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Margaret frowns. “Oh, I don’t know. I don’t like birds.”
This isn’t the first time I’ve had this conversation. It’s probably not even the twentieth.
Honestly, doing the math on how many times I’ve come in and she hasn’t recognized me would just be depressing. So, I don’t do the math. And let me tell you, I love doing the math on things, so that’s really saying something.
“I think you’ll like Princess Lay-ah.”
I roll Margaret’s walker over and sit on the seat, before unzipping the pet carrier and allowing Princess Lay-ah to peek out. I have three therapy chickens and I rotate through bringing them to “work” with me. They are all Silkies, which are known for their adorable floof of feathers on their heads and sweet temperaments. Princess Lay-ah is a buff, so her feathers are a beautiful strawberry blonde.
I drape a flannel, waterproof changing pad on Margaret’s lap before gently extracting Princess Lay-ah from the carrier. Margaret’s eyes light up when she sees her.
“She’s so pretty!”
“Isn’t she? Let me show you how to hold her.”
Margaret frowns, clenching her hands in her lap. “Oh, I don’t know. I wouldn’t want to hurt her.”
This is the segue I was hoping for. “You won’t. Holding a chicken is a lot like holding a baby. You just have to keep them close to your body so they feel safe.”
I show Margaret how to cradle the tiny hen close to her body with one hand and how to pet her with the other. Within minutes, Margaret is telling me about her own children. Her trip down memory lane is circuitous. Progress is slow but satisfying.
At some point, Princess Lay-ah starts to fidget, but Margaret is still chatting with me and clearly enjoying our time together, so I take the hen from Margaret and set her down. She waddles off to explore, and I know she’s safe. There’s nothing she—or Margaret—can get into that would hurt them.
After about an hour, just as I’m about to pack up and leave, I hear the click of the door opening. I assume that it’s one of the orderlies, since it’s almost dinner time. I stand and turn toward the door, but it’s not one of the orderlies. At least not one I know. Instead, it’s the tall, stern-looking man from the lobby.
He stops short, just inside the doorway looking from me to Margaret then back. “What are you doing here?”
Assuming he merely entered the wrong room, I ask, “Who are you looking for?”
His frown deepens and I feel my own expression shift to match his. I take a step closer, ready to escort him to whatever room he meant to enter. I’m here often enough that I know all the residents in this wing.
Except, that doesn’t make sense. One of the nurses would’ve had to buzz him in. And they certainly wouldn’t buzz him in to the wrong room.
I look back over at Margaret to see a smile blossoming on her face. “Martin!”
The man freezes, looking startled for just a moment, before quickly recovering.
Oh no … That’s when it hits me. Stacy called him Mr. Harris. This must be Margaret’s grandson. The lawyer who never visits. Obviously I know the full names of the patients I work with, but I rarely think of them that way. Margaret is Margaret Harris.
Of course a man who glares with such disapproval would be a lawyer. The jerk.
He gives me a long, hard look, his gaze no less stern than it was out in the lobby, before taking a few steps further into the room to cross to where Margaret sits by the window.
He leans down and brushes a kiss on her cheek.
“Hello, grandma.” He straightens and looks at me. “And who are you precisely?”
two
MARTIN
I’ve had a long day, even before I got a call from my grandmother’s doctor reminding me that I’ve missed the last three appointments to discuss her care. She’s in a top-notch memory care center. I pay good money and lots of it so that I don’t have to drop everything every time she needs any little thing. But the doctors definitely know how to lay on the guilt.
So, after a grueling day, I drive across town to the Precious Meadows Care Center where I am verbally whipped by every employee who knows me by sight. Yes, I’ve missed appointments. Yes, I feel like a horrible grandson.
Visiting a loved one in memory care is a particular kind of hell. Margaret rarely recognizes me. She usually mistakes me for my father, which is its own bag of emotional shit. I stopped correcting her on that front years ago. I don’t want to relieve his death. Why should I make her go through that just so she can call me by the correct name for a half hour?
I’m so thankful I can afford to keep her here, where the care is top notch, but I can’t visit as often as I’d like. The rest of my family, out in west Texas, complain that she’s so far from them, but none of them are stepping up to take over. I’m always either not doing enough or using my money to force my ideas on everyone else.
