Every Happy Family by Dede Crane Page A

blames his father, because what sort of selfish moron would be so careless as to knock up his mistress not once but twice. And not even be aware of it. He’d like to meet the man just to shock him out of his dream world.
    â€œI’d feel less guilty if she was in a facility over here,” says Jill.
    â€œThat’s a second waiting game over which you have no control.”
    Jill had spent last summer living with and taking care of her mom, getting her assessed and on the wait-list for a care facility, meeting with estate lawyers and bankers and interviewing caregivers in search of someone to take over when September rolled around. Jill had settled on a kind and respectful Vietnamese woman named Lien who, after a month’s time, Nancy decided she didn’t know or like and flatly refused to let in the house. Which meant Jill had to take time off work, return to Vancouver and find someone new. The second caregiver was a ballsy Montrealer named Odile who made silver jewelry. She was a terrible cook, an even worse housekeeper, but she played cards and didn’t put up with Nancy’s moodiness. Then, just after the ordeal with Quinn, which put Jill in bed for three days, a room came up in what the social worker said was the best facility for dementia patients on the whole North Shore.
    The holidays had been gruelling. He was working holiday hours, trying to stay on top of things at home while on the phone with his distraught wife every chance he got. The worst part for Jill was having to trick her own mother out of her beloved home into the car and then abandon her at the facility. Les had come up with the pretense that Nancy’s doctor had ordered some tests that required sleeping over. After dropping Nancy off – “You’ll pick me up tomorrow, right dear?” – the nurses sent Jill home with the order not to come back for five days, at which time she could bring more clothes and some household treasures to personalize Nancy’s room. Jill had cried herself sick. This horror show was followed by having to clean out the house in order to put it on the market. The whole family helped out and it was a heartwarming couple of days, Jill putting on her best face in front of the kids. Now, months later, Les is still having to comfort her.
    â€œThere’s a clique of women in the home,” says Jill, who visited Nancy while Les was in New York, “all Mom’s age, all middle class and proud of it, who sit together in the TV room. Each has a purse upright on her lap as if she’s out visiting.”
    â€œSounds all right to me.”
    â€œAnd anticipating going home. Anticipating someone who loves her coming to take her home.”
    â€œStop torturing yourself.”
    â€œThere’s no love in those places,” she says, lifting her head to search his eyes for answers he’s not sure he has.
    â€œYou don’t know that,” he says and strokes her hair, gently forcing her head back down.
    â€œI looked in her purse for cards to play a game of rummy – which she can still do with prompting – rather than sit in that sterile room and let her introduce me to the other patients again and again. Every three minutes. And not one of them remembers having been introduced and I’m greeted in the exact same way each time, same tone, smile. You start to think you’re losing your mind. Anyway, there was nothing in it.”
    â€œNothing in what?”
    â€œHer purse. Well, there was a picture of some man in a nest of Kleenex.”
    â€œThe man was lying in Kleenex?”
    â€œThe picture.”
    â€œOh. So whose man was he?” says Les, trying to keep up.
    â€œHaven’t a clue. When I moved her in, I had to take away all her cash, credit cards, IDs... Odd symbolism to have stripped her of all identification.”
    Jill’s voice is shaky and Les pulls her closer.
    â€œBut I’d left her wallet in there with the kids’