Portrait of the Author as a 90-Year-Old with Dementia

The car rolls along. On the other side of the window, the tall pines are a dark-green blur. The play button on my Walkman sticks. I press STOP. I press REWIND. I listen to the same Garth Brooks song again and again. My mother reaches back and hands me a drooping stick of red licorice. I take it from her and taste cherries when I bite into it. In the back of the truck, the dog cries in her kennel. She loves the cabin, but she hates the trips up there. 

“Ms. Sowden,” says the weird girl who is always interrupting me. “It’s time for your pills.”

“Leave Lady alone,” I tell her. “She hates the car. She’ll be fine when we get to the cabin. Just leave her be.”

“Take your pills,” the weird girl says again. How did she get in the car? Nobody ever rides in this car other than me, Dad, Mom and Lady. 

Lady hates the car. 

The weird girl shoves a cup in my face. It has three pills in it. One is round and mint-green. One is long and pink. The last one is big and white. I don’t know how I will swallow it. 

“Come on, Ms. Sowden,” she says, “Down the hatch.”

Hatch like that time we had to ride in an airplane. I was so sick that day. Mom took me into a bathroom to throw up. I only remember the white sink. Dad was the one flying the plane. I only remember the white sink and Mom helping me get clean again. 

I swallow the pills. One of them -- the big white one -- gets stuck in my throat. The weird girl hands me some water. It tastes bad. It tastes -- 

Mom, Dad, Lady, the car, the blurry trees -- they vanish. In their place, there is a bright, sunny window and a small table. The weird girl is standing behind the other end of it. Her shirt is green. Her pants are green. A square pinned to her green shirt says “Carolyn, RN.”

“Carolyn,” I say to her. I feel so drowsy. 

“Good girl,” she says to me. I’m annoyed. I’m not five. It’s just like that time in church, when they called me a ‘precious little lamb.’ 

“I am NOT precious and I am NOT a little lamb!” I told Mom. 

Mom. Mom’s dead. She’s been dead for twenty years. She was 100 years old and still reading other people’s books and making corrections in the margins. 100 years old and still working. 

When was the last time I worked? When was the last time I was good for something?

“Do you need the toilet?” the weird girl asks. 

“Mind your own business,” I snarl at her, shoving her hand away. 

“I’ll come back later,” she says. 

There’s always music on in this place. Music from our lives. Britney Spears. Christina Aguilera. The Backstreet Boys. This is not my music, but they won’t play Alice in Chains, or Nirvana, or Soundgarden, or Pearl Jam. That would excite us too much. God forbid we should check out while listening to a grunge classic. 

I play Alice in Chains in my head. 

I’m in my room. The walls are baby blue with unicorns dancing just below the popcorn ceiling. A large black boombox sits on top of a hand-me-down table. My fingers rake the blue-and-white Berber carpet as the harmonies wash over me. Next to my bed, Kurt Cobain sings from the torn-out pages of magazines. 

Lady flops down on the floor next to me, her coat the color of toast. I let my fingers graze her velvety ears over and over and over…

Glass breaks. Who is that old man doing all that yelling? What am I doing here with all these old people? My great-grandmother must be in here somewhere. She’s the only one who could be in a place like this. What room is she in? 

“What room is Alice Anderson in?” I ask.

The man behind the desk wrinkles his forehead. Why doesn't he just look on this list? He should know what room she is in. Where is Dad? He should be able to straighten this out. Dad brought me here. Dad always wants to see Great-Grandma Anderson. 

“Dad,” I call out to him. He turns. “They can’t find Grandma Anderson on this list.” 

Dad comes to me and takes me by the arm. I pull my arm away. I don’t like when he grabs my arm like that.

“Let’s go to your room,” Dad says. He leads me down the hall. It’s a long, white hall. Like school. I don’t want to go to school. I don’t like Ms. Czech. She doesn’t know anything. I had better math grades with the other teacher. 

“No,” I say to Dad. “I want the other teacher.” 

“Settle down,” Dad says. 

There’s a bed. It’s small. In another small bed, an old lady in a diaper is sleeping.

“I don’t want to sleep here,” I tell Dad. “I want to go home.”

“Just rest,” he says, and turns on the TV. 

I recognize the movie right away. It’s Titanic. I was thirteen when this movie came out. I saw it in the theater at Apache 6. They tore down the Apache mall to build jewelry stores and apartments for old people. 

“Feel better?” asks a young man. Not Dad. That’s Jeremy. Dad is dead. Jeremy takes care of us. 

The old lady on the screen. She’s dead. The actress who played the younger version of her is dead. The actor with the blonde hair is dead. The little Irish girl with the wavy chestnut hair -- is she dead too? 

We’ve lived too long. Years ago, that’s what my grandmother said to me. There were eight children in her family, and there were only three of them left. Just my grandmother and her two brothers. She knew them, but they didn’t know her. 

We’ve lived too long. 

I close my eyes. I open them again and watch Titanic set sail. Leonardo is King of the World. 

I’m thirteen again. Thirteen forever. 

Lady cries. Mom’s taking her to the vet. Mom will come back alone. The next day, we’ll get a German Shephard-black lab named Beauty. And after Beauty, we’ll get Fannie. Fannie will meet Dodger on her way out. And after Dodger…

Before Lady, there was Charlie. And before Charlie, there was Pepper. There was Tippy and Trixie and Tuffy. There were cats: Midnight and Baby. And a canary: Pepe. There were fish who didn’t have any names. 

Sometimes, people bring their dogs for an hour. I get to pet a soft head and stare into big wet eyes while a long pink tongue lashes my wrist. And then the dog leaves and it’s like going from color to black and white. 

Jeremy brings me food. I could eat in the dining hall at a table with people who talk but they don’t let me. It’s broiled chicken and green beans, again. He watches while I eat so I don’t choke. I wish he’d go away. 

I want Dad to leave me alone. I just want to be in my room listening to my Nirvana CDs. Is that so much to ask? 

“Leave me alone,” I spit, fibers of chicken meat stuck in my teeth. “I have to get ready. I’m going to the dance.”

“It’s bedtime,” Jeremy says. He’s holding up my pajamas. Dad has got to be out of his mind. I am way too old for anyone to dress me. 

Bedtime? It’s still light out. I can stay up until 11. Mom said so. 

I try to punch Jeremy but he holds me down on the tiny bed, his knee digging into my hip as he yanks off my shirt and pulls the pajamas down over my head. 

“I hate you,” I say to him, but his back is turned. He thrusts another little plastic cup into my hand and tells me to take the pills. Two oblong pink ones. I know what they are. Benadryl. They want me knocked out for the night. I swallow the pills and let Jeremy pull the sheets over my legs. He shuts off the lights and disappears on the other side of the door. 

It’s darker but not like it was at the cabin, up north. At the cabin, the dark was like a blindfold. The beds were in a loft and Lady couldn’t climb the ladder, so she slept alone in front of the fire. 

In the blackness, an owl hoots, its voice echoing across the lake. I breathe deeply. Let it be tonight. If not tonight, let it be soon. It’s time to go. 

I let go.