Lie of the Needle(60)
I closed my eyes briefly as I tried to control my anger, my disappointment. She needed my love and support now, not recrimination. “I need to let the members know,” I told her. “I’ll be right back.”
With an effort, I stood and walked out into the foyer, where I made a call to Eleanor that we had to have an emergency meeting of the Historical Society, and gave her a brief rundown of the catastrophe. She said she would round up as many members as she could and meet me at Ruth’s house. I also left a message for Joe with the news, saying I might be home late.
I walked back into the living room. Ruth hadn’t moved from her prone position on the chair. “Ruth, the society members should be here soon. Are you hungry? I brought some dinner.”
She shook her head of spiky hair. “Sorry, but I don’t feel like eating. You go ahead if you’d like.”
“I think I lost my appetite, too. How about an iced tea?”
She wiped at her eyeliner-smudged cheeks. “Actually, I’d rather have some coffee.”
“Come on, let’s go into the kitchen.” I put an arm around her, led her into the kitchen with its long stainless steel table, much like a prep station in a restaurant, and handed her a box of tissues. I put the stromboli and salad away in the fridge that was already packed full of food. Probably leftovers from the shivah.
Stanley had been an enthusiastic cook, and this addition to the house was a real chef’s kitchen. In contrast to the rest of the elegant old house, it was super modern, with light cabinets, yards of gleaming stainless, tons of gadgets, a commercial stove, and two dishwashers.
The coffee machine itself was a fabulous affair, capable of producing cappuccino and espresso as well as regular java, and I stared at it for a moment to figure out its bells and whistles.
“That’s when I first realized something was wrong with Stanley,” Ruth said as she watched me grind some Kona beans. “He was standing in front of that coffeemaker one Saturday morning, just staring at it. I asked him what was wrong, and he said he couldn’t remember how to do it.”
I glanced over my shoulder at her.
“I was in denial for such a long time. I told myself it was just senior moments. I mean, we all have those, right?”
“Oh, sure,” I said as I filled the filter. “Heck, I often go upstairs and then wonder what I went up there for.”
“It’s so hard to wrap your mind around the fact that things have changed, and they’re never going to get better. He’s never going to get better.” She plucked another tissue out of the box and wiped at the streaks under her eyes. “It’s the shame, Daisy. It takes so long for you to get past that, to say you need help, and by then it’s too late.”
A troubling thought popped into my mind. Joe was often forgetful and sometimes did quirky things. Should I be watching him for subtle signs? I took two blue china mugs out of the cupboard and hunted around for the sugar.
“Stanley and I did everything we could. We did exhaustive research on the disease, we got him the best doctors, the best medicine. Because he’d worked for a pharmaceutical company, he was still in touch with people who were on the cutting edge of research. He even tried an investigational drug that kept him stable for a while.”
I sat at the table across from her. “Did he know what was happening to him?”
“Yes—that’s the awful part about Alzheimer’s. It doesn’t take away your intelligence. He said he could feel himself changing bit by bit, like another tiny piece of his brain was being pared away. He started using the wrong words for things because he couldn’t remember the right one. We made jokes of it, because it was easier to laugh than cry.”