This Is What We’re Doing Now

By the time we get to Texas, Cathy is a wreck. 

“What are we doing now?” 

My eighty-one-year-old mother-in-law’s voice teeters between panic and irritation. Her usually bright face clouds over. Her brow crinkles. Apparently, three days on the road is too much for a person with Alzheimer’s. It’s beginning to be too much for me, a forty-six year old psychiatric nurse with full cognitive capacity. I push down my own panic and irritation, and squeeze her hand. Her skin is soft and cool. I run my fingers over her nails, so buffed they look polished. She looks stylish as ever in the clothes I laid out for her this morning: a Talbot’s casual tee, denim capris, bright red Keds, and the snazzy pink Elvis Presley ball cap we bought for her in Memphis the day before. She can still dress herself; she just can’t pick out her clothes. I learned this only yesterday when I helped her in the bathroom at Graceland and noticed she was wearing two pairs of underwear.

What are we doing now? So many answers to that question. So many of those answers will only add to the confusion, the panic, the irritation. I go with the easiest. “We’re just sitting here looking pretty,” I say, my cheer feigned. It’s an oft-repeated line, one that usually snaps her out of or at least distracts her from the momentary confusion. But this trip’s been a lot for her to take, coming just a week after another trip, from Ohio to West Virginia for a family reunion. On her best day, when she’s in her small apartment at the retirement community where she’s been living independently the last few years, when there’s nothing more than breakfast, lunch, and dinner and her boyfriend Jerry to keep track of, she has trouble keeping track. Whizzing down a highway at seventy miles an hour, the scenery constantly changing, has to be head-scrambling. 

“But what are we doing?” she asks. “What’s going on?”

I do my best to suppress a sigh, then tell her – again – about her grandson’s wedding in Texas. About the ride down from Ohio in her oldest son’s motorcoach. “See Mitchell up there at the wheel?” I say, pointing to the front of the RV. 

My brother-in-law waves good naturedly as he has for the last eight hundred miles. “Hello, Mother!” He then points out the windshield. “And there’s your youngest son, Aaron, on his motorcycle.” 

I squeeze her hand again, to distract her from Mitchell’s extraneous comment. She doesn’t need to try to figure out where my husband is right now. I certainly don’t have the energy to try to explain it one more time. How he and I decided to ride down separately on his motorcycle, catching up with Cathy and Mitchell for meals, bunking in the front of the RV with Cathy each night. Thankfully, she forgets the comment about Aaron and stays focused on her original question.

“What are we doing now?” 

“Right now, we’re on our way to the place where your grandson Zach’s going to be married. I hear they’ve rented this big fancy mansion. We’re going to park the RV there and get ready for the wedding. And you know what? You’re going to have a place of honor right in the front row.” 

But what about a dress? Shoes? Lipstick? She hasn’t brought a thing! No one told her about any wedding. 

“We’ve got everything you need right here in the RV,” I assure her. “Don’t worry! It’s all going to be fabulous.” 

I can see on her face how hard her brain is trying to compute. Her poor, disintegrating brain that once could remember every birthday, every graduation, every wedding anniversary of every member of her large, devoted family.

“The wedding is today?” 

“Yes.”

“My grandson is getting married?” 

“Yes.”

“You have my dress and shoes?” 

“Yes.”

“What color is the dress?”

“Pink.”

“It’s new?”

I nod.

Her wheels turn. Turn again. Finally: click. “Well, how about that!” She squeezes my hand and gives me a smile. “You little sweetheart,” she says. “We sure do know how to have fun, don’t we?” 

She relaxes then, and I do, too, relishing the short reprieve. Only two hundred miles to go.

---

The trip started out a success. It was June 2018. My husband Aaron and I rode alongside the RV on his ‘79 KZ 650, dry roads and sunshine the entire way. We all stopped at a KOA in Nashville the first night. Went to the Johnny Cash museum and then to dinner at BB King’s House of Blues where I ate shrimp and grits for the first (and last) time. Next day, we headed to Graceland and toured the home of The King, all marveling at the mile-long gleaming white couch, the rooms with carpeted walls and ceilings. Cathy held up like a champ we all know her to be. A widow for the last four years, she is mother to seven, grandmother to eleven, great-grandmother to twenty-four, and great-great-grandmother to one. She isn’t letting grief or dementia get her down. Each time we stopped and met up – to get gas, to eat, to pee – she was delighted to see Aaron and me. “Well, where did you two come from?” And each night, one of us made a call to Jerry and we listened to her recount – usually incorrectly, but always spiritedly – the events of the day. 

Then, Arkansas. When we made our last stop before Texas, at another campground near the border, Mitchell, usually so cool and collected, was looking as frazzled as his mother. “She keeps undoing her seat belt and roaming around the coach looking for an exit,” he said, wiping sweat off his neck with a damp bandanna. “It’s totally out of control.” 

And so it was in Texarkana that I gave up my seat behind Aaron on the Kawasaki and perched myself next to Cathy on one of the RV’s couches for the last leg of our journey.

---

The reprieve from the panic and irritation continues as we make our way into Texas, headed toward Aubrey where the fancy rented mansion awaits, the only question now: “Are we there yet?” asked like one of her kids might have asked when they were little, the joke never getting old— for her. She’s well aware of the irony, just not the repetition.

“We’re very close,” I tell her, each and every time she asks. 

I try my best to keep her occupied. I talk about the rented wedding venue. I talk about her dress. I talk about my dress and the suits the boys will wear. The talk is simple. Mundane. But I’ve come to love these moments with Cathy, when she’s happy and unconfused. Or at least unaware of her confusion.

“Aaron bought a bolo tie for the occasion,” I say. “You know, ‘cause we’re in Texas. What do you think of that?” 

“Well, I think that’s just swell!” she says, excited with all the party talk. She has always loved a good party, having been the life of every party she’s ever attended. 

My light chit chat belies the low-grade panic I’m still feeling. It thrums in my chest, in rhythm to the thrumming of the wheels on the highway. I’m bracing for the next round of confusion, the next barrage of questions. I’m hoping for the best. That Cathy will be able to hold it together amidst the hustle and bustle of this wedding. There will be well over a hundred people there. Will she remember who her stepdaughters are? It’s been a long time since Cathy has seen them in person. Will she know her grandsons? Her sons-in-law? All I can do is stay close. Move with her from one moment to the next. Hold her hand. Answer her questions. Again and again and again.

---

“We’re almost there, Mother,” Mitchell says. “Only about ten minutes to go.” I can hear relief in his voice. He’s got to want out of this RV as much as I do. I can’t blame Cathy for trying to scramble for an exit yesterday. We’re all feeling cooped up and stressed. I miss the motorcycle, the feeling of freedom and oneness with the road, the wind whipping my braid against my helmet, the sounds and the smells, everything so immediate and alive. On the back of a motorcycle, with the whole world around you, it’s easy to feel as though your whole life is ahead of you.

I glance Cathy’s way and see the anticipation on her face. She is perky and alert. I breathe easy and manage to belt out a not-too-forced sounding, “How exciting!” 

Cathy pats my face gently and smiles.

Mitchell pulls the RV into a gas station and I know he’s stopping to get ice even though he hasn’t said anything. I know it by the brief exchange our eyes make in the rear view as he makes the turn. I know it because I know he likes cold beer and we’re in a hot place and his fridge is only so big. I think of how much my brain has to compute in those few seconds for me to know with certainty exactly what is going on without anyone having to tell me. What a wonder, I think, the human brain. How much we take for granted. 

“Ice,” Mitchell says my way, confirming, as he heads out the door, and I nod.

“Do we need to go, too?” Cathy asks, getting up.

“Nope,” I say, gently pulling her back to the seat. “We’re just gonna sit tight for a minute.” 

She turns then to look out the window, and I look too.

The station is a local place, a squat box of a building with a red metal roof and two modest-looking pumps. A short neon sign lit with the gas prices sets at the feet of a much taller, blanked out sign. A bright blue dumpster stands like a sentry at the side of the building. There’s a cluster of telephone poles. The cracked concrete parking lot. The faded asphalt of the three-lane country road. It is a wholly unscenic location. 

“I bought a new dress for this?” Cathy mutters as she stares out the window. She gets up from the couch and goes to look out the other windows, her neck craning with the effort to take it all in. She comes back and sits next to me, the look on her face a whole mash of emotions. Bewilderment. Concern. Disapproval. Distaste. She turns and looks at me. I can tell she’s trying to be tactful. Finally, she asks, not quite in a whisper, “Why are they getting married here?”

I can’t help but laugh. I take her hand, and a deep breath, then try, again, to explain.

We make it to Aubrey and the fancy mansion several hours before the wedding. The parking lot is vast and empty. Mitchell parks the RV in a secluded spot. There is no shady one. The afternoon heat radiates off the asphalt and presses against the RV, the a/c chugging and chugging, trying to keep up.

Aaron parks his motorcycle under the awning. We all have a few laughs about being the Cousin Eddies of the family. Compared to the two stepdaughters, Jen and Kim, we are the poor relations. Cathy and her first husband, her five kids’ father, were from Washington, PA – pronounced Wershington, Cathy always reminds us – a small working-class town outside of Pittsburgh. Her second husband Gordon and his two daughters were from more white-collar stock in Ohio. Just enough class difference to be noticed; but not enough to be too uncomfortable. Everyone gets along. Mainly because everyone loves and respects Cathy and Gordon. She often boasts about how well their families blended when she and Gordon married. “No one wanted to be the bad egg,” she has told me, giving the kids all the credit. In my opinion, it’s she and Gordon who deserve the credit. It’s not many parents who can command such respect and consideration just by simply being who they are. 

Mitchell and Aaron crack a few more jokes about emptying the shit pipe down the sewer drain, and Cathy laughs because we’re laughing, though I doubt she’d get the reference even without dementia. I don’t think Christmas Vacation is her kind of movie.

“This heat is rude,” Aaron says, biting into an apple, and Mitchell nods, cracking open a beer. 

Our plan is to stay overnight here in the parking lot. Yes, I assure Jen, the Texas stepdaughter, the one whose son is getting married, we have obtained permission. I continue the text: I’m gonna get mom gussied up here in a bit. I need to let her get her bearings. She is beyond frazzled.

I hope I can get her gussied up enough to her standards. Cathy is a classy lady. Normally, for an event like this, she would’ve had a beauty parlor appointment day-of to ensure her hair looked its best. Today, we don’t have that option, and though I’m no better at hairdressing than either one of the boys, I’m the girl, so I get the job. Cathy’s hair is very short and very thin. Mine is very long and very thick. She has often joked with me that I have more hair on my head right now than she has ever had in her entire life. Mine will be easy to do for the wedding: comb out the sweat and twist it up with two sticks. Hers— well, I’ll be happy if I can get it to where she doesn’t look like she just rolled out of bed.

I shower first, glad that I don’t have to worry about conserving hot water for anyone. In this heat, it’s cold water only for me. Once I’m done, I get Cathy in the shower. Normally, she’d be able to bathe by herself, but today she’s so out of sorts I stay outside the stall, just in case. 

Cathy tilts her face up to the spray and runs her hands over her hair, wetting it. She blinks water out of her eyes and looks around.

“There’s the shampoo,” I tell her pointing to the bottle. 

“Where?” she asks, looking right at it.

“Right here,” I say, gently, picking it up and squeezing some in her hand.

“This is for my hair?”

“Yes.”

She rubs her hands together and then runs them over her head. “Like this.”

“Perfect,” I say.

I wonder how she’s been managing to shower by herself. Her apartment at the retirement community is independent, which means she has no staff to aid her in personal hygiene. I’m sure it’s just the stress of the trip. Still, I make a mental note to keep a closer eye on her once we get home.

Cathy rinses her hair and asks what’s next. 

“Conditioner,” I say, pooling a small dab of the white stuff into her palm. I doubt her fine hair needs it, but what can it hurt?

“Do I have any soap?” she asks.

I hand her a bar of soap and again she knows what to do, though she asks, at each step, “Like this?” and “Is this okay?” 

I instruct her to rinse well and she does.

I haven’t assisted anyone with a shower since I was a nurse’s aide at a psychiatric hospital back in 2004. I was working my way through nursing school then. Aaron and I were newlyweds, he, my second, me his first. It would be several years before I would become a psychiatric nurse practitioner with my own practice, no longer having to put my hands on people. It’s surprising how easy it all comes back to me, this hands-on caretaking. Surprising, too, how unembarrassing it is, for both of us. 

All rinsed, water off, I hand her a towel, and she remembers what that’s for, as well. I help her wrap it around herself and escort her to the main bedroom in the back of the RV. I’m standing in my bra and newly-bought tummy-slimming underwear, my dress waiting on a hanger in the closet next to Cathy’s new dress which is still wrapped in plastic from the high-end clothes shop where Kim – the Ohio stepdaughter – bought it from. My dress, a second-hand, shin-length, red nylon job with black flowers looks rather pitiful in comparison. But it’s the best I could do; I am not a classy woman. 

Cathy stands in front of me naked, holding the towel out. “What should I do with this thing?”

I take it and look around for a place to hang it.

“Wait,” Cathy says, “I think I need to dry under my breasts.” Cathy is well-endowed; I imagine those girls are more than a little sweaty in this heat and me without any baby powder. Being small-chested myself, I never have to worry about such things.

I go to hand her the towel back but she shakes her head. “That’s too wet.” 

I look around the small bedroom area. Other than the bedspread or the clothes we’re going to put on, I can’t see a single thing with which to dry her breasts. 

Then I eye the hairdryer. “I could blow dry them.”

Without missing a beat, Cathy cradles each breast with one of her finely tapered hands with the ultra-buffed nails, and lifts. 

As I stand there, my thumb depressing the “cool” button so as not to burn her tender skin, I say, “Cathy, if you told me when we met that one day I’d be blow drying your boobs in the back of an RV in Texas, I never would’ve believed you.” 

“Life in the fast lane, honey,” she says, and I make sure to tuck this moment away in the back pocket of my memory.

---

The four of us clean up pretty good. Cathy’s hair is presentable, albeit too flat for such a fancy occasion. Sadly, I have not the skill it takes to create the soft curls her hairdresser would, fluffy as feathers on the back of a baby chick. That would require small round brushes and hairspray and other things I wouldn’t know what to do with even if I had them. It’s okay, though. Cathy is pleased. She likes her dress. We’ve got earrings. We’ve got lipstick. 

Cathy bursts into tears when she lays eyes on her grandson. It must be because he reminds her of Gordon, we all say. She remembers everybody, which is a relief. The ceremony is beautiful and short – also a relief – and then it’s time for the reception in the ballroom. White china, black linen tablecloths. The three of us pick the croutons off our salads and put them in front of Cathy. She loves crunchy things. “Mmm,” she says with each bite. “These are good.” 

The next day, we go to Jen’s via Uber and when we walk into the house, Cathy bursts into tears again. She’s thinking about Gordon and all the times they visited, we say. The boys hate to see their mother cry, so they each scatter to do something useful. I stay close and do my best to comfort her. Mitchell comes back with a plate of food. (The tamales are spectacular.) Aaron brings her a bottle of water. Everyone’s concerned and pulls me aside at some point to confer. She’ll be fine, I assure them. She’s just tired. There’s a lot going on and she can’t get her bearings. No, we won’t be riding back to Ohio in the RV with Mitchell. We’ll catch a flight out of Dallas. Everyone agrees that’s the best idea.

The next day, I arrange for another Uber to take Cathy and me to the airport. As Mitchell closes the back door behind Cathy, he leans in to the driver. “You drive carefully. You’ve got my two best girls here.”

What are we doing now? What’s going on? Where are we going? Where is everybody? The questions come as fast as I can answer them. I’m careful not to mention her crying or our change of plans. Pretend this is what we set out to do all along. “You and me are flying home, mama,” I say. 

“We are?”

I nod.

I can see the But I thought . . . forming in her brain. A flicker of remembrance in her eyes. She’s trying to figure it all out. She knows she knows something but she doesn’t know what it is. The expression on her face is enough to break my heart. 

“It’s been a long trip,” I say, taking her hand in mine. “We all thought you might like to get back home sooner than later.” 

I watch as she processes this information.

“I’ve been gone so long, do you think Jerry will remember who I am?” she asks, laughing. Then a look of soft defeat clouds her face. “Oh, honey,” she says, and lays her head on my shoulder.

---

On my best day, I am a nervous wreck at airports. Aaron says I turn into some hyper-focused over-anxious terminator before I even get out of the car. There’s just so much to keep track of in an airport. Tickets, baggage, security, gate numbers, flight numbers, departure times, how many ounces the bottles are in my carry-on luggage. My heart races a little just thinking about it. As our Uber pulls up to Departures at the Dallas airport, I am breathing very intentionally so as to keep my shit together. Mitchell will be driving most of our things home, which means I don’t have to worry about baggage. Our tickets are on my phone. I’ve already checked in electronically and have gotten the gate and flight numbers. There are no bottles of anything in my carry-on. I clutch both of our ID’s in one clammy hand, steer Cathy with the other, and head toward security, all the while saying silent prayers for short lines and minimal confusion.

To my relief, the line is indeed short. Cathy kicks off her Keds like an old pro and I pass the plastic tub through the x-ray machine. The TSA agent waves Cathy through first. He is a young, handsome man with a stoic expression. I pass through next. As I’m gathering up our stuff, trying my best to clear the way for the people behind us, Cathy stops dead in her tracks, ignoring the Keds I’ve placed at her feet, and starts to flirt with the young, handsome TSA agent. 

“Well, take a look at you, honey!” she says, and his stoic face cracks into a smile. 

She snaps her fingers then, swivels her hips, and begins to dance in front of him.

Before I can panic about missing our flight, or about being searched for drugs, or about being reprimanded for holding up the security line, the young, handsome TSA agent forgets himself. He takes Cathy’s hand in his and, laughing, gives her a gentle spin that her body needs no help remembering.