Limes and cake, that was all Finch wanted these days, Mary thought, staring up at the cloudy sky from the kitchen window and wondering if she was putting out enough food for her husband.
He used to get his own, right out of the refrigerator most of the time, making himself baloney and mayonnaise sandwiches on white bread, ignoring the wheat bread and low fat turkey she carefully chose at the supermarket to keep them healthier .
Healthier. That was before Finch was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s two years ago, before they ran around taking vacations, knowing that time was limited, but not knowing how much time there would be.
It took her months before she calmed down and realized that one of them could have been killed and there would’ve been no time to plan. At those moments, she would think at least we know.
Other times knowing seemed like a certain form of hell, a level even Dante left out of his circles.
“Do you have my lime slices?” Finch asked, sitting at the kitchen table. He was having a good day, a somewhat coherent day.
“Yes, dear,” she said. “See?” She pointed at the carefully cut up lime slices which she arranged like a clock on the plate. In the middle she’d put a rectangular slice of chocolate cake. She was tempted to put clock hands and mark the hours on it.
Nice, she thought. Making fun of her spouse with Alzheimer’s.
But some days there seemed to be nothing else to do about it. To keep her own sanity, she had to find some way to find humor in the situation.
She watched as Finch carefully lifted a slice of lime to his lips.
“Mmm,” he said. “My tea. Is it ready?”
Yes, she forgot his damned tea. For this she had left a challenging job, she thought, as she trudged into the kitchen to get his cup of green tea out of the microwave. A good sign of burnout: hating when the spouse with Alzheimer’s had to remind her of things to do.
She was tempted to slam it in front of him when she returned and found him stuffing the last of the cake into his mouth with both hands like an eight year old. She reminded herself that he couldn’t help it, at least some of it. Some of his annoying behavior was simply part and parcel of being Finch. Their 30 year marriage, although it had survived those quirks and differences, used to have a lot more space to accommodate them.
“I’ll be upstairs,” Mary said, not wanting to watch him eat the rest of the limes. The lime thing. What he really wanted was a Margarita, but with the help of the doctor, she figured out a way to make him think that what he was craving was limes. Finch, a recovering alcoholic, hadn’t had a drink in 25 years. With the Alzheimer’s in full swing, she couldn’t even imagine what would happen if he got a Margarita in him.
Finch with Alzheimer’s on booze. Not a pretty thought.
He didn’t answer her, and Mary climbed the stairs to their second floor colonial, disappearing into her arts and crafts room, which used to be their daughter Leslie’s bedroom. Leslie had died of cancer in her teens and the room had turned into a memorial for years-at least until Finch was diagnosed with his Alzheimer’s. That was the day Mary seemed to be able to let go. She took down the KISS posters, emptied the dresser drawers and packed up most of Leslie’s adolescent possessions. Finch stood in the hallway watching her, silently, his arms crossing his chest.
“I may need to keep this,” he said, picking up one of the KISS posters. It took her a minute to realize that the acronym keep it simple stupid was what he was referring to, an Alcoholics Anonymous saying he relied on for many years when he first became sober.
She smiled at him through hot tears. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I feel like I ruined too many good years grieving Leslie. And now we have this to contend with. I feel rather stupid.”
“My dear,” Finch said, putting the poster down, “it was always fine with me that you took as much time as you needed. And it still is.”
Mary brushed away a tear at the memory. She sat at her sewing machine, picking up a blouse she was making for her granddaughter Jocelyn. Their other child, Harold, grew up, married and fathered six children, giving Mary four granddaughters and two grandsons. All of them were close, which came in handy now that Finch was going downhill more rapidly.
The sewing machine hummed predictably as Mary darted the material in and out expertly.
She heard a bang downstairs. Quickly Mary ran out of the room, thinking that Finch had fallen, but when she got to the kitchen it was empty. The table was cleared. She walked into the dining room, the living room, and finally out to the deck.
Finch was standing by their rusty old barbecue, stacking coals inside. “I thought I’d make us some real food,” he said. He was wearing his old apron, with the picture of a chef on it and the words Daddy’s cooking tonight penciled across the bottom. Leslie and Harold had bought it for him weeks before Leslie died.
“But you’ve already eaten and I’m not hungry,” she said.
“The kids are always hungry. I’ll make some burgers.”
“The kids aren’t here today, honey,” she said. “Harold’s taken them on vacation.”
Finch hesitated. “Nonsense. You tell Leslie and Harold to tell their friends that today’s a family day and we’re going to eat together, the four of us.”
She didn’t have the heart to explain to him, yet again, that Leslie was dead, that Harold no longer lived with them and was a middle aged father himself. Instead she said “They’ve already left, dear.”
“Oh. That’s too bad. I don’t understand why no one asks my permission to do anything around here anymore, Mary. Things are out of control.” Finch brightened. “Maybe I should just cook burgers for us and we can save the leftovers for when they get home tonight. They’ll be hungry. Kids are always hungry.”
“Finch,” she said wearily, “it’s a sweet idea, but I’m not hungry. Why don’t you go inside and watch a ballgame?”
“Alright, I can take a hint.” Finch took off his apron and went into the kitchen to hang it on a hook. “I can watch a game but none of the good pitchers are around anymore.”
“I know, dear,” she said. Mary watched as he went into the living room, turned the TV on, and sat muttering at the screen. When she went upstairs, he was watching The View. A year ago she would’ve tried to find him a ballgame, but she was too tired to do anything but go back upstairs and lose herself in her sewing.
The doorbell rang the moment she sat down at her sewing machine and she jumped up again, knowing that letting Finch handle it could be disastrous. Not only had he been talked into buying cartons of stuff they didn’t need or donating large checks to organizations she never heard of, but if he was in the wrong mood, he would say things to neighbors and friends that left them not speaking to her.
When she arrived at the bottom of the steps, Finch was already closing the door.
“Who was it, dear?” she asked.
He turned around. “Leslie. She forgot her key. So I gave her another one.”
Mary ducked past him, opened the door and looked up and down the block. No one was out there. “Did you really give someone a key?” she asked, half panicked.
“Is there a problem with giving our own daughter a key? She’s certainly old enough.”
“Leslie is dead, Finch,” Mary said. She could hear her voice cracking. Anger flowed through her, unfair anger. It wasn’t Finch’s fault, she told herself again and again. He couldn’t help it.
Finch had his usual reaction to any update on reality. He ignored her and went back to watching Barbara Walters and Whoopi Goldberg. “The Mets are winning,” he said to her after a few minutes.
She stood in the hallway, shaking. She envied him the ability to escape the reality of the painful death of their daughter.
He was perfectly content , watching what he thought was a baseball game. She wondered if he did that to please her on some level. Finch always told her he was watching a ballgame whenever the TV was on, even if Charlton Heston was driving a chariot on the screen.
“It’s a commercial,” he said to her one night when she told him that Ben Hur was not a baseball game.
Mary went into the kitchen and sat at the table. Suddenly she wondered where the remains of Finch’s lunch were. She checked the sink, but the dishes weren’t there. Nor were they in the dishwasher. She looked out into the backyard and saw the distinct glint of her china sparkling from the grass below the deck. Some squirrels were having a feast on lime rinds and the remains of the cake crumbs.
She went out to the backyard, sat on the deck steps and watched. Suddenly she felt an arm on her shoulder.
“They look like they’re having fun, don’t they?” Finch said.
She nodded. “Yes they do.”
“I thought they would.”
“That was a nice thing to do, Finch,” she said.
He sat next to her. “You’re a very generous woman, Mary,” he said.
In that moment he looked and sounded as clear as ever to her. She took a mental snapshot of it, leaned over and hugged him.
Copyright 2008 Ruth Harrigan
