“Don’t get too cozy over there, Bernard. I finally enjoyed myself today in spite of everything else, and I don’t need you badgering me with apologies.”
“What can I say, doll? I like our little talks. Hearing your voice, it’s like old times.”
“I guess it took death to make a conversationalist out of you. The Bernard I remember could go an entire evening with little more than a few grunts from behind his newspaper. Anyway, what makes you think you can waltz in here and act so familiar? You must think I’m pretty quick to forgive.”
“Quick to forget, anyway. Besides, you’re polite — it’s your good breeding. How do I look, honestly? Do I look fat?”
“No.”
“See? You didn’t even hesitate.”
“Well, you don’t. You look healthy.”
“Admit it, you miss me.” Harriet averts her eyes.
“You do,” says Bernard. “The quiet little things that didn’t add up to much: watching TV together, stringing Christmas lights, beating me at Scrabble.”
“That’s not fair, and you know it. Nothing is what it was. It’s like my entire past has been rewritten. And for the record, you were a terrible Scrabble opponent. Always hurrying me. Grousing about your lack of vowels. Double-checking my math. Rolling your eyes every time I consulted the dictionary. You were incorrigible.”
“Fair enough. How’s Caroline?”
“Why don’t you ask her yourself?”
“I’ve tried. She won’t communicate with me. That’s the thing. They gotta be willing.”
“Well, she certainly doesn’t have the highest opinion of you. She says you were a bully.”
“Some people are not easily persuaded. Maybe my style was a little bullish, I see that now. But I got results.”
“Don’t take it personally,” says Harriet. “She’s says that I favored Skip.”
“Did you?”
Forced to consider, Harriet is not pleased with the verdict. Hadn’t she always been slower to comfort Caroline? Even as a baby, Harriet had let Caroline cry more than she’d ever let Skip. She’d weaned Caroline at barely six months, whereas Skip might have nursed until his freshman year of high school if he hadn’t weaned himself at two. Of course she favored Skip.
“Yes,” says Harriet. “I guess I did.”
“So did I,” says Bernard “Well, there you go. The rest is easy.”
“Nothing is easy between Caroline and me, you know that.”
“What could be easier than apologizing?”
“You don’t seem to understand. She wants to remain at odds, I’m convinced.”
“Stubborn,” says Bernard. “Like her mother.”
“I wouldn’t be so sure. You’re the one who refused to use the bypass for seven years. Winding around that damn marina, driving four miles out of our way to get to the grocery store.”
“That damn bypass killed the town.”
“We were the last house on the peninsula with a rotary phone.”
“Perfectly good phone.”
“If it were up to you, we would have used a telegraph.”
“Now you’re exaggerating.”
“You wouldn’t eat shrimp if I put a gun to your head.”
“Not meant for consumption—”
“—unless,” she chimes, in perfect unison with Bernard, “you happen to be a narwhal.”
Harriet blushes at the familiarity. How can she still feel at home with a man she no longer knows? It vexes her that she takes comfort in his usualness.
“Why didn’t you ever tell me, Harriet?”
“You’re a fine one to ask that question.”
With a great hiss, the train grinds to a halt in Skagway. There’s Caroline, waiting by the tracks.
When Harriet turns back to Bernard, she finds only a vacant seat.
June 9, 2014 (HARRIET AT SEVENTY-SEVEN)
Look, Harriet, you’ve done an admirable job caring for your husband the past eight months. You’ve tried — really hard, you’ve tried. If you could ever manage to attend the support group, you’d know the task is nearly impossible. You’d know that you’re not alone. You’d know that your futility and rage were perfectly normal. You’d know that caring for someone with Alzheimer’s is one of the most difficult and demanding jobs in the world. Nobody’s good at it.
If you could only see clear to read the stack of materials Dr. Ritchie provided, you’d know that you’re only in the middle stages. Yes, Harriet, it gets worse! You’d know you have to take better care of yourself, even as your partner’s disease swallows your every available resource. You’d know you have to step away from it all sometimes, ask for help. Call Mildred, call Skip, call the Department of Social and Health Services. The Department of Aging and Disabilities. There are outside resources, Harriet, plenty of them. Most of them have acronyms.
No, they can’t help your husband remember your name, but they could give you some tools to work with. They could refer you to some home-care possibilities. They could probably send somebody out to walk you through your options, some kind of social worker. Gracious, Harriet, you live in the banana belt, the state capital for elder care. A mecca for the blue-haired set. Swing a cat, hit a medical specialist. Alzheimer’s is as common in Sequim as athlete’s foot.
Then, why oh why oh why won’t you ask for help? Exactly what are you trying to prove?
Maybe it’s time to say when, Harriet. Before Dr. Ritchie sees the bedsores on the backs of Bernard’s legs, before he finds the string of bruises along Bernard’s inner thigh. Funny, how they’re shaped like the Aleutians in a crescent, each yellowing island the mark of an offending finger.
You lost it, Harriet. Just for a split second while you were bathing him, patiently trying to scrub the mess from between his legs, the one leftover from his recent accident in the post office, where he would not be ushered out of the lobby without making a scene. The clerk stared at you with pity and revulsion as you shepherded him out the door, cursing and swinging his arms. In the car, Bernard kicked the rear-view mirror clean off the windshield. Twice, he tried to grab the wheel on the drive home, and you had to fight him off. You kept your cool the whole time, Harriet. You dealt with the situation competently. You managed to settle him down, get him home, undress him with the usual difficulty, take off his diaper, and coax him into the bathtub.
Not bad.
But when he began to splash you and curse you all over again, that stifled rage came rushing up from the center of you in an instant, and Mount St. Harriet blew her top again. Maybe not twenty-four megatons but a pretty good blast.
It was an isolated event. It happens. Take your own advice, and let it go, Harriet. Quit remembering the confusion in his eyes, the helplessness in his prairie-blank face, as you dug your fingertips into his soft flesh.
Yes, it’s time to say when, Florence Nightingale. Before Skip and Caroline and Dr. Ritchie intervene. Before they sit you down in your own living room and tell you how it’s going to be.
You better hurry, though, because they’re knocking on the door.
August 21, 2015 (HARRIET AT SEVENTY-EIGHT)
Caroline looks positively delighted standing there by the tracks, clutching two oversized shopping bags. She’s wearing a lovely Cowichan sweater cinched at the waist, featuring twin orcas, one over each breast. The sweater couldn’t have come cheap, especially not in a tourist trap like Skagway. Happy as she is to see her daughter in high spirits, Harriet can’t quite overcome the suspicion that Caroline is somehow taking advantage of Skip’s generosity.