AUGUST 2004
Her mother and sister had died when she was a freshman in college. No pictures of her mother or Anne filled a single page in their family photo albums. There was no evidence of them at her graduations, her wedding, or with her, John, and the children on holidays, vacations, or birthdays. She couldn’t picture her mother as an old woman, and she certainly would be now, and Anne hadn’t aged beyond a teenager in her mind. Still, she’d been so sure that they were about to walk through the front door, not as ghosts from the past but alive and well, and that they were coming to stay at the house in Chatham with them for the summer. She was somewhat scared that she could become that confused, that, awake and sober, she could wholeheartedly expect a visit from her long-dead mother and sister. It was even scarier that this scared her only somewhat.
Alice, John, and Lydia sat at the patio table on the porch eating breakfast. Lydia was talking to them about the members of her summer ensemble and her rehearsals. But mostly, she was talking to John.
“I was so intimidated before I got here, you know? I mean, you should see all their bios. MFAs in theater from NYU and the Actors Studio and degrees from Yale, experience on Broadway.”
“Wow, sounds like a very experienced group. What’s the age range?” he asked.
“Oh, I’m easily the youngest. Most are probably in their thirties and forties, but there’s a man and woman as old as you and Mom.”
“That old, huh?”
“You know what I mean. Anyway, I didn’t know if I’d be totally out of my league, but the training I’ve been piecing together and the work I’ve been getting has really given me the right tools. I totally know what I’m doing.”
Alice remembered having the same insecurity and realization in her first months as a professor at Harvard.
“They all definitely have more experience than me, but none of them have studied Meisner. They all studied Stanislavsky, or the Method, but I really think Meisner is the most powerful approach for true spontaneity in acting. So even though I don’t have as much onstage experience, I bring something unique to the group.”
“That’s great, honey. That’s probably one of the reasons they cast you. What’s ‘spontaneity in acting’ mean exactly?” John asked.
Alice had wondered the same thing, but her words, viscous in amyloid goo, lagged behind John’s, as they so often seemed to now in real-time conversation. So she listened to her husband and daughter ramble effortlessly ahead of her and watched them as participants onstage from her seat in the audience.
She cut her sesame bagel in half and took a bite. She didn’t like it plain. Several condiment options sat on the table—wild Maine blueberry jam, a jar of peanut butter, a stick of butter on a plate, and a tub of white butter. But it wasn’t called white butter. What was it called? Not mayonnaise. No, it was too thick, like butter. What was its name? She pointed her butter knife at it.
“John, can you pass that to me?”
John handed her the tub of white butter. She spread a thick layer onto one of the bagel halves and stared at it. She knew exactly how it would taste, and that she liked it, but she couldn’t bring herself to bite into it until she could tell herself its name. Lydia watched her mother studying her bagel.
“Cream cheese, Mom.”
“Right. Cream cheese. Thank you, Lydia.”
The phone rang, and John went inside the house to answer it. The first thought that jumped to the front of Alice’s mind was that it was her mother, calling to let them know she was going to be late getting there. The thought, seemingly realistic and colored with immediacy, appeared as reasonable as expecting John to return to the patio table within the next few minutes. Alice corrected the impetuous thought, scolded it, and put it away. Her mother and sister had died when she was a freshman in college. It was maddening to have to keep reminding herself of this.
Alone with her daughter, at least for the moment, she took the opportunity to get a word in.
“Lydia, what about going to school for a degree in theater?”
“Mom, didn’t you understand a word of what I was just saying? I don’t need a degree.”
“I heard every word of what you said, and I understood it all. I was thinking more big picture. I’m sure there are aspects of your craft that you haven’t yet explored, things you could still learn, maybe even directing? The point is, a degree opens more doors should you ever need them.”
“And what doors are those?”
“Well, for one, the degree would give you the credibility to teach if you ever wanted to.”
“Mom, I want to be an actor, not a teacher. That’s you, not me.”
“I know that, Lydia, you’ve made that abundantly clear. I’m not necessarily thinking of a teacher at a university or college anyway, although you could. I was thinking that you could someday run workshops just like the ones you’ve been taking and love so much.”
“Mom, I’m sorry, but I’m not going to spend any energy on thinking about what I might do if I’m not good enough to make it as an actor. I don’t need to doubt myself like that.”
“I’m not doubting that you can have a career as an actor. But what if you decide to have a family someday, and you’d like to slow down a bit but still stay in the business? Teaching workshops, even from your home, might be a nice flexibility to have. Plus, it’s not always what you know, but who you know. The networking possibilities you’d have with classmates, professors, alumnae, I’m sure there’s an inner circle you simply don’t have access to without a degree or a body of work already proven in the business.”
Alice paused, waiting for Lydia’s “yeah, but,” but she didn’t say anything.
“Just consider it. Life only gets busier. It’s a harder thing to fit in as you get older. Maybe talk to some of the people in your ensemble and get their perspectives on what’s involved in continuing an acting career into your thirties and forties and older. Okay?”
“Okay.”
Okay. That was the closest they’d ever come to agreement on the subject. Alice tried to think of something else to talk about but couldn’t. For so long now, they had talked only about this. The silence between them grew.
“Mom, what does it feel like?”
“What does what feel like?”
“Having Alzheimer’s. Can you feel that you have it right now?”
“Well, I know I’m not confused or repeating myself right now, but just a few minutes ago, I couldn’t find ‘cream cheese,’ and I was having a hard time participating in the conversation with you and your dad. I know it’s only a matter of time before those types of things happen again, and the times between when it happens are getting shorter. And the things that are happening are getting bigger. So even when I feel completely normal, I know I’m not. It’s not over, it’s just a rest. I don’t trust myself.”
As soon as she finished, she worried she’d admitted too much. She didn’t want to scare her daughter. But Lydia didn’t flinch and stayed interested, and Alice relaxed.
“So you know when it’s happening?”
“Most of the time.”
“Like what was happening when you couldn’t think of the name for cream cheese?”
“I know what I’m looking for, my brain just can’t get to it. It’s like if you decided you wanted that glass of water, only your hand won’t pick it up. You ask it nicely, you threaten it, but it just won’t budge. You might finally get it to move, but then you grab the saltshaker instead, or you knock the glass and spill the water all over the table. Or by the time you get your hand to hold the glass and bring it to your lips, the itch in your throat has cleared, and you don’t need a drink anymore. The moment of need has passed.”
“That sounds like torture, Mom.”
“It is.”
“I’m so sorry you have this.”
“Thanks.”
Lydia reached out across the dishes and glasses and years of distance and held her mother’s hand. Alice squeezed it and smiled. Finally, they’d found something else they could talk about.
ALICE WOKE UP ON THE couch. She’d been napping a lot lately, sometimes twice a day. While her attention and energy benefited greatly from the extra rest, reentry into the day was jarring. She looked at the clock on the wall. Four fifteen. She couldn’t remember what time she’d dozed off. She remembered eating lunch. A sandwich, some kind of sandwich, with John. That was probably around noon. The corner of something hard pressed into her hip. The book she’d been reading. She must’ve fallen asleep while reading.
Four twenty. Lydia’s rehearsal ran until seven. She sat up and listened. She could hear the seagulls squawking at Hardings and imagined their scavenger hunt, a mad race to find and devour every last crumb left behind by those careless, sunburned humans. She stood up and set out on her own hunt, less frenzied than the gulls’, for John. She checked their bedroom and study. She looked out into the driveway. No car. Just about to curse him for not leaving a note, she found it under a magnet on the refrigerator door.
Ali—Went for a drive, be back soon, John
She sat back down on the couch and picked up her book, Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austen, but didn’t open it. She didn’t really want to be reading it now. She’d been about halfway through Moby-Dick and lost it. She and John had turned the house upside down without success. They’d even looked in every peculiar spot that only a demented person would place a book—the refrigerator and freezer, the pantry, their dresser drawers, the linen closet, the fireplace. But neither of them could find it. She’d probably left it at the beach. She hoped she’d left it at the beach. That was at least something she would’ve done before Alzheimer’s.
John had offered to pick her up another copy. Maybe he’d gone to the bookstore. She hoped he had. If she waited much longer, she’d forget what she’d already read and have to start over. All that work. Just the thought of it made her tired again. In the meantime, she’d started Jane Austen, whom she’d always liked. But this one wasn’t holding her attention.
She wandered upstairs to Lydia’s bedroom. Of her three children, she knew Lydia the least. On the top of her dresser, turquoise and silver rings, a leather necklace, and a colorfully beaded one spilled over an open cardboard box. Next to the box sat a pile of hair clips and a tray for burning incense. Lydia was a bit of a hippie.
Her clothes lay all over the floor, some folded, most not. There couldn’t have been much of anything actually in her dresser drawers. She’d left her bed unmade. Lydia was a bit of a slob.
Books of poetry and plays lined the shelves of her bookcase—’Night Mother, Dinner with Friends, Proof, A Delicate Balance, Spoon River Anthology, Agnes of God, Angels in America, Oleanna. Lydia was an actress.
She picked up several of the plays and flipped through them. They were each only about eighty to ninety pages, and each of those pages was only sparsely filled with text. Maybe it’d be easier and more satisfying to read plays. And I could talk about them with Lydia. She held on to Proof.
Lydia’s journal, iPod, Sanford Meisner on Acting, and a framed picture sat on her nightstand. Alice picked up the journal. She hesitated, but barely. She didn’t have the luxury of time. Sitting on the bed, she read page after page of her daughter’s dreams and confessions. She read about blocks and breakthroughs in acting classes, fears and hopes surrounding auditions, disappointments and joys over castings. She read about a young woman’s passion and tenacity.
She read about Malcolm. While they were acting in a dramatic scene together in class, Lydia had fallen in love with him. She’d thought she might be pregnant once, but wasn’t. She was relieved, not ready yet to get married or have children. She wanted to find her own way in the world first.
Alice studied the framed photograph of Lydia and a man, presumably Malcolm. Their smiling faces touched. They were happy, the man and woman in the picture. Lydia was a woman.
“Ali, are you here?” called John.
“I’m upstairs!”
She returned the journal and picture to the nightstand and stole downstairs.
“Where’d you go?” Alice asked.
“I went for a drive.”
He held two white plastic bags, one in each hand.
“Did you buy me a new copy of Moby-Dick?”
“Sort of.”
He handed Alice one of the bags. It was filled with DVDs—Moby Dick with Gregory Peck and Orson Welles, King Lear with Laurence Olivier, Casablanca, One Flew over the Cuckoo’s Nest, and The Sound of Music, her all-time favorite.
“I was thinking these might be a lot easier for you. And we can do this together.”
She smiled.
“What’s in the other bag?”
She felt giddy, like a little kid on Christmas morning. He pulled out a package of microwave popcorn and a box of Milk Duds.
“Can we watch The Sound of Music first?” she asked.
“Sure.”
“I love you, John.”
She threw her arms around him.
“I love you, too, Ali.”
With her hands high on his back, she pressed her face against his chest and breathed him in. She wanted to say more to him, about what he meant to her, but she couldn’t find the words. He held her a little tighter. He knew. They stood still in the kitchen holding on to each other without uttering a word for a long time.
“Here, you nuke the popcorn, and I’ll put the movie in and meet you on the couch,” said John.
“Okay.”
She walked over to the microwave, opened the door, and laughed. She had to laugh.
“I found Moby-Dick!”
ALICE HAD BEEN UP ALONE for a couple of hours. In that early morning solitude, she drank green tea, read a little, and practiced yoga outside on the lawn. Posed in downward dog, she filled her lungs with the delicious morning ocean air and luxuriated in the strange, almost painful pleasure of the stretch in her hamstrings and glutes. Out of the corner of her eye, she observed her left triceps engaged in holding her body in this position. Solid, sculpted, beautiful. Her whole body looked strong and beautiful.
She was in the best physical shape of her life. Good food plus daily exercise equaled the strength in her flexed triceps muscles, the flexibility in her hips, her strong calves, and easy breathing during a four-mile run. Then, of course, there was her mind. Unresponsive, disobedient, weakening.
She took Aricept, Namenda, the mystery Amylix trial pill, Lipitor, vitamins C and E, and baby aspirin. She consumed additional antioxidants in the form of blueberries, red wine, and dark chocolate. She drank green tea. She tried ginkgo biloba. She meditated and played Numero. She brushed her teeth with her left, nondominant hand. She slept when she was tired. Yet none of these efforts seemed to add up to visible, measurable results. Maybe her cognitive capabilities would noticeably worsen if she subtracted the exercise, the Aricept, or the blueberries. Maybe unopposed, her dementia would run amok. Maybe. But maybe all these things didn’t affect anything. She couldn’t know, unless she went off her meds, eliminated chocolate and wine, and sat on her ass for the next month. This was not an experiment she was willing to conduct.
She stepped into warrior pose. She exhaled and sank deeper into the lunge, accepting the discomfort and additional challenge to her concentration and stamina, determined to maintain the pose. Determined to remain a warrior.
John emerged from the kitchen, bed-headed and zombie-like but dressed to run.
“You want coffee first?” asked Alice.
“No, let’s just go, I’ll have it when we get back.”
They ran two miles every morning along Main Street to the center of town and returned via the same route. John’s body had grown noticeably leaner and defined, and he could run that distance easily now, but he didn’t enjoy one second of it. He ran with her, resigned and uncomplaining, but with the same enthusiasm and zest he had for paying the bills or doing the laundry. And she loved him for it.
She ran behind him, letting him set the pace, watching and listening to him like he was a gorgeous musical instrument—the pendulum-like swinging back of his elbows, the rhythmic, airy puffs of his exhales, the percussion of his sneakers on the sandy pavement. Then he spit, and she laughed. He didn’t ask why.
They were on their way back when she ran up beside him. On a compassionate whim, she was about to tell him that he didn’t have to run with her anymore if he didn’t want to, that she could handle this route alone. But then, following his turn, they ran right at a fork onto Mill Road toward home where she would’ve gone left. Alzheimer’s did not like to be ignored.
Back home, she thanked him, kissed him on his sweaty cheek, and then went straight and unshowered to Lydia, who was still in her pajamas and drinking coffee on the porch. Each morning, she and Lydia discussed whatever play Alice was reading over multigrain cereal with blueberries or a sesame bagel with cream cheese and coffee and tea. Alice’s instinct had been right. She enjoyed reading plays infinitely more than reading novels or biographies, and talking over what she’d just read with Lydia, whether it was scene one, act one, or the entire play, proved a delightful and powerful way of reinforcing her memory of it. In analyzing scenes, character, and plot with Lydia, Alice saw the depth of her daughter’s intellect, her rich understanding of human need and emotion and struggle. She saw Lydia. And she loved her.
Today, they discussed a scene from Angels in America. They passed eager questions and answers back and forth, their conversation two-way, equal, fun. And because Alice didn’t have to compete with John to complete her thoughts, she could take her time and not get left behind.
“What was it like doing this scene with Malcolm?” Alice asked.
Lydia stared at her as if the question blew her mind.
“What?”
“Didn’t you and Malcolm perform this scene together in your class?”
“You read my journal?”
Alice’s stomach hollowed out. She thought Lydia had told her about Malcolm.
“Sweetie, I’m sorry—”
“I can’t believe you did that! You have no right!”
Lydia shoved her chair back and stormed off, leaving Alice alone at the table, stunned and queasy. A few minutes later, Alice heard the front door slam.
“Don’t worry, she’ll calm down,” said John.
All morning she tried to do something else. She tried to clean, to garden, to read, but all she could manage to do effectively was worry. She worried she’d done something unforgivable. She worried she’d just lost the respect, trust, and love of the daughter she’d only begun to know.
After lunch, Alice and John walked to Hardings Beach. Alice swam until her body felt too exhausted to feel anything else. The hollowed-out flip-flopping in her stomach gone, she returned to her beach chair, lay in the fully reclined position with her eyes closed and meditated.
She’d read that regular meditation could increase cortical thickness and slow age-related cortical thinning. Lydia was already meditating every day, and when Alice had expressed an interest, Lydia had taught her. Whether it helped to preserve her cortical thickness or not, Alice liked the time of quiet focus, how it so effectively hushed the cluttered noise and worry in her head. It literally gave her peace of mind.
After about twenty minutes, she returned to a more wakeful state, relaxed, energized, and hot. She waded back into the ocean, just for a quick dip this time, exchanging sweat and heat for salt and cool. Back in her chair, she overheard a woman on the blanket next to them talking about the wonderful play she’d just seen at the Monomoy Theatre. The hollowed-out flip-flopping surged back in.
That evening, John grilled cheeseburgers, and Alice made a salad. Lydia didn’t come home for dinner.
“I’m sure rehearsal’s just running a bit late,” said John.
“She hates me now.”
“She doesn’t hate you.”
After dinner, Alice drank two more glasses of red wine, and John drank three more glasses of scotch with ice. Still no Lydia. After Alice added her evening dose of pills to her unsettled stomach, they sat on the couch together with a bowl of popcorn and a box of Milk Duds and watched King Lear.
John woke her on the couch. The television was off, and the house was dark. She must’ve fallen asleep before the movie ended. She didn’t remember the ending anyway. He guided her up the stairs to their bedroom.
She stood at her side of the bed, her hand over her disbelieving mouth, tears in her eyes, the worry expelled from her stomach and mind. Lydia’s journal lay on her pillow.
“SORRY I’M LATE,” SAID TOM, walking in.
“Okay, everyone, now that Tom’s here, Charlie and I have some news to share,” said Anna. “I’m five weeks pregnant with twins!”
Hugs and kisses and congratulations were followed by excited questions and answers and interruptions and more questions and answers. As her ability to track what was said in complex conversations with many participants declined, Alice’s sensitivity to what wasn’t said, to body language and unspoken feelings, had heightened. She’d explained this phenomenon a couple of weeks ago to Lydia, who’d told her it was an enviable skill to have as an actor. She’d said that she and other actors had to focus extremely hard to divorce themselves from verbal language in an effort to be honestly affected by what the other actors were doing and feeling. Alice didn’t quite understand the distinction, but she loved Lydia for seeing her handicap as an enviable skill.
John looked happy and excited, but Alice saw that he exposed only some of the happiness and excitement he actually felt, probably trying to respect Anna’s caveat of “it’s still early.” Even without Anna’s cautioning, he was superstitious, as most biologists were, and wouldn’t be inclined to openly count these two little chickens before they hatched. But he already couldn’t wait. He wanted grandchildren.
Just beneath Charlie’s happiness and excitement, Alice saw a thick layer of nervousness covering a thicker layer of terror. Alice thought they were both obviously visible, but Anna seemed oblivious, and no one else commented. Was she simply seeing the typical worry of an expectant first-time father? Was he nervous about the responsibility of feeding two mouths at once and paying for two college tuitions simultaneously? That would explain only the first layer. Was he also terrified about the prospect of having two kids in college and, at the same time, a wife with dementia?
Lydia and Tom stood next to each other, talking to Anna. Her children were beautiful, her children who weren’t children anymore. Lydia looked radiant; she was enjoying the good news on top of the fact that her entire family was here to see her act.
Tom’s smile was genuine, but Alice saw a subtle uneasiness about him, his eyes and cheeks slightly sunken, his body bonier. Was it school? A girlfriend? He saw her studying him.
“Mom, how are you feeling?” he asked.
“Mostly good.”
“Really?”
“Yes, honestly. I’m feeling great.”
“You seem too quiet.”
“There’s too many of us talking at once and too quickly,” said Lydia.
Tom’s smile disappeared, and he looked like he might cry. Alice’s BlackBerry in her baby blue bag vibrated against her hip, signaling the time for her evening dose of pills. She’d wait a few minutes. She didn’t want to take them just now, in front of Tom.
“Lyd, what time is your performance tomorrow?” asked Alice, her BlackBerry in hand.
“Eight o’clock.”
“Mom, you don’t have to schedule it. We’re all here. It’s not like we’re going to forget to bring you with us,” said Tom.
“What’s the name of the play we’re going to see?” asked Anna.
“Proof,” said Lydia.
“Are you nervous?” asked Tom.
“A little, because it’s opening night, and you’re all going to be there. But I’ll forget you exist once I’m onstage.”
“Lydia, what time is your play?” asked Alice.
“Mom, you just asked that. Don’t worry about it,” said Tom.
“It’s at eight o’clock, Mom,” said Lydia. “Tom, you’re not helping.”
“No, you’re not helping. Why should she have to worry about remembering something that she doesn’t have to remember?”
“She won’t worry about it if she puts it in her BlackBerry. Just let her do it,” said Lydia.
“Well, she shouldn’t be relying on that BlackBerry anyway. She should be exercising her memory whenever she can,” said Anna.
“So which is it? Should she be memorizing my showtime or totally relying on us?” asked Lydia.
“You should be encouraging her to focus and really pay attention. She should try to recall the information on her own and not get lazy,” said Anna.
“She’s not lazy,” said Lydia.
“You and that BlackBerry are enabling her. Look, Mom, what time is Lydia’s show tomorrow?” asked Anna.
“I don’t know. That’s why I asked her,” said Alice.
“She told you the answer twice, Mom. Can you try to remember what she said?”
“Anna, stop quizzing her,” said Tom.
“I was going to enter it in my BlackBerry, but you interrupted me.”
“I’m not asking you to look it up in your BlackBerry. I’m asking you to remember the time she said.”
“Well, I didn’t try to remember the time, because I was going to punch it in.”
“Mom, just think for a second. What time is Lydia’s show tomorrow?”
She didn’t know the answer, but she knew that poor Anna needed to be put in her place.
“Lydia, what time is your show tomorrow?” asked Alice.
“Eight o’clock.”
“It’s at eight o’clock, Anna.”
FIVE MINUTES BEFORE EIGHT O’CLOCK, they settled in their seats, second row center. The Monomoy Theatre was an intimate venue, with only a hundred seats and a stage floor just a few feet from the first row.
Alice couldn’t wait for the lights to go down. She’d read this play and talked about it extensively with Lydia. She’d even helped her run lines. Lydia was playing Catherine, daughter of her mathematical genius-gone-mad father. Alice couldn’t wait to see these characters come alive right in front of her.
From the very first scene, the acting was nuanced, honest, and multidimensional, and Alice became easily and completely absorbed in the imaginary world the actors created. Catherine claimed she’d written a groundbreaking proof, but neither her love interest nor her estranged sister believed her, and they both questioned her mental stability. She tortured herself with the fear that, like her genius father, she might be going crazy. Alice experienced her pain, betrayal, and fear right along with her. She was mesmerizing from beginning to end.
Afterward, the actors came out into the audience. Catherine beamed. John gave her flowers and a huge, emphatic hug.
“You were amazing, absolutely incredible!” said John.
“Thank you so much! Isn’t it such a great play?”
The others hugged and kissed and praised her, too.
“You were brilliant, beautiful to watch,” said Alice.
“Thank you.”
“Will we get to see you in anything else this summer?” asked Alice.
She looked at Alice for an uncomfortably long time before she answered.
“No, this is my only role for the summer.”
“Are you here for just the summer season?”
The question seemed to make her sad as she considered it. Her eyes welled with tears.
“Yes, I’m moving back to L.A. at the end of August, but I’ll be back this way a lot to visit with my family.”
“Mom, that’s Lydia, your daughter,” said Anna.