old doctor. “Ah…I don’t think so. You have an exciting morning?”
Barbara leaned over the counter. “Bad accident,” she whispered. “We had a couple of fatalities. Very yucko ones.” Barbara, early twenties with a slight purple tinge to her overly black hair, cracked her gum and rolled her eyes for emphasis. “Denny worked on one for about forty-five minutes. Awful. Just a kid. I bet he’s completely bummed. He’ll be glad to see you. Maybe you can get him out of here for a while.”
At that precise moment, Dennis, who she never called Denny, was there, beside her. He dropped his arm casually around her shoulders, but his gaze drifted down the hall toward the departing frame of the young woman he’d just been holding. “Hi, honey,” he said absently. “I can’t get away. I’m sorry. It’s a zoo.” His lips fell to the top of her head in a perfunctory kiss before he let her go and followed the young doctor. Charlene was filled with a sense of emptiness that was underscored by her earlier conversation with Stephanie.
There will be an explanation later, she told herself. But as hard as she tried, she could not seem to get past the fact that he hadn’t asked her why she had come. Didn’t he wonder if something might be wrong? He was probably still very distracted by the fatality…or by the young doctor….
“Whew, it obviously sucks to be Denny right now,” Barbara said.
“Who’s the doctor? The young, beautiful one?”
She turned to look. “Oh, that’s Dr. Malone. She’s new. Pediatrician. She’s awesome. Everyone loves her. I guess you haven’t met her yet.”
“No, not yet,” Charlene said.
“You’ll like her,” she said. “She’s very cool for a doctor.”
No, I hate her, Charlene thought, then retracted the thought with shame. She had never had thoughts so jealous and immature where Dennis was concerned! Not even when she had witnessed goo-goo eyes directed at him while they were out together. From young nurses to legal colleagues, women took quick notice of Dennis’s classic good looks. Dennis was an absolute gem. And, she reminded herself, completely loyal.
Charlene got herself to the parking lot, into the car, and out of the vicinity before she succumbed to the needy impulse to rush to the hospital cafeteria, where she might catch them in the act of holding hands over the tuna surprise, gazing adoringly into each other’s eyes.
She drove to her favorite mediterranean café and parked. She sat in the car feeling alone and bereft, feelings that were completely alien to her. Suddenly she knew her life would be awful if she didn’t have Dennis in it. And she knew how much more awful it would be if some doctor young enough to be her daughter had him. “Okay, it’s an age thing,” she said aloud in self-analysis. “A little premenopausal panic. Well, I’ll be damned if I let myself turn into some wimpy dependent old woman who can’t even have lunch because—”
Her cell phone twittered inside her purse. She plucked it out and studied the caller ID—it was her office. She didn’t admit to herself that she felt enormous relief.
“Yes, Pam?”
“Char, you’ve had a disturbing and confusing call from Ron Fulbright, the manager at the Food Star Market in Fair Oaks. Something about your mother. I think you’d better go over there.”
“My mother?”
“Yes, something about her not being able to find her way home…”
“What? That’s ridiculous.”
“Well, that’s what I said. To which Mr. Fulbright said this wasn’t the first time. They’ve started having a bag boy keep an eye on her when she leaves the store, watching to see if it looks like she knows where she’s going.”
“Wait a minute, wait a minute. She drives to the market, right?”
“Apparently she walked.”
“But it’s drizzling. She wouldn’t walk there in the rain.”
“Mr. Fulbright has her in his office. You’d better go get her. I could hear Lois in the background. She’s…ah…unhappy.”
“Well, I imagine so,” Charlene said, indignant. “Call him back. Tell him I’m on my way.” She clicked off without saying goodbye, put the car in reverse and headed toward her mother’s neighborhood.
Lois must have been somehow misunderstood, Charlene thought, and the grocer interpreted this as her being lost and in need of her daughter’s rescue. But it was absurd! Lois had only just returned from a rather taxing trip to Bangkok. At seventy-eight, she was anything but lost. She was an independent traveler of the world. Widowed for over twenty years, she was a modern, youthful, brilliant woman who refused to be called Grandma.
Charlene beat down a powerful sense of foreboding, terrified by the prospect of her mother—her rock—falling apart.
Two
Charlene racked her brain for any incident in which her mother had seemed confused or disoriented, but could think of none. She lost her keys, but who didn’t? She forgot the occasional name, as did Charlene. Although there was that time, not so long ago, when she put the yogurt and cottage cheese away in the rolltop desk and then couldn’t locate the source of the foul odor…. But they had laughed about it later.
When she arrived at the grocery store, she was directed to Mr. Fulbright’s office in the back of the store. She heard her mother before she saw her. “May I have a drink of something, please?” Lois asked in a small voice. Charlene was brought up short. She hadn’t heard that kind of meekness from her mother since Lois’s gallbladder surgery sixteen years ago.
Charlene peeked into the partitioned room. Lois sat hunched on the hard chair beside Mr. Fulbright’s desk. Though Lois Pomeroy was petite, she was such a formidable personality, Charlene tended to think of her as larger than she was. And Lois always sat or stood straight, her head up. She was prideful and pigheaded. In fact, she was a bossy pain in the ass, who at the moment looked stooped and cowed and…frightened. It was very disturbing.
“Anything you like, Mrs. Pomeroy.”
“Just water, thank you.”
“Be right back,” Fulbright said. He nearly ran into Charlene as he exited his cubicle. “Oh, my heavens!” he said, laughing nervously. He grinned at Charlene in a big, perfect Cheshire smile. “Go ahead in,” he said.
Lois raised her bowed head and saw Charlene. “Oh. He said he called you. I told him not to.”
“Mom, what happened?”
“I just got a little turned around, that’s all. It happens to people my age from time to time.”
“And has it happened before?”
“Well, no, not really….”
“But Mr. Fulbright said they’ve been having bag boys keep an eye on you until it appears that you know where you’re going. What does that mean?”
Mr. Fulbright brought the water. Lois sipped before speaking. “Well, there was one time last year—”
“Last month,” Mr. Fulbright corrected.
“It wasn’t last month!” Lois shot back. “Sheesh,” she added impatiently.
“Yes, it was, Lois. Remember?” he asked too patiently, as though speaking to a child. “You were all turned around in the parking lot. Driving in circles. You went around and around, then back and forth past the store. One of the boys flagged you down and asked if you needed something. Remember?”
“Oh, that was last year!” A little strength was seeping into her voice under the mantle of anger.
Mr. Fulbright rolled his eyes in frustration. He then connected with Charlene’s eyes, smirked and shook his head. “Well, if you say so,” he relented, but he shook his head. “You have some groceries, Lois. Let me carry them to your daughter’s car, okay?”
“Don’t bother yourself, I can do it.”
“Yes, I know you can, but it’s my pleasure. I’m afraid if I don’t take good care of you, you’ll shop at another store.”
“I’m thinking about doing that anyway,” she said. “Been thinking about it, actually.”
Charlene got her mother settled in the front seat of the car, the groceries in the trunk, and stood behind the car with Mr. Fulbright.
“This is an old neighborhood, Ms. Dugan. It’s an unfortunate part of the job that we see some of our best customers go through aging crises. Lois got lost about a month ago and couldn’t get herself out of the parking lot, much less find her house. She kept coming back to the store, driving around and around the parking lot, until someone helped her. She knows it happened—she started walking instead of driving, and don’t let her tell you it was for the exercise.” He rolled his eyes skyward, where heavy, dark clouds loomed, just waiting to let go. “Who would take that kind of chance in unpredictable weather like this? A person could drown! It’s so she doesn’t get too far away from home before she realizes she doesn’t know where she is.”
Charlene was absolutely horrified. “This is impossible! She just returned from the Far East!” But in thinking about it, Charlene realized that that trip, a tour, had taken place over two years ago.
“Nevertheless…”
“What happened this morning?” Charlene asked. “Exactly.”
“I had one of the boys watch her walk down Rio Vista to make sure she turned toward her house, but she walked right by. She could have been going to visit someone, so Doug stayed with her just in case. She went another block, doubled back past her street again and finally sat on a retainer wall, in the rain, looking dazed. He asked her if he could help her and she started to cry.”
“Cry? My mother doesn’t cry! For God’s sake, this is crazy!”
Mr. Fulbright touched her arm and Charlene snatched it back as though burned. “She should see her doctor. It might be just a fluke, a medication screwup or—”
