A few claps, which is what I expected, but the show must go on.
I demonstrate the movement with Jackson, showing how we will promenade around the room. "Now the best way to learn the tango is for everyone to get up and give it a go, so if you want to come up, now's the time. Come on, Maggie. You can get a turn with big, beefy Jackson, but you have to give him back."
She giggles. "I don't think I will."
I head to Uncle Randy and help him to his feet. Jackson takes Maggie's hand and leads her onto the area we're using as the dance space while a few other residents and a couple of family members join us. I start the music, and we begin.
I work with Randy, keeping it simple because I don't want to frustrate him by doing anything that might throw him.
"Oh, dammit," he says as I step on his foot.
"That was my fault," I say. "Calm down. It's fine."
"No. It wasn't right. Just give me a minute. I was really good at this."
Jackson's dancing with Maggie, making their way in a circle around the room with some of the other dance partners. "Oh, what strong hands you have," she tells him.
Don't I know it?
Randy and I start up again and get back into our rhythm.
He smiles as we start going pretty good, but then he stumbles another time.
He stops where he is, glancing around uneasily.
"Why am I off? It's just not working. Is it you or me?"
"You're doing fine. We're fine. Let's keep going."
He breathes heavily as he glances around the room. "Where's Tim? I want to dance with Tim. Is Tim here?"
His tone is harsh, aggressive. I glance around the room, noticing the nurses eyeing us. One gets up and starts our way.
If he loses it, they're going to make this worse.
But my palms are sweating as I try to keep it together for him. For all of us.
"It's fine. Everything's fine. We're just learning a dance right now, Randy. You like to dance."
"Why isn't Tim here?"
A nurse approaches. "Randy, come on. I can take you back to your room."
"I don't want to go anywhere right now!" he shouts.
And the others in the room have stopped dancing, everyone waiting to see what happens with Randy.
"Come on. Nothing's wrong," the nurse says. "We're just going to take a break, all right?"
I look to Jackson and then eye my laptop, hoping he'll understand my cue. He excuses himself with Maggie and heads over and cuts off the music while the nurse and I continue working to soothe Randy. But he's becoming increasingly agitated.
"Stop talking to me like a kid," he tells the nurse.
I pull out my phone and hit my emergency backup, blasting Barbara Streisand and Donna Summer's "No More Tears."
This is my go-to song for him because it's one he's listened to for as long as I've known him-one he enjoyed well before I was even in his life very much, so it'll take his disease that much longer to tear it from his memory.
It's the perfect diversion.
His gaze shifts about, his expression stiff.
His lips curl into a smile as he recognizes the song. The light returns to his eyes, the ease, and he starts swaying to the music.
"It's my song," he says as he sings to the song, knowing every word without fail.
So interesting the way the mind works. The things he remembers perfectly that seem so trivial, but the important things that elude him sometimes.
"Yeah. It's all good, Randy. All good. Let's just dance."
We dance the way we might have when he first started taking me out to clubs, and as the song comes to an end, I tell him we can dance some more if we go back to his room. Jackson and the nurse accompany us back, and I dance with him some more before he's given some medicine to calm him down. Once he's settled, Jackson and I head out to grab him a snack. As we reach the vending machine in the cafeteria, I get out a dollar bill and start straightening it to get it in the slot.
"You okay?" He rubs the back of my neck. "That was a close call," Jackson says.
"Right? We keep having more and more of those. In the beginning, it was just him forgetting what he ordered at a restaurant or why I was taking him somewhere. Grandpa had Alzheimer's, so we saw the signs … even Randy did. I encouraged him to see a doctor, and they evaluated him and determined it was early-onset. For a while, we could manage. He'd make little notes for himself, reminders in case he'd forget to do something. He was lucky that he could take meds in the beginning. Most people, they can't until later, but he was part of a study to see the effects of long-term usage. It gave him a little help, for a while, until he started going downhill. He had a partner. A guy he was with for … well, a very long time, before I even came into his life. His name was Tim, and he couldn't handle it, so he left. That's when Randy came up with Cypress Grove as a solution. I didn't want to bring him here, but he insisted. He said he didn't want to burden anyone. And he convinced me that it was for the best. I guess it is since at least I can still work to pay for this."