The Wedding Party

“She doesn’t take medication!”

“Well, maybe it’s something more serious. But Ms. Dugan, it’s something.”

The passenger door opened. “Are we going?” Lois wanted to know, that impatient edge back in her voice. “I could have been home by now!”

Mr. Fulbright crossed his arms. “Or in Seattle,” he muttered under his breath.

“Yes, Mom. Coming.” Then, feeling protective of Lois, she glared at the grocer for his cheek.

“Goodbye, Lois,” Mr. Fulbright said. “See you soon.”

“I doubt it,” she said, slamming the door.

“Well, thank you,” Charlene said. “Though I really think—”

“When you run a neighborhood market in an area with a large retired population,” he said, “there are some things you learn to watch for. They’re my charges. It won’t be that many years before I’ll benefit from having people watch after me now and again. Just as the postman keeps track if the mail stacks up, merchants keep an eye out for their regulars.”

“Thanks, but—”

“Get your mom to the doctor now. We don’t need a senseless tragedy just because it’s hard to think about Lois getting older.”

As Charlene fastened her seat belt, she muttered, “God, he’s annoying.”

“Tell me about it,” Lois said.

“I guess he knows what’s right for everyone, huh?”

“I never could stand that guy. He’s a hoverer, you know? Always looking over your shoulder when you pinch the grapes. Probably a pervert. I’m not shopping there anymore.”

“I can’t say I blame you, Mom. Especially if you’re going to find yourself held hostage in the back room.” Charlene shuddered, but not for thinking about Mr. Fulbright’s back-room office.

“The rhubarb stinks. Smells like fish and tastes like rubber.”

“Rhubarb?” Charlene couldn’t remember ever having rhubarb at her mother’s house.

“Let’s get moving. I think I have a hair appointment.”

“When did you start caring about rhubarb?”

“My mother always had a rhubarb cobbler on the Fourth of July. I wish I could remember if I made that hair appointment for today or next Tuesday. Damn!”

Charlene drove in silence for a moment. Then, with a sigh, she asked, “Why did you decide to walk to the market today of all days? It’s cold, and it’s drizzled on and off since morning.”

“I needed the exercise.”

“Really?”

“Why else would I walk?”

“Well…I don’t suppose a checkup would hurt,” Charlene suggested.

“I just had a checkup.”

“Well, another one won’t hurt.”

“I’m not going to the doctor and that’s the end of it.”

“Mom…”

“I said no.”

“Mom, I’m not going to argue with you—”

“Good! That will be a refreshing change.”

“I’m worried, that’s all.”

“Waste of energy. Worry about something you have some control over. This is out of your hands.”

She pulled up in front of Lois’s house, parked, killed the engine and turned to regard her mother. “Why are you acting like this?” she asked in a gentle voice.

“I’ve had a rough day,” Lois said, looking away from her daughter, out the window.

Haven’t we all, Charlene thought.

“I have things to do, Aida, so let me get my groceries and get busy.”

“Aida? Mom, you called me Aida. I think I’d better get you in the house and—”

Lois groaned as if in outraged frustration and threw open her car door. She pulled herself out with youthful agility and, once extracted, stomped her foot. “You’re starting to get on my last nerve! Get me my things and get out of my business!”

That’s when she knew. She wasn’t sure exactly what she knew, but she knew. The only Aida Charlene had ever known was an old cousin of Lois’s who’d been dead over thirty years. And while Lois was admittedly a frisky character, Charlene was unaccustomed to such anger and temper in her mother. Lois was going through some mental/medical crisis.

Trying to remain calm, she went to the trunk, pulled out two bags and handed one to Lois. She followed her mother up the walk to the front door. Lois got the door unlocked easily enough, and they went inside and put the groceries away without speaking. When the bags were folded and stowed on a pantry shelf, they stood and looked at each other across the butcher block.

“I’m very sorry,” Lois said. “I’m sorry you were bothered, sorry I was rude to you and sorry about what’s happening.”

“What is happening?” Charlene asked.

“Well, isn’t it perfectly clear? I’m losing it.”

Charlene went back to the office in something of a trance. Was it possible that even though she spent a great deal of time with Lois, she’d been too preoccupied to notice these changes?

She threw herself into the accumulated work on her desk, plowing through briefs, returning calls, writing memos and dictating letters. She also spent some time on the Internet, researching dementia in the elderly and Alzheimer’s disease.

It was getting late and she should have gone home long ago, but she wanted no spare time between work and evening—she wouldn’t know how to handle it. She could research Alzheimer’s, but she couldn’t think about her mother suffering from it. Tonight was dinner at her place with Dennis. And until she could talk to him, until she could take advantage of his cool-headed appraisal of her problem—not to mention his medical expertise—she couldn’t allow herself to focus on it. But when the intercom buzzed and she looked at her watch, she realized she wouldn’t even make it to her house ahead of Dennis, much less have time to cook him dinner. “It’s Dennis,” Pam intoned from the outer office.

If he cancels, Charlene thought, I will kill him and hide the body. She picked up. “Dennis, I lost all track of time. I can leave here in just a—”