Four Generations of Help
or
Alzheimer's as Story-helper
A story by XXscribbler
Jerry was the only man at the table -- or in the house - at the moment, all the other males having gone off on a shopping expedition that would include lunch and most likely take the entire afternoon.
Midmorning now, and the homebodies were seated in the big kitchen, consuming coffee and cake -- Jerry plus four generations of women from his "second family". Even without a trained taxonomist's eye one could follow the physical characteristics from generation to generation. All were strong, good-looking, intelligent and strikingly independent, all highly life-capable, and accomplished in their chosen fields.
The generations ran thus - great-grandma Maureen (84); grandma Jeannie (56); mother Barbara (35) and her childless sister Caroline (33); finally terminating in Barbara's daughter Kathy, the current youngest generation. Jeannie's husband Carl was Jerry's closest running-buddy and had been so for decades -- the entire family had been runners in the same club, which was the underlying source of Jerry's connections to various family members.
Some of those connections had become extraordinarily close -- and in every case were completely unknown to anyone save the active participants.
Despite her well-developed Alzheimer's, Maureen the Matriarch was at the head of the table in her accustomed place, still showing signs of earlier handsomeness, inhabiting a body that hadn't yet failed her as her brain had. She had been a powerful personality -- a teenaged advocate and practitioner of free love and, to an embarrassing extent, a lifelong advocate of total freedom of speech -- any topic, anywhere, any time, any audience. That propensity had regularly mortified her family over the years. Maureen eventually married and produced Jeannie - who then rebelled by being seriously conservative.
Maureen divorced at age 50 and for nearly three decades thereafter cut a wide, long swath through the accessible males she encountered, with no regard whatever for any aspect of a target's "formal eligibility" for such shenanigans -- particularly ignoring age or marital status. Her philosophy, often and strongly expressed, was simply "What happens between two adults is THEIR BUSINESS ONLY!"
Maureen exhibited a rare form of sudden-onset Alzheimer's that puzzled even doctors whose full-time profession it was to fail to understand the disease. Only about five years in, she now had no short-term memory whatever, but seemed otherwise largely mentally okay, at least superficially.
Long-term memories, say for events fifteen or twenty years past, were routinely accessible: she could discuss them, but not remember --in the present- doing so! She carried on apparently rational conversations, but the erase button was permanently depressed, about half a second behind her mouth. As a result, she was actually interesting company, until one had heard a particular story six times and realized that it was going to repeat indefinitely. Still bright, cheerful, personable and engaging, she couldn't recall one's name from minute to minute, had to be reintroduced even to her to her daughter and grand-daughters during every visit.
What made her condition even more wrenching, and which drove the medicos uniformly bonkers, were her periods of absolute lucidity, moments that were scarce and randomly timed, and equally random in length -- ten seconds, two minutes, occasionally close to an hour.
It was a characteristic of her special condition that when lucidity struck she would not participate in whatever talk had been going on around her, rather she always would simply launch into a conversation of her own making and direction -- it would be clear, logical, perfectly rational, two-way -- but it would be on a subject of her choice and it would proceed down that path until some biochemical switch flipped in her brain -- at which point she would revert completely, a pure step-function, no warning. Dealing with her in that 'normal-again!' state and then seeing her regress instantaneously was a horrible experience.
Today was just a routine family get-together. Generalized chit-chat, bits and pieces of several conversations interleaving.
Jerry was sitting closest to Maureen when her head came up significantly and the look in her eyes changed, as did the whole tenor of her body. Jerry watched as she quickly, acutely inventoried the group, a tiny smile trying to break through. The hair on his neck rose -- even though he'd never been through one of her episodes, he knew of them and could tell at once -- Maureen was inside there, behind the eyes, aware and functioning.
He said nothing, just studied her.
Maureen scanned the group again, made perfect eye-contact with Jerry, obviously recognized him, smiled, laid her hand atop his, squeezed quite firmly. The motion stopped conversation, turned all heads Maureen's way. Everyone knew instantly what was happening, and they all just waited, breathless.
"Well! Ladies! You're being boring, which is a true sin! We need a better topic! So - a question, please! Just to assuage my own curiosity. Which of you, my lusty offspring, have taken proper advantage of this lovely man sitting here next to me?" She looked at Jerry, in case there might be any doubt, and grinned widely at his obvious discomfiture.
This was a life-long signature social tactic for Maureen, choosing an opening gambit that knocked the group utterly out of equilibrium. The other women were silent, almost gawping. Maureen studied her progeny's faces. "I mean sexually, of course, what else would I mean?! Nobody ever misses another slice from a cut loaf, and god knows most of us are certainly cut loaves, and could use more than we get. More sex, not bread."
Maureen had an immense, and still quite active, sex drive -- at her care facility, she was mildly notorious for overt masturbation and for choosing an occasional partner from the few still-functioning men, somehow managing to find them in the dark, but always losing her way enroute back to her own space and having to be led by some embarrassed candy-striper.
"Kids, you should NEVER turn down something nice that the fates offer you -- always carpe the god-damned diem and go for it! I certainly took advantage of him! Didn't I, Jerry?"
Jerry went beet red: the other women, every one, turned to stare hard at him --and NOT at Maureen- each wearing a different expression. Maureen squeezed his hand, looked about her with a vaguely triumphant air: "Nothing odd about it, ladies -- quite some years ago he came over to help paint my place. Carl was supposed to come with him but had a sore back. It wasn't thirty minutes until Jerry and I were in my big old bed, carpe-ing the bejeezus out of the diem. You should NEVER leave a man and woman alone together if they like one another, especially with access to a bedroom. Ages and other relationships don't matter a damn bit!"
