It crept up on them slowly and at first it had been a bit of a joke between them: Aiden's little slips; his inability to find the word he wanted and that Julia would supply; his failure to recall the name of a client.
Aiden was building up his reputation as an architect and was working long hours, and so they put it down to anxiety or stress.
"You need a break," Julia had said, "get away from it all for a couple of weeks," and so they took a couple of weeks off from work, going to a seaside resort, but nothing changed. They would make an arrangement in the morning to do something in the afternoon, but when the afternoon arrived Aiden would have forgotten the arrangement.
A week after they returned home their son Patrick asked Julia, "What's the matter with dad, I said good morning to him and he looked at me as if he'd never seen me before."
It was at that point it was decided Aiden should see their doctor. He was sent off for tests and after that came the devastating report, "I'm sorry to have to tell you that you have the early stages of Alzheimer's disease."
"But that's not possible," Julia had gasped, "that's a disease for old people, not for a fit thirty two year old man."
"I'm sorry," the doctor said again, "but it happens. There have been teenagers diagnosed with Alzheimer's. What I can do," he said to Aiden, "is to give you some medication that may slow down the progress of the disease."
"There's no cure?" Julia had asked.
The doctor looked embarrassed as he had to tell her that there was no cure.
* * * * * * * *
Aiden and Julia had met while they were both studying at the university; the handsome, personable and aspiring Aiden and in his eyes, the gorgeous Julia.
She was tall and statuesque and beautiful in that divine way normally associated with Greek goddesses, the straight nose, upstanding breasts, her long neck, and her looks were matched by the grace of her movements and a dignity rarely seen in one so young.
Both of them had engaged in a number of brief affairs, but at their first meeting they had said to them selves, "That's The One," and nothing thereafter had changed their minds. Julia had often said that if marriages were made in heaven then certainly their marriage was. She did allow that some marriages seemed to have been made in hell, but not hers.
Strong, fit and an ardent lover, Aiden had been all she had hoped for in a marriage partner, and whereas in many cases the birth of a child, despite rumours to the contrary, could break up a marriage, the birth of Patrick had accorded with the rumours and had bound them together in an even closer bond of love.
Everything had seemed to be as perfect as it could be for Julia until that at first little cloud had appeared over the clear sky of their lives, and had grown ever more ominous until their lives seemed to inhabit in the darkness of Aiden's sickness.
The medication did little or nothing to slow the onset of the disease, and there came a time when Aiden had to stop working and stay at home.
Julia, assistant curator at the State Art Gallery, had to continue working to provide an income. Patrick was thirteen and in the early stages of high school, and this meant that Aiden was at home alone. This led to the first near catastrophic event.
It seemed that Aiden had started to cook a fillet of fish in a pan of oil, and had forgotten about it. The oil had caught fire and had it not been for their neighbour seeing smoke pouring out of the kitchen window the whole house might have gone up in flames.
This meant that drastic measures had to be taken, and a woman was employed to stay with Aiden while Julia was at work and Patrick at school. This was followed by the daily visits of a nurse, but as Aiden began to lose control of his bowels and bladder further measures had to be taken.
The choice was between Julia staying at home and thus they would lose their income, or her continuing to work and putting Aiden into a nursing home.
It was their doctor supported by the nurse, who said to Julia, "He's never going to get any better, only worse, and you won't be able to cope." And so the decision was made to put Aiden into the nursing home.
Julia visited him regularly three times a week, and on other occasions when she could, sometimes accompanied by Patrick, but the time came when Aiden no longer knew them apart from brief moments of lucidity.
It broke Julia's heart when during those moments of lucidity Aiden asked, "What am I doing here, I want to go home." Even before Julia had said, "You're not well darling, and you can't come home until; you're better," the moment had passed and Aiden might ask her, "Who are you?"
And so Julia, at the age of thirty seven, found her self with a ruined marriage, heavy nursing home bills to meet, and a seventeen years old son to support.
* * * * * * * *
Aiden had been very sexually potent, and Julia had met his potency with her own challenging libido. Theirs had been a joyful and free giving sexual relationship, but that had come to a stop with the progress of Aiden's disease.
A woman of strong religious commitment she prayed long and hard for her particular deity to turn the situation around. It seemed that the deity was either not listening or had gone on vacation.
There were grounds on which Julia could have divorced Aiden and remarried or perhaps taken a lover, but she did neither. Because of her religious allegiance she would not countenance either divorce or the taking of a lover while Aiden remained alive.
Patrick proved to be a very loyal and supportive son, and as the financial situation became increasingly difficult he went to work in the evenings and weekends at The Spaghetti House and this brought in a few extra dollars.
Julia's mother, a widow, had been left a little money mainly through investments, and she helped where she could, and it was through her mother that some degree of financial equilibrium came about, although the means was unwelcome.
Julia's mother died and left all her assets to Julia. It was far from a fortune, but it did make life a little easier.
Sexually Julia seemed to have closed the shutters. It was not that she did not have opportunities for sexual indulgence, far from it. Some of the men who subtly or openly suggested a "meaningful relationship," surprised and at times alarmed Julia.
One was the curator of the gallery, a man some twenty years older than Julia, with a wife and grownup children. Others included a church deacon and her dentist, and, she suspected, her minister who for a while had taken to visiting her frequently and at unusual times like nine o'clock in the evening.
Finally even Aiden's lucid moments ceased and his days were spent sitting in what was called "The Lounge," staring uncomprehending and probably unseeing at the television screen.
Had she been waiting for Aiden to die before she resumed her sex life, she was even thwarted there. She was told that apart from the deterioration of his brain the rest of his organs were in good condition and "He could go on for years."
What sustained Julia over those years were two loves; that for her work at the gallery, and that for Patrick. For a while after her rejection of the curator she thought she might lose her job, but for once good fortune came her way. The curator found what he wanted with an attractive woman employed to restore paintings and in that respect Julia was forgotten.
Despite his love and support she realised that one day Patrick would want to leave home. He might want to get married, or, as he was following in his father's architectural footsteps, he might need to live elsewhere.
Her relationship with Patrick had been almost the still turning point in her life; the one person who was intimately present in her life; the one she thought was "safe."
She may have put up the sexual shutters as far as an observer was concerned, but that did not mean she could completely close them on her self. She took to masturbating to relieve her sexual tensions, first by hand, and later using a dildo that combined the virtues of an ordinary dildo and a vibrator.
This gave her some relief, and with this she believed that she must rest content, but for Julia it was no substitute for a male body, specifically Aiden's, but that was now permanently and finally beyond her reach.
Patrick had long been aware of his parent's sexual obsession with each other and as a child he had often heard them enjoying each other. When he reached that age when he understood what those cries and groans meant he had been happy that his parents still gave expression to their love in that way.
When those sounds of coitus ceased he began to wonder about his mother. He was not blind to her physical attractions and had always been proud of her, and so he did wonder if and when the first male would appear to spend the night with Julia.
When no such male appeared, and his mother rarely went out except to go to work or to an art exhibition, on which occasions she often took him, he was puzzled.
He was after all at the height of his own sexual potency, and at such times it is difficult to imagine how anyone can "do without it," but his mother seemed to have taken on the vows of a nun. The only physical affection she indulged in was with him, and that was usually after she had visited his father and come home distressed.
At first the hugs and crying had embarrassed him, but with the passing of time he found himself enjoying the physical contact. It was not that he lacked even closer physical contact elsewhere since like his father he had enjoyed a number of girls' favours, but somehow his mother seemed special, although he wasn't quite sure why.
* * * * * * * *
It was a week after Patrick's eighteenth birthday and the end of his high school career when Julia broke out of her work-home self imposed confinement. There had been a small celebration for Patrick's birthday and highly successful ending to his high school, and this had seemed to free her up slightly.
During the following week she found herself becoming restless. She felt as if she had shut herself away for too long. On Sunday morning as they made their way to church, she said to Patrick, "Let's go to the beach this afternoon."
