For way too long, I've been writing down notes for flash pieces I wanted to write. Today, I decided to flesh on out.
It felt wonderful.
I hope you enjoy.
Odd Love
She liked to say that they met during the dessert course.
But since she was currently a guest of The Hamptons Alzheimer’s care facility
in West Houston, they actually met over applesauce. In tiny plastic bowls, with sad,
white plastic utensils.
Love is an odd thing. Where it finds you. And when.
Ruby Dinsmore had grudgingly accepted the move to The
Hamptons eight months prior, when after a rather tense and humid afternoon, she
was found by the police in a park a mile from her suburban home, barefoot and
very confused as to why she was out in public without proper footwear and in a
house coat that was entirely inappropriate for the outing – and the weather.
“Mom, it’s time, really,” Sarah Dinsmore said that evening,
after a dinner of baked fish, steamed asparagus and rice.
Sarah hadn’t planned a dessert course, which displeased Ruby
greatly.
“You’re just trying to get rid of me,” Ruby said. “I’ve been
in this home for 70 years, and I plan on dying here, missy.”
Sarah didn’t have the heart to remind Ruby that a red, white
and blue real estate sign was sunk into Ruby’s manicured lawn, just waiting for
a buyer, which would force the issue on a change in residency.
“We’ve been over this,” Sarah said, letting the tiredness in
her muscles leak into her words. “Mom, you went missing for more than three
hours this time. The police are starting to question the situation, too.”
Ruby Dinsmore squeezed her eyes closed and puckered her
glossed lips into a disapproving O.
“Fine. Whatever. Stick me in some hospital to rot.”
Sarah Dinsmore was 45, divorced, childless and unemployed. The perfect solution, her
siblings had said, for the current state of their mother’s affairs. Uproot her
life (and from what her two sisters and brother thought, it wasn’t much of a
life anyway) and move back to Texas to take care of Ruby. And after several
months living in her childhood home, in her childhood bed, fighting constantly
with Ruby over nearly everything, Sarah moved a bed, computer desk and dresser
(all new from Ikea) into a townhome less than four miles from Ruby’s. For both their sakes.
But the time and space had proven to be troublesome. In a
multitude of ways.
That she had to report to her siblings that Ruby had escaped
her containment once again (she was firmly on the side of what they didn’t know wouldn't harm them), but yet another police escort – and subsequent report –
meant this was the beginning to the end of Ruby’s stay at home.
The Hamptons was one of the better facilities in the Houston
area, where Ruby was able to customize her room with all her familiar items, even
the walnut queen sleigh bed, dresser and nightstand she an Hollis Dinsmore had
purchased as newlyweds. There was her writing desk, a loveseat, coffee table
and various porcelain figurines and other nick-nacks that crowed every
available horizontal space.
Ruby seemed at home. Content, but not entirely happy.
Resigned to the situation, when she remembered her situation, of course. The
Alzheimer’s was robbing her of much of her long-term memory.
She mostly kept to herself, preferring to watch her television
shows in the privacy of her room than in the communal television room among the
other patients, which she felt a great resignation toward, when she remembered
why she disliked them so.
She did join a table of other women for meals, a small
square covered in white Formica and white wooden chairs with comfortable
cushions in a checked pattern, but in several pleasingly pastel colors. Ruby
preferred the green-checked cushion, which reminded her of Granny Smith apples.
When she remembered, she’d stake out a place a few minutes early to snag her
favorite cushion.
Which led her one evening to sit at the table with a Mr. Earl
Todd, a widower from Tulsa with Huntington's disease. When he spoke, Earl’s bottom
lip would quiver involuntarily, which affected the way he pronounced anything with
a P, W or M.
“What do you think you’re doing at our table?”
“Beg p-p-pardon?”
“As if you didn’t know,” Ruby said. “This is our table.”
Somewhat confused, Earl looked around helplessly for an
orderly. With a jerky motion, he brought a paper napkin to his lips and
wrinkled his brow.
“I have no idea what the hell you’re talking about. I sit
here m-m-morning, noon and night.”
“So you say,” Ruby said. “What is that anyway?”
Earl looked around, still quite confused. Then he used a plastic spoon as a
pointer to highlight the half-eaten applesauce in front of him.
“Cherry p-p-pie, a la m-m-mode.
It’s quite a treat for this dump-p-p.”
Ruby smiled, despite
herself.
“Well, it looks like
a fine dessert course,” she said. “I’m Ruby Dinsmore.”
“P-p-pleased. I’m Earl
Todd.”
And for the next
several weeks, Ruby and Earl m-m-met promptly at 5 p.m. for dinner.
“I have a
man-friend,” Ruby said as she tried to come up with a six-letter word for
“ongoing” in the crossword the nursing staff gave her daily.
“What?”
“A man-friend. Mr. Earl
Todd. A widower from Tulsa.”
“Mom, are you allowed
to have man-friends here?”
Sarah was confused
and horrified. She also knew she hadn’t been spending quite enough time engaged
with her mother recently. And she immediately panicked,
knowing exactly what her siblings would say about this latest development.
“Oh, don’t be such a worry-wart,” Ruby said. “He’s quite
handsome. Not very bright, however. Here, have a look – is this supposed to be
‘serial?’ ”
“Mother, I, uh, I don’t think I approve,” Sarah said. “I
mean honestly.”
“Please don’t point fingers at me,” Ruby said. “It’s you who
put me here. I’m just trying to live my life.”
Sarah rubbed a hand over her forehead, down her face and
clasp reddened fingers over her mouth. Perhaps to stifle a scream she felt
building in the middle of her chest.
“He’s quite smitten,” Ruby said. “I find myself that I’m taking
my time. We met over the dessert course at dinner. I believe it was cherry pie.”
“Christ, mother. Will you excuse me?”
Sarah sought out the charge nurse, a tremendous black woman named
LaTisha Templeton. She preferred that people called her Auntie Tish.
“Uh, Auntie Tish, did you know anything about my mother and some
man named Earl Todd?”
“Oh, girl, they are the talk of the entire ward,” Tish said.
“Mr. Todd actually set off the door alarm Thursday trying to go after a pot of
geraniums in the courtyard for your mother. He’s quite smitten.”
“So I’ve heard,” Sarah said, looking at her shoes and trying
not to cry. “Isn’t there protocols for this, rules?”
“Honey, it’s cute. It’s harmless. And frankly, it’s good for
the both of them.”
“How do you figure?”
“Girl, have you never been in love? There’s just something about
it that gets us all worked up. And in their case, worked up means brain
stimulation. You should hear them trade their stories. Don’t get yourself so
worked up, dear.”
And for the next few weeks, Sarah grew to know Earl Todd
through her mother’s tireless conversations. She skipped meeting him in person,
however. Way too weird.
Sarah was in a bar in Marfa, Texas, some 500 miles west of
Houston (it was a trip of self-discovery spurred on by her mother’s recent
carefree attitudes toward life and love) when her cell rang. It was Ruby.
“Sarah, how do I break up with a man? You’ve had plenty of
experience with this sort of thing.”
“Sorry, what?”
“Breaking up. I find that I’m finished with Earl. He doesn’t
dress very well and quite frankly, he’s a slob. What do you do when you want to
dump a man?”
Sarah laughed.
“Well, the last one I fled his house in tears, then sent him
an angry text message. So I’m not sure I’m the one to ask about this.”
“I had the thought to write him a note.”
“Notes are good. Notes are safe. But I’m still confused. Last
time we talked, you said you and Earl were pretty tight.”
“Well, yes, but he’s something of a chauvinist. And that was
before I met Mr. Gordon Jenkins from Austin, an Alzheimer’s patient like
myself. He has the most interesting blue eyes.”
Sarah processed the information, intently studying the static
between Ruby and herself before she responded.
“My, God, mother, when did you turn into such a slut?”
Ruby laughed, despite herself.
“Apparently, dear, since the precise moment you put me
here.”
