Sweet Roll

The first time I meet my mother’s roommate, MultiMother, she insists that she has to get home because she has 63 kids to take care of.  Her grey hair and bifocals hint that she is fifteen years older than my mother, but she walks, talks, and reads better than almost every other resident in the Memory Unit.  Her ability to reason is also present, and it results in constant questions about why the doors are locked and why she cannot leave.  At least twice, she steals the facility phone and calls 9-1-1.  Breathlessly, she informs the operator that she has been kidnapped.  On the first occasion, the rescue department sends a police officer to look into the claim.  The second time, Nurse grabs the phone and tells the operator to look at the caller i.d.  The operator pauses and then laughs from the other end of the line before telling Nurse to keep better tabs on the phone.

My sister and I visit Mother a week or so after she begins sharing a room with MultiMother.  The weather is sunny and not too hot, so we take a stroll around the sidewalk before pausing at a metal glider in the courtyard to let Mother read her latest periodical.  As we swing gently, Mother flipping through the remnants of a college alumni magazine, we notice something on one of the pages looks out of place.  Upon further investigation, we decipher one neat line of cursive scrawled along the bottom of the page: “Help—We have been kidnapped.  Send help!!”

The same message is scribbled in the margin at the top of the page.  Between paragraphs halfway down the article, the handwriting appears again, only this time it trails off into a squiggly line after a few words.  My sister and I chuckle at what can only be MultiMother’s attempt at a message in a bottle.  Our amusement is not spiteful, but something else that is harder to explain.  Maybe a critique of her logic?  Pleas for help written three times on one piece of paper and given to my mother….  How far was she expecting the message to go?  Perhaps further than messages she wrote on other items that she tried to flush down the toilet (gloves, magazines, etc.). 

About every ten minutes, MultiMother asks where her husband is.  Nurse explains that he is in a neighboring town recovering from surgery.  Sometimes MultiMother carries around a slip of paper with this explanation, and every time she asks, Nurse tells her to read the paper.  She reads the words out loud, and ten minutes later follows Nurse around to ask again.  My sister and I notice new photos of her granddaughters appear every so often, so we assume her family comes to visit, but she never seems to remember later.  She just knows she needs to get home to them.

On a summer afternoon when the temperature threatens to melt the sidewalk, Nurse serves ice cream cones to the residents.  As she watches my mother devour her serving, MultiMother complains that she should get some ice cream, too.  Nurse laughs and reminds her about the three cones she already ate.  MultiMother is undeterred and continues pestering until she gets another cone.  For ten minutes, she lounges at one of the dining room tables and comments, to no one in particular, how good every bite tastes.  Less than an hour later, she laments that she did not get any ice cream, and boy, would it taste good.

MultiMother follows me around when I visit my mother.  She tells me that the woman I am with is (alternately) her daughter and then later her sister, and sometimes this changes in the same introduction.  The first time she tells me this, I correct her with, No, she is my mother.  Her eyes start to sparkle and she asks, “You’re my granddaughter?”  Her voice is laced with excitement.  I correct her right away and explain that No, this is my mother and she is your roommate.  The conversation disintegrates from there as a new realization sets in.  “Where’s my husband?” she asks.  I give the explanation Nurse repeats so often.  “Where are my kids?  I need to get home and take care of them,” she tries again.  I assure her that they want her to relax like she’s on vacation.  “By myself?” she asks as is if this is the most absurd answer she has ever heard. At this point she seems to realize something possibly nefarious is going on.  “Where’s my purse?” she asks. “Where’s my coat? Where’s my husband?”

My mother does not pay much attention to MultiMother or really react to her presence at all, even as MultiMother tugs her sleeves and disparages, “Louise Jane, what’s on your shirt?” [drool, usually, and remnants of breakfast].  When LadiesMan comes around, he states, in a voice that is firm and convincing, that my mother is his wife.  This causes MultiMother to back away, her self-doubt evident as she frowns and sighs.  I advise LadiesMan to keep walking.  He asks if I’m her mother, and I tell him to go to his room. 

Most of my visits to the Memory Unit are in the evenings so I can help with supper and getting my mother ready for bed.  This is also a time when several residents gather in the living room to watch television, including MultiMother.  When I help Mother to bed, MultiMother usually follows.  On these nights, we are both either daughters or sisters, and she kisses both our foreheads and recites the Lord’s Prayer before crawling into her twin bed on the other side of the room.  After I leave, she wakes my mother to make sure she is comfortable.  Once my mother is awake, she will not stay in her bed, and she roams the halls until practically falling asleep standing up.  MultiMother so consistently disrupts my mother’s sleep that Nurse implements the policy that my mother cannot go to bed until after MultiMother has fallen asleep.

Every night after supper, MultiMother asks Nurse 1. “Have you seen my husband?” and 2. “Do you have a toothpick?”  After Nurse sighs and tells her “No,” and “why don’t you sit in the living room and watch TV,” MultiMother saunters our direction and asks me her two questions.  After experimenting with several variations, I tell MultiMother that her husband is out with the guys.  For the first two months, she laughs and admits that he needs some time for fun.  She chuckles twenty minutes later when she asks again, and twenty minutes after that.  After five months, she accepts my fib but does not laugh.  Nurse continues to insist that he is in rehab, and I do not have the courage to find out if that is really true.  Maybe he passed away, or she is too much for him to handle?  Lying to MultiMother is easier if I can imagine the possibility that he is out with the guys.  MultiMother is relentless in her asking, and when she hears an answer that seems okay, she will ask the question more often than when receiving an answer more troubling. 

As we lounge on the variety of rocking chairs and loveseats in the living room, weekend after weekend, MultiMother and I recite the same conversation almost every evening.  She asks about her husband, and then where the toothpicks are, and then tells me I shouldn’t get old and to “live it up while you’re still young,” and then she asks about her husband again.  “And he didn’t say goodbye to me?” she asks.  I reassure her that he will be home late and she should not wait up for him.  “You know,” she says, “I’m used to being busy all day.  Between my kids and his kids, we have 58 kids to take care of… all that cooking and cleaning!  I could eat a full meal.”  Here she pauses.  “But now, I lost my memory and don’t do anything.  I don’t need to eat this much anymore.  Don’t get old.  It’s no fun getting old.  Live it up while you’re young.”

I am so used to the repetitive content of our conversations that one evening a new story creeps in and I almost miss it.  MultiMother explains, again, how busy she used to be while running the household with so many children and “cooking for the men,” when she admits that she was a pretty good baker.  “I used to make sweet rolls,” she mentions and smiles.  “First I made about four pans to feed everyone, but then I kept having to make more and more, and then I was making eight and twelve pans and that wasn’t enough, and after that I made so many I didn’t even count them.”  The corners of her mouth tilt slightly upward and her eyes glide across these hidden memories, “I made so many, they called me Sweet Roll.”

After getting Mother ready for bed one evening, we sit in the living room and watch a black and white movie on one of the cable channels.  MultiMother is still lingering over her plate in the dining room, even as all the residents disband to their rooms or the television area.  Her back is turned toward me, yet she is noticeably hunching forward a little more than usual.  She seems very small in the open room.  Nurse clanks dishes in the kitchen while stuffing the dishwasher.  MultiMother eventually deposits her plate next to the sink and points to her mouth.  “My tooth--” she starts.  “No MultiMother, we don’t have any toothpicks,” Nurse cuts her off as Gatherer scoots by and reaches for the trashcan.  I track MultiMother’s retreat from the kitchen.  She drags her feet while keeping her eyes downcast.  When she is within earshot, I ask if she is okay.  MultiMother lifts her head and answers quietly, “I lost a tooth.”  She holds out a Kleenex, folded in half four times, as evidence.  When I ask if she told Nurse, MultiMother’s voice shakes, “She didn’t care…she told me to go to my room.”  Tears fill her eyes, and I notice something else there: fear and desperation.  I motion her to sit with us for a while, and she agrees almost immediately.  She exhibits the tooth, and where it came out, and explains, “I was just eating, and it dropped right onto my plate. It didn’t hurt or nothing.  This hasn’t happened to me before.”  After about twenty minutes, she decides to take the tooth to her room.  She passes Nurse in the hallway, and neither says anything to the other.  I pull Nurse aside and explain about the tooth.  “No, we don’t have any toothpicks,” Nurse replies quickly.  I shake my head and repeat, a little slower, that MultiMother lost her tooth.  Nurse is genuinely surprised and exclaims, “I didn’t know that.  She just pointed to her mouth and asked for a toothpick!”  Turning on her heel, she sprints after MultiMother to assess the situation further. 

After Thanksgiving, Nurse assembles a large Christmas tree in the living room of the Memory Unit.  Dozens of red lights and candy canes adorn the fake pine tree, which matches a bright green wreath hung over the gas fireplace.  The decorations are the topic of most after-dinner conversations, not only with MultiMother, but also with my mother, LadiesMan, Hullo, and AllDaySitter.  We all agree that they are lovely, but one evening the conversation brings MultiMother to tears.  “Where’s my husband?” she asks.  Desperation resonates in her voice, “He’s never here.  I lost my memory… did I lose my husband, too? Where’s my family?”  She holds her forehead in her hand and admits quietly, “I feel so alone.”

Without thinking, I kneel by her chair and look her in the eyes.  Squeezing her hand gently, I tell her the truth: “Sweet Roll, you have us.  And we have you.  You are not alone.”