Twice a Child

  twice

  a

  child

  a novel

  ann elia stewart

  twice a child

  Copyright © 2012, by Ann Elia Stewart.

  Cover Copyright © 2012 Sunbury Press.

  Cover painting by Anthony Stewart.

  NOTE: This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events or locales is entirely coincidental.

  All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever. For information contact Sunbury Press, Inc., Subsidiary Rights Dept., 2200 Market St., Camp Hill, PA 17011 USA or legal@sunburypress.com.

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  FIRST SUNBURY PRESS EDITION

  Printed in the United States of America

  May 2012

  Trade Paperback ISBN: 978-1-62006-070-4

  Mobipocket format (Kindle) ISBN: 978-1- 62006-071-1

  ePub format (Nook) ISBN: 978-1-62006-072-8

  Published by:

  Sunbury Press

  Camp Hill, PA

  www.sunburypress.com

  Camp Hill, Pennsylvania USA

  preface

  My father suffered from Lewy Body Dementia (LBD), a cruel and degenerative neurological disease that delivers the double blow of Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s.

  LBD, according to the Mayo Clinic, is the second most common type of progressive dementia after Alzheimer’s disease. While it causes a gradual decline in mental abilities over a period of five to seven years, it may also cause visual hallucinations which could take the form of seeing shapes, colors, people, or animals that aren’t there. A person with LBD may also carry on conversations with deceased loved ones.

  Significant fluctuations in alertness and attention, daytime drowsiness, and periods of staring into space also characterize the disease. Like Parkinson’s disease, LBD can result in rigid muscles, slowed movement, and tremors.

  In other words, the disease—for which there is no cure—plunges the loved one affected and those around him into a nightmare from which the only escape is death.

  A mini-stroke felled my father on December 3, 2007. He had been working out at the gym when he suddenly lost strength in his legs and dragged himself to the front desk. It being my mother’s seventy-ninth birthday, I had made plans to meet them both at the gym and take them out to lunch. When I arrived, I found my father leaning against the counter, the left side of his face appearing as if it had slightly melted. He could not speak without severely slurring his words, but his eyes pleaded with me to help him make sense of his sudden loss of strength.

  An ambulance ride to the Penn State Hershey Medical Center in Hershey, PA delivered my father into the hands of a team of neurologists. What’s interesting about the timing of this incident is that the day before, I had an extended telephone conversation with my father (who hated to talk on the phone) during which I tried to convince him that the “little round man” who keeps trying to kiss him is actually his wife, my mother. I had called the medical center that morning to set up an appointment with a neurologist, but the disease beat me to it.

  A definitive diagnosis of LBD, as well as Alzheimer’s disease, can only be made by autopsy where doctors find abnormal round structures or tangles that have developed in regions of the brain involved in thinking and movement. My father’s symptoms—hallucinations, rigidity, paranoia—alerted neurologists that he more than likely suffered from LBD and would soon need round-the-clock care.

  I began keeping a daily journal—eventually filling four full-sized notebooks—of observations, scenes, and conversations with my father. These daily notations helped me capture the mind of an LBD patient as it processes the world around him, a world that at once can be real and imagined.

  As baby boomers begin to enter their elder years, this disease, as well as many other forms of dementia and life-altering illnesses, will become even more prevalent; predictions of those afflicted rising from the current 4.5 million Americans to 16 million by 2050.

  For more information about Lewy Body Dementia, refer to www.mayoclinic.com or www.lbda.org.

  acknowledgments

  While writing is a solitary profession, it is certainly supported by a variety of friends, family, professionals, and even “ghosts” of beloved teachers.

  To that end, I wish to extend my most heartfelt gratitude to my mother, Frances, my partner in taking this difficult journey with our beloved husband and father, respectively; all the marvelous caregivers at Cedar Haven in Lebanon, PA, who had become an extended family and still remain so—their work to keep patients clean, fed, nurtured, and respected is so often unheralded, but is nothing short of miraculous; my loving husband, Daniel, and son, Anthony, who spent many days and nights without me during my father’s illness and the writing of this book; Margaret DeAngelis for her generous donation of space in which to write; the Elizabeth George Foundation, which had awarded me a grant to attend a writing retreat hosted by novelist Robert (Dick) Vaughan; Lee Johnson, a dear friend who seems to always have my back when it comes to all things literary and cultural, and who led me to Sunbury Press; Richard Krawiec, an extraordinary editor who reviewed an early draft of the story; Duncan W. Alderson who re-awakened my love of fiction through intense sessions at the Rabbit Hill Writers’ Studio in Lititz, PA; and Amelia Stevens, my third grade teacher who lit the fire of a lifelong love for the written word.

  "Those who love deeply never grow old; they may die of old age, but they die young."

  —Ben Franklin

  For My Poppy

  Pencil illustration by Katie Elia.

  one

  I sit among familiar faces, listen to familiar chants, see the coffin draped in white. I occupy the first pew; I suppose I’m the guest of honor. I turn to ask Mamie for a tissue because my nose starts to drip, and I discover that I am sitting in this pew with a young girl and a baby.

  “Did you need something, Grandpa?” the young girl asks me. And then I realize who she is: my granddaughter, Tina. Tina and her little brown baby. Jake. No, that’s not it. John. It starts with a J; that I know. He looks at me with huge brown eyes, and my mind shifts to a picture of a naked baby taken long ago: a baby perched on its elbows, smiling. That innocent smile where everything is new and something so easy to give is met with great reward. If I’m not mistaken, I think that baby in the photo was me.

  Joshua. The kid’s name is Joshua.

  “Grandpa?” Tina nudges me with her free hand. She nods toward the coffin and when I follow her direction, my gaze stops at the priest standing at the end of my pew. He’s extending his hand. I don’t have any money for him.

  “Peace be with you, Frank.”

  He clasps his hand over mine. It’s warm. Mine feels like a moth is flapping its wings inside it. The tremors have started up again. They come out of nowhere.

  He leans down, facing me squarely. I always appreciated that—people who can meet you eye to eye.

  “Frank, the Church can help you through this. If you need us at anytime, you call.” Then he shifts his gaze and nods at Tina. The baby’s whimpering.

  What do I need him for? I’ve got Mamie. She takes care of me, really good care.

  A great rustle fills the room. People are standing up, so I get up. My knees creak; I have to hold onto the pew in front of me. Tina’s bou
ncing that baby up and down, kissing him, talking softly to him. I bend over and kiss his head and he looks at me, upside down, with those big dark eyes.

  “She brought home a nigger baby, Frank.” That’s what Mamie said, when was that? Last week? Last month? Doesn’t matter. I told her she can’t call him that because he has our blood, too.

  “Eddie will throw a fit!” Mamie said.

  Is he here? I just can’t pick him out of a crowd anymore, been too long. But you think he’d come up and sit with me, his own father.

  People are starting to line up, file past the coffin. It’s like a big rock forcing them to choose sides. Some lady stops in front of my pew and waves her hand like she knows me.

  “Grandpa, you need to go to Communion.” Tina’s nudging me again, tugging at my elbow. I walk toward the space this guy keeps waving me toward. My God, he’s impatient. Can’t he see I’m getting there?

  I stick out my tongue, taste the yeast of the wafer. No wine. “I don’t care if they do wipe it, it still has germs. Just walk by it, Frank.” She always knew how to keep me healthy all these years. Two heart attacks and seventy-seven radioactive seeds fighting cancer in my prostate, the woman saw me through everything.

  I’m looking for Eddie. He’d be late, it’s his trademark. He’s like his mother on that one: poor planner when it comes to being on time, but I always thought it had to do with wanting the center of attention, too, if only for his entrance.

  I spot him. He’s walking up the aisle toward me. I knew he’d make it. A row of perfect white teeth greet me as he bends down and sticks his face within inches of my own. It hurts when he clasps my shoulder.

  “Hey, Uncle Frankie!” His voice is a low growl. He wants to say more, but the line keeps moving and he moves along with it. He manages to shoot a look back at me, like he’ll catch up with me later, before he sticks his tongue out at the priest.

  Eddie doesn’t have perfect white teeth. None of us Lillos do. We’re stuck with those little pointy ones crowding out the front ones.

  “Let us all give thanks to the Lord as we sit in silent offering.”

  It sounds like a wave crashing the shore when everyone sits back in their seats. I stay kneeling. My legs can’t take all this up and down stuff.

  “His teeth aren’t perfect.”

  Tina’s holding the baby in one arm, my hand in the other. We’re walking real slow behind the coffin with the lilacs and pink roses. I look around. Everyone seems familiar, but I can’t place them. I nod to the guy who called me Uncle Frankie, the guy with the perfect white teeth.

  “Looks like him, but it isn’t him.”

  “Who?” She shifts the baby to her other hip.

  “What?”

  “Who doesn’t have perfect teeth?”

  “Eddie.”

  She rolls her eyes. “Like the rest of him.”

  I wave my hand at her. I don’t want anyone to hear. It’s enough they put us at the front of this parade, her holding a baby, not being married.

  I’m surprised at how quiet Mamie’s been through all this.

  Tina steers me over to a long table and someone places a dish full of food in front of me, all the stuff Mamie doesn’t let me eat. Lasagna, sausage and peppers, pasta salad with pieces of salami and pepperoni. “Artery-cloggers,” she always says. Chocolate cake with peanut butter icing. I look around to make sure she doesn’t see me digging in.

  A young little thing comes around with a pot of coffee and dangles it above my cup. I smile. She starts to pour, but a hand comes out of nowhere, stopping her.

  “Decaf, please.”

  Tina. The baby’s sound asleep in his stroller parked right next to her. He looks familiar, too. Like a Lillo except for the skin.

  “He’s really out,” I say, but Tina can’t answer because she’s shoveling the food in: lasagna, meatballs, sausage, salad, bread. Her plate looks like Mt. Vesuvius. Between bites she looks at me and she looks just like her father did when he was caught doing something he shouldn’t be, that little shrug and big innocent eyes, the dimple.

  “I can eat in peace now,” she says, like she’s apologizing.

  She’s having a good time, let her eat.

  I’m supposed to know everyone here. There’s Mamie’s brother, Joey, still the life of the party, still bald. He’s waving to me, but then he goes right back to sucking up to some priest. He should have been a priest, that one. Never got married, went to church every day, gave a lot of money to it, too. Banker. Vouched for me on my first business. When it went under, I paid back every cent. How was I to know Reagan would ship the steel overseas? Cut me off right at the knees. And we were doing so well. Billed a million my last year.

  Me. A million dollars in receipts.

  And two heart attacks.

  That first one was tough. I was slipping away, but every time I was ready to just give in, let the darkness take the pain away, Mamie’s hand pulled me back.

  “Frank! Frank!” I heard her calling out to me. It sounded so far away, like she was on top of a mountain and I was somewhere thrashing through a jungle.

  Jesus, it hurt. Like a sledgehammer being pounded right into the middle of my chest.

  “Frank! Frank!”

  I held onto her voice.

  The kid was there, too, behind Mamie, crying.

  Maybe that’s where he is, with Mamie. He always did favor her. “Did he get here yet?”

  Tina’s shoving in another forkful. That girl can eat and never gain an ounce. Not like my Mamie. Gulps air and gains five pounds.

  “Who, Grandpa?”

  “The kid.”

  She looks at me, then at the baby sleeping in his stroller.

  “No not the baby. Eddie.”

  “Oh! Nope, didn’t get here.”

  I spot a kid at the next table, chubby, suit fits him like a sausage casing. “What about him?”

  “That’s Jason, cousin Cathy’s boy.” She wipes something off my chin. “Grandpa, that boy’s a teenager. Dad, um, Eddie is a grown man.”

  A tall, good-looking guy walks up to the table, a girl with curly red hair leaning into him. She reminds me of Mamie, but I don’t know why because Mamie doesn’t have green eyes or freckles. I start to get up, but I have to sit down right away because my legs won’t hold me. That’s been happening lately. Mamie thinks it’s because I stopped taking that damn happy pill, that’s what I call it anyway. Supposed to keep me from being sad. Just another sneaky way for doctors to make more money. Shrink the social security from the old people. Mamie says no, it’s because I wouldn’t stop thinking about all the bad stuff all the time and that it was making me really sad and hard to live with. But I stopped taking them anyway. Bad stuff’s a part of life. Deal with it, I always say.

  “Uncle Frank,” this tall, good-looking guy’s saying to me. “I don’t think you ever met Mim, my daughter.”

  The cute little thing smiles. And now I know why I’m reminded of Mamie: the chin’s unmistakable, sharp with a big dent, a dimple in the middle.

  “Where’d the red hair and freckles come from?” I ask.

  “Her mom.”

  “They’re divorced,” the girl pipes up. “Mom’s Irish.”

  I laugh because except for that chin she’s certainly an Irish lass.

  “Mim’s named after Auntie Mame, that’s what we always called her, Auntie Mame. She was so full of life. Just like in the movie.”

  “That’s for sure.” I have no idea what movie he’s talking about. Mamie’s never been in a movie. I look over the crowd because I want to find her to tell her what this nice-looking man said about her, but my view lands on a cluster of bouquets. Lots of orange and gold and wheat stalks. A few vases with roses. There’s one big one holding what looks like at least fifty white roses. Maybe more. I get up, this time waiting for my legs to catch up to my will, push back my chair, and walk past the young man and little redhead toward that bouquet of white roses.

  “Poor thing.”

  “Where
’s he’s going?”

  “Didn’t he get old?”

  I hear what they’re saying, and I don’t care if it’s not too complimentary. Hell, I am old. I can’t stand the scent these flowers throw off. Smells like a damn funeral parlor. I sneeze, one after another, but I notice the white roses are arranged by clusters of ten, seven in total. In the middle are five red roses. The whole thing’s held together with a purple ribbon.

  Mamie loves purple. Painted the dining room purple. I wouldn’t let her do the bedroom—just too girly for me—but let her have her dining room.

  My legs give out right there in front of all those flowers and the giant cluster of white roses, in front of a room filled with people who all look familiar, but the only ones I really know for sure are Mamie, Joey, Tina, and her baby.

  People are crowding around asking me if I’m all right. The room behind me explodes with sound. Chairs drag across the floor, dishes clatter against each other, and then a murmur falls over the room. Before I’m led away I reach out and snatch the tag from the white roses. Someone catches the vase as it teeters on the stand. I pocket the tag for later, but I already know what it says because it was typed and easy to read.

  “From your loving son and daughter-in-law, Eddie and Vi. We’ll see you later, Mom.”

  I must have taken a nap on the ride home, because now I’m sitting in my favorite chair and someone’s in the kitchen, probably Mamie. She’s always in the kitchen.

  “Grandpa, I arranged your pills for the week. I want you to take a look at this.”

  “Where’s your Grandma?” I’m waiting for Mamie to pop her head out of the kitchen.

  Tina’s brow wrinkles, like she’s trying to figure something out. “She’s in heaven, Grandpa. We were just at her funeral.”