Page 12 of When Lemons Give You Life

Damn it. He looks at me with a desperate, grateful glint, and for a second, I see Beau. Not in Rob’s appearance, but in that expression. Hope. Trust. Like I’m someone you can believe in.

“Go on then, help yourself,” I mutter, choking on my words. Before I can change my mind, Rob scoops up the tart, like a man in the desert who has just found water, or a man in the desert who’s just found dessert. Within seconds he’s demolished several slices, a lemon-curd mustache blooming across his top lip.

His eyebrows awaken first. One shoots up and then the other, pulling the corners of his lips with it. He slides down next to me on the tiles, eyes drifting shut as his fingers drum the floor, his smile now on megawattage. “Told ya it was a good idea, didn’t I, Mummy? Planting that lemon tree. You’re such a great cook!”

Guess I’m not the only one with memories involving lemon tart. He takes my hand in his; I hope the poor woman’s were less hairy than mine.

I go to pull away but stop; it’d just upset him, and physical touch is so rare these days, especially for a man like me, in a place that forgets we exist. When was the last time someone held my hand without pity or obligation? It’ll be the last human contact I have before they cart me off in a box.

“This is your best one yet,” Rob gushes. “Do you reckon we can have another piece?”

I glance up at the tin with a single slice remaining. Surely the man who’s going to die tonight deserves it more? “Sorry, Rob, it’s all gone,” I lie.

He giggles, cupping his mouth with his crumb-covered hand. “Oops! We didn’t save any for Mabel. Could you make another, Mum, please?” He looks up at me, his wide brown eyes clouded with cataracts and hope.

“I can’t, sorry. I’m leaving tonight.”

“Oh. Where are you going? Can I come too? Can you buy me some lollies there, Mum?”

A smile creeps onto my face at the thought of confectionary in the afterlife. Heaven probably gets the Belgian chocolate, while hell gets the clove-flavored Necco wafers. “Sorry, Rob, you can’t come, not yet. Only god knows where I’m going, mate.”

Quite literally. Will it be total blackness? Or will it be like dementia, without memories? If there is a heaven and hell, I know without a doubt which one I’ll be going to. My stepfather reminded me every day. Definitely Necco wafers for me.

“C’mon, Rob, let’s get you back to bed.” I tidy up, then pop the remaining slice into a container, hiding it carefully in my deep apron pocket.

As I help Rob to his feet, he leans in, and before I can pull away, he plants a slobbery kiss on my cheek, grinning like he’s pulled the winning raffle ticket. Sheesh. Even a pretend mum couldn’t stay mad at that face.

He links his arm through mine as I guide him back to bed. No one has even noticed we’ve been gone.

I’m halfway to the door when his voice stops me. “Don’t forget our bedtime song, Mummy!”

My soul winces. “Uh, not tonight, sorry.”

“But you always sing ‘Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star’!”

I grunt. Of course she bloody does. “Mummy’s got a headache.”

“Please, Mumma?”

I sigh through gritted teeth. The poor bugger looks like a wrinkly child.

I go to leave, but a sense of déjà vu pins me to the floor: Lisa, small and sniffling, the night her dad finally left; me, refusing to sing. I haven’t thought about that in years. I couldn’t do it for her then, but I can do it now. So, with a dramatic groan and a martyr’s grace, I lower myself onto my begrudging knees and sing for the first time in decades.

Slowly his eyes flutter closed, and I tuck the blanket snug around his chin. Before my brain knows what it’s doing, my hand smooths over his tuft of soft white hair, pretending, just for a second, that it’s Lisa. That I can slip this moment into the past, press it into the pages of time where it might actually mean something. But time doesn’t work like that; it’s like me, I guess, a stubborn old thing that refuses to be rewritten.

I pull out the last piece of tart and bring it to my lips, but the memory of Rob’s face as he tasted it, lit up with his own butter beam, rudely wedges itself between me and the first bite. The truth settles in my gut: the poor man’s lost his mind. Really lost it. He deserves this more than I do.

A host of eyes watches from the paintings on the walls as I place the slice on his table where he can find it when he wakes. Rob’s a sucker for art, especially the Italian masters. He even liked having a dabble himself, not that the staff here would ever bother to offer him a paintbrush. If there is one thing I’ve learned, it’s that a dementia diagnosis is a giant black mark that declares you incompetent at everything.

I lock eyes with the Mona Lisa, whom Beau and I once visited at the Louvre. She’s supposed to have a slight grin, but I never saw it. I squint at her in the darkness. Maybe I really am losing it, as I swear she’s pleading with me not to go. I shake it off, head to the door, then stop. I’d like to see that joy on Rob’s face as he tastes it once more.

Maybe my departure can wait. I have a small bar fridge in my room, conveniently disguised under a tablecloth. I could store the slice there and bring it back tomorrow to see his butter beam once more.

“Happy now?” I whisper to the framed woman. But I already know she is, because this time, she’s definitely smiling at me.

Just like another Lisa used to.

8