Roll with the Punches (33 page)

"Where's he been?" Music Man whispered to me. "Did I see him yesterday?"

"No," was all I could get out before needing to hide my suddenly teary face in a plaid sofa pillow.

In a minute, Dal came back. "Bedroom door's locked.”

I told the pillow, "In my purse."

"What?"

"Key's in my purse."

Silence.

"On the counter."

My purse jingled, then the crutches stumped down the hall and I heard his room door open. He clunked back and forth from the room to the car, and I just lay there, head throbbing, face covered, wondering how to avoid attending Harley's wedding.

Music Man wandered inside. "Rain stopped. Rhonda, Ed can't carry his big boxes on crutches. Is he moving out?"

Oh, so "Ed" hadn’t even spoken to Dad.

"You get up and help him," Dad said.

"Forget it."

"Rhonda?" Music Man said. "I'm sorry, Ed. She's in some kind of lady's mood or something. Listen, I'd help you, but I'm kind of dizzy here. I gotta lie down." He shuffled down the hall.

There was more movement. Then the front door closed with finality. Everything got really quiet for a while. My eyes filled up, then I let loose and cried out loud, heaving and sniffling, hitting the couch back with my fists. Bing came over and nosed my neck.

Still facing the cushions, I shouted through my tears, "Bing, can't you do your job? Find my manuscript? Bring me my computer? Fix Dad? Or Mom? Call Monica? And why do you let all the men in my life evaporate? Can't you find a decent caregiver that'll stay for Dad? Or even a dog sitter? And Harley's gonna hate me for hurting Dal, and you won't give me the money to see a shrink to discuss the whole mess. Where is your loyalty?"

Paws on the sofa, Bing licked my cheeks and neck, replacing my tears with dog slobber.

Then someone sat on the edge of the sofa and put a warm hand on my back.

I jumped. Bing hopped down.

"Is it that bad?" came Dal's voice.

I played dead and embarrassed.

The hand rubbed. "Aren’t you even a little sorry for breaking my foot with your damned skate and my nose with your elbow and giving my poor mono-stressed liver contusions?"

I peeked out from under the offending elbow. "I was aiming at your groin."

"So I'd never be able to have kids with Harley?"

"I was full of cold medicine and you were a bad guy." I sniffed. "I'm sorry. You should have announced yourself.”

"I was out of breath from rescuing you. And Harley resented having to leave the fray to rescue me. I spent Thursday night in the hospital because of the liver, and I never heard a word from you. I spent the last three nights—"

I waved him off and turned back to the sofa. "Don't tell me. Just—have a good life. Send me a bill or something. I'm sure you two will be very happy."

He started to rub my back. "You know, you messed up my plan, little raccoon. We Sioux can't have a girl in the tribe until we prove ourselves. I was trying to be the hero, bring back an enemy scalp or horse or something to your father so I'd be worthy of you. But you wounded me so badly I couldn't go back in and find the guys that were molesting you and cut their fucking scalps off."

"Their masks would have worked," I said to my pillow, cracking a tiny smile.

"I really wanted their nuts." He kneaded my back, slowly and gently. Then his hand slipped under my shirt, and he rubbed my back.

Finally, I relaxed. "Up a little and to the left. Yeah. That's good." Celibacy was for wusses.

He turned me over to face him. God, he looked awful. But a little smile lurked under the wounded proboscis. "I've been with my folks for the last three nights. I mean—Harley's fun, but—"

Okay, I was doomed. "She'll kill me. You probably better save the horse for her folks."

The warm hand came under my shirt front. "Nah."

"You didn't let her drive, did you? You'll need therapy."

He leaned in close with intense eyes. "She's just not my cup of tea. See, there's this other very clever woman who turns me on, big time. But she keeps making it clear that she doesn't like me. She says she has a boyfriend, she punches me, she lands me in the hospital, she yells at me, and she doesn't even say she's sorry when she hurts me."

Thunk. Thunk
. This heart would leap right out of my chest. "Then why do you like her?"

"She also ruined my shoes." He shrugged. "If I brought her father a horse, would she just spit in my face?"

I wiped my teary face with my sleeve. My mouth twitched. "Nah. But her father might hang a blue handicapped card on it and ride it to the beach. On the freeway."

He sighed and pushed his hair back. "What should I do?"

"Oh, you should definitely go over there and push her into a cold swimming pool."

He caught my gaze and held it for the length of about three library research questions, then leaned down to kiss me. And right as our lips touched, I coughed in his face, my nose bumping his wounded one.

"Ow."

My hand went up to caress his face. "Sorry. You didn’t call. How could I know where you were? Oh, you look awful. Does your beak—I mean nose—hurt bad?"

He grimaced. "It's more my ruptured disk. Boy, you're heavy, girl."

"I work at it." My hair was the height of zoo fashion. I pulled the gold afghan over my naked legs. "In some African countries, they have fattening rooms where women go just to eat gobs of cream and become sexier. Pretend that's where I've been.”

He pushed the afghan back and looked down the length of my legs, long and tan, but unshaven. "You're dangerous."

I covered up. "Hey, I said I was sorry. I really didn't mean to—"

He put a finger on my lips. "Look, I finally got my math anxiety under control last year, and now here I am plunging back into treacherous, unknown territory again, trying to figure out what to do with my old math teacher's daughter." His hand went under the cover and slowly traced my leg from hip to ankle and back. Twice.

I got chills. "Am I as bad as a quadratic equation? Or just exponents?"

"Oh, logarithms at least. Square roots of negative numbers. Imaginary numbers. In fact," his eyes blazed into mine. "You're as bad as seven times six equals fifty-two.”

"Gold, red, blue, orange.”

Then he really did kiss me, a long, hot one with his hand still caressing my legs up and down. We moved to the double bed in his room. With our drugs.

"Just one thing you should know," he said in my ear as we settled down to zone out on drugs together, both high as kites. "My parents have hired a guy with a gun to get whoever did this to me."

At the doctor's office Tuesday morning, I expected to see an old Groucho-type medic with horn-rimmed glasses. But Dr. Sydney Madden was more Doris Day, with a blonde bob and a big smile. While I searched my purse for a list of Music Man's medications, she led him into a long chat about our family, local politics, upcoming events, and his hobbies.

He flirted outrageously with her. "This doctor asked Nurse Jane if he could see the notes on a handsome patient's progress. Nurse Jane shook her head and said she didn't have the chart but he'd get a better picture from her diary anyway."

The woman seemed to eat that up, like she was just the opening act for the doctor. Then she said, "Mr. Hamilton, I'm Dr. Madden.”

"You know," he said, grinning, "One guy I know told the doctor he was having trouble breathing, and the doctor said he'd try to find a way to stop that.”

I cringed. Dr. Madden laughed. Then Dad offered her a fresh donut from his pocket. We'd bribed him again. There were more in the car. At one point, she dropped her pen and asked Music Man to give her his cane, pick the pen up, and put it on the table for her. He gave the pen to her instead.

They discussed the price of Lakers tickets, and she asked how much it would cost for the three of us to go to a home game. Dad was in heaven, but the answer was wrong. She had him draw a couple of pictures, one of a clock and one of two interlocking pentagons. Which of course brought out some old Army jokes.

"Did you hear the one about Private Jones out on his first date with a girl named Stella?" Grinning big, Music Man grabbed Dr. Madden's hand. "He kissed her hand and put it on his heart. She said his heart was beating like a drum. And you know what he said?"

Dr. Madden and I exchanged a look.

"He said it was a call to arms. Get it? A call to arms?"

Dr. Madden handed him a pad and asked him to write the joke down for her.

He wrote something quickly and continued. "And then there was this sergeant with size fourteen shoes, sort of like mine, but not as big. He went to the, uh, what d'you call it?"

"Shoeshine boy," I said.

"And after an hour, the kid ran out of shoeshine stuff, you know. What's that stuff?"

"Polish."

"Right, Rhonda. And you know what he did? He called his friend over and said, 'Hey, spit on these shoes, would you? I've—uh—run out of that stuff, uh, cream to shine them with.'"

Finally, Dr. Madden sent Music Man out to the waiting room and I felt so comfortable with her that I told her everything about Dad's past two weeks: the mood swings, irrational behavior, incontinence, falls, escapes, and misunderstandings about time of day.

"Why would a guy eat three breakfasts in one day?" I said.

"Good question. Is this his norm?"

"No." Okay. Guilt time. "Well, I'm not a very great judge. Since I moved out, I've been working, and until my mother's accident, my sister was dealing with them. They both think he's mostly stressed out since they're not around."

"And you?"

"Walking at night in the middle of the street. Hiding and throwing away people's stuff." I bit my lip.

"Does anyone have power of attorney for him?" Dr. Madden asked.

I shrugged. "Maybe my mother."

"So there's no one trying to get him committed anywhere," she said casually. "Declared incompetent."

"Look, Doctor. Nobody wants his money. We just want to get him the right treatment. The guy nearly burned the place down making breakfast last week. He ended up walking down the freeway because he ran out of gas. I don't think he's safe at home alone anymore. Could this be caused by a drug interaction? Depression? A vitamin deficiency or thyroid problem? He used to drink a lot, maybe twenty years ago, but not …" I twisted my hands and looked at the posters on her walls. One was a chart of the reproductive system. One was an ear canal. And one was a brain with neurotic plaques throughout. "It's not Alzheimer's is it?"

She held up his clock drawing. Very Salvador Dali. "This is a classic test, and it didn't go so well. He scored well on the rest of the test, which means it's not too advanced. I'll do some blood work and check everything out, but ... "

"What test?" I said.

"Our discussion. As I say, he did pretty well, but from what I've heard from you, I'm going to put him on Aricept and Nemenda right now. They're for dementia. At the UCLA Memory and Aging Research Center, he can get the complete work-up and an MRI, but honestly, if it looks like a duck, quacks like a duck, and walks like a duck …" She shrugged. “We roast it with orange sauce.” She snorted. Man, she was just like Dad.

She looked impishly at me. “You have to have a sense of humor to deal with this. Right? It’s a huge deal, long-term.”

I thought hard a minute. "But he still beats me at hearts and tells a joke well."

"Not all of the brain is affected the same way," she said. "Sometimes my patients remember surprising things and function quite well, but their judgment is awful. And their memory can be clear one day and hazy the next.”

She handed me two Rx slips: one for the drugs and one for a book called
The 36-Hour Day
. "Read this. Join a support group. There's one here on Saturday mornings. Bring your mother. You both need to learn how to deal with your dad now. Get a power of attorney for him, both kinds, legal and medical, as soon as possible, while he can still write his name. Also take the car keys away pronto. Don't confront him, argue with him, rationalize things, or explain things in great detail. You have to keep a dementia patient's life very simple, which may be a challenge for someone with his intellect. Dealing with any change is exhausting for him, as he feels he has to memorize the new situation to look normal, so he'll insist on routine."

"But his routine changes routinely," I said, confused.
While he can still write his name? Aaaccck!

She smiled. "Exactly. He'll want to be the one to make the rules to keep things static, but every day his brain does different things. If his rules aren't safe, you'll have to redirect him. Figure out what he likes and use it.”

I nodded. "Pastry." Dal the genius had figured that out. "Why is it just showing up now? I don't think anyone in his family ever had Alzheimer's. Isn't it genetic?"

She shook her head. "Hard to tell. This generation is living longer. The disease comes on gradually. Your mother may have been compensating for him. Then recent stress probably triggered an acceleration."

My other ancestors had tended to have strokes and accidents and die younger. "Will the medicine fix him so he can stay home alone?"

She said, "It won't fix him. It can slow down the progression of the disease. I'll call you with the blood test results." She paused a minute. "I know this subject is unpleasant, but with someone his size, with all that power, it may be necessary to place him in a home with qualified professionals sooner than you'd like. Especially if your mother can't handle him. You said she's not steady on her feet."

"
Place him
?" My mouth went dry as I pictured Myrtle and Bernice at Shady Acres.

She nodded. "In a lock-down facility for wanderers. I recommend this one, if there's room." She handed me a card that read:
Nadja Kay's Corner. We provide loving care when you can't.

But why couldn't I provide his loving care?

I thanked her and left with tears in my eyes. In the hall, I ducked into the restroom to regain my composure. I didn't want to take Dad away from home. He loved it there, making bacon and eggs and singing and walking his own neighborhood. But in-home caregivers had been a big bust, and they cost way too much. And what if Mom couldn't handle him? James had pushed care homes as the only solution, but Dal would never understand it if Music Man went to a care place, not after his family had kept his grandmother at home for so long. Oh, I hated being the man in the middle.