The Light of Hidden Flowers (10 page)

“What happened to us?” I found the courage to say.

“You’re my first real girlfriend—”

“And you’re my first real boyfriend,” I said.

“That’s the problem,” Joe said. “We can’t be each other’s first
and
last.” He looked down, and that’s when I knew he had been seeing other girls.

“Why not?” I asked.

“Missy,” Joe started. “I love you. Please don’t doubt that. But there’s a big world out there. For you, for me. We need to see what’s out there. Before we settle down.”

“I don’t,” I said. “I’m perfectly happy to stay here in Alexandria. With you, with Dad.”

“Are you sure?” he asked. “Because I think there is more to you than that.”

“There’s not,” I said and huffed away because Joe had just unwittingly maligned me the same way my father always had: revealing that me, as is, didn’t cut it.

In the fall, Joe returned to VMI and I resumed my studies at W&M. After a few disappointing attempts, we soon fell completely out of touch.

Two years passed. I occasionally saw Joe’s mother. Her eyes welled with tears when she told me of Joe’s new girlfriend.

Then 9/11 hit. Could any of us claim to be the same after that?

If Joe were ever on the fence about joining the military, he wasn’t after the attack on our soil. From his mother I knew that he had finished his degree in three years and then went to the Basic School in Quantico to become a marine officer. I also knew that he had married his girlfriend and that they had a baby on the way. By 2003, Joe was fighting in Operation Iraqi Freedom.

CHAPTER NINETEEN

By the end of September, Lucas and I had settled into a routine as predictable as a forty-year-married couple’s. And while, admittedly, such a depiction of our relationship sounds disparaging at best, there was much that I appreciated about our stable schedule. Lucas was always on time. In fact, early. Lucas always had a full tank of gas, an immaculately clean car, and a wallet full of cash. Lucas called every night at seven o’clock on the dot. Lucas didn’t care what I ate or drank, wore or didn’t wear. Lucas accepted me exactly as I was. Correction, Lucas
adored
me exactly as I was.

We saw each other every Saturday night. For a number of weeks, we took turns picking restaurants. I mined the list of the top one hundred restaurants in the
Washingtonian
magazine, hoping Lucas might find a cuisine that appealed to him: Vietnamese? Russian? And on the nights when it was Lucas’s turn to choose, we ended up at a chain restaurant like TGI Friday’s or Applebee’s. Even there, Lucas showed no interest in food. Even there, I did, delighting in the scorched swiss cheese edges atop a bowl of French onion soup. It seemed my affinity for food crossed all borders, both cartographical and star-rated.

Eventually, though, it grew easier for me to cook him a simple meal: grilled chicken with rice pilaf, a steamed vegetable, and a loaf of bread. So long as Lucas wasn’t forced to choose among a menu replete with foie gras and sweetbreads, he was happy. And I was relieved not to confront this part of my boyfriend. So long as I wasn’t antagonized directly by his aversion to fine dining, it was easier to cope.

Tonight I cooked a variation of the same. Roasted chicken, but this time with orzo rather than rice. Lucas wanted to know the deal: Is this pasta, or is it rice?

I gulped my wine, dislodging the dry chicken and orzo roadblock in my throat, then I tried some shock and awe. “Wouldn’t it be great to take a trip to Italy?” I lobbed it in the air and waited for it to fall.

Lucas set down his water. “There are pickpockets in Italy. And I heard the food is nothing like the Italian we’re used to. And Rome, it’s dirty, I hear.”

“Perhaps,” I said, “but do you think you’d ever consider it?”

“Going to Italy?”

I looked at him levelly. “Yeah, with me. Going to Italy with me.” I persisted in bugging Lucas this way, and I wasn’t sure why, other than the fact that I knew it was a safe game for me to play. I’d ask, he’d say no, and in my mind I’d be able to blame him for our staying put, rather than my fear of flying. It was twisted, and had me questioning who I was, but questioning who I was had been the name of the game lately.

“I would love to go on a trip with you!” Lucas said, and when he did, my stomach turned.
What if Lucas actually said yes?

“It would be awesome,” I said, reaching across for his hand.

“But we might want to test the waters first.”

“Test the waters?”

“Something local. A weekend trip to Williamsburg, for example.”

I withdrew my hand. Another swallow of wine. “Williamsburg, Virginia?”

“It’s so interesting there. All the Colonial buildings and the tradespeople and shopkeepers dressed in Colonial garb,” Lucas went on.

“You know I went to school at William & Mary, right? In Williamsburg?”

“Perfect!” Lucas said. “You’d be a great tour guide.”

“What about Italy?”

“I’m not saying
never
,” Lucas said. “But we’d need to travel together first. Do a ton of research. I wouldn’t want to just hop on a plane and take our chances. I wouldn’t want to cause you any undo anxiety.”

“Because of my fear of flying?” I asked.

“Yes, Melissa, of course,” he said, taking my hands. “I care about you. I don’t want you to be scared. Ever.”

Hmm. Did Lucas Anderson ever stop thinking about my needs?

CHAPTER TWENTY

A month later, Dad and I met with the Longworths to review their portfolio. Dad was smoking hot, remembering every detail: (1) Mr. Longworth’s father-son golf tournament in the Outer Banks, (2) Mrs. Longworth’s board meeting for the One by One Foundation, (3) the granddaughter Loralie’s soccer tournament.

After we said our good-byes, Dad pulled me into a hug.

“It’s a beautiful day, Daughter,” Dad said. “Let’s take a quick walk. Get some fresh air.”

“Go ahead,” I said. “I want to check e-mails before the Hoffmans come in.” Our next meeting was in just half an hour, clients who needed to stop by to drop off some material.

When Dad hadn’t returned in twenty minutes, I began to worry. The Hoffmans came in fifteen minutes later, and I had to apologize for Dad because he wasn’t back yet. I led them into the conference room, took some notes on the changes they wanted to make. A half hour later, Dad was still AWOL. “I’m so sorry,” I said. “Dad must have run into someone.”

The Hoffmans were oblivious; they just wanted to relay to someone—Dad, me, Jenny—the amendment they wanted to make to their trust. They were happy to leave it with me. “Just have him call us,” they said.

As soon as the Hoffmans turned the corner, I grabbed my coat and hollered to Jenny that I was going to look for Dad. I walked down the cobblestoned sidewalks of King Street, peering into the coffee shops and diners. I crossed Callahan and went into the train station—maybe Dad was there at the candy shop. He’d been known to frequent it before. I made a loop, checking the benches, in the restaurants, the shops. Back on King Street, I walked up to Duke. I eyed the steps, around the corners, down by the water. The memorials, the gardens, the firehouse museum, the Freedom House.
Where are you, Dad?

On Washington Street, I decided to head back. As I passed Christ Church, I paused, doubled back.
Maybe.
Though Dad wasn’t particularly religious, he did have a fondness for this church, where both George Washington and Robert E. Lee had once worshipped. I entered the darkness, inhaled the incense-infused space, and found Dad in the back pew. When I approached him, his face was in his hands. He looked a hundred years old.

“Dad?” I asked, slipping into the cherry wood and red-fabric pew next to him.

When he slid his hands down and rubbed at his eyes, I could tell he had been crying. His eyes—his bright eyes that smiled as much as his mouth—were bloodshot and lined.

I reached for his hands. “Did you forget about the appointment? The Hoffmans came in.”

Dad shook his head no, wiped at his eyes.

“You’re pretty far from the office,” I said.

Dad nodded.

“What happened?” I asked.

Dad exhaled, looked at me. “I couldn’t remember your mother’s name,” he said. “Charlene—her beautiful name that I loved so much—Charlene.”

Dad rubbed at his face. He was an old man I’d never seen before.

“I ran into Jimmy Jorgensen and he and I were talking, and I was telling the story of the rainstorm that hit us just days before you were born. I started to say her name, I started to say, ‘Charlene was ready to go to the hospital right then, just in case.’ But the words weren’t there. Her name wasn’t there, like someone had erased it from my brain. I couldn’t remember your mother’s name, Missy. I couldn’t remember Charlene’s name.”

I leaned into him, pressed my face against the nubby wool of his jacket. “So you forgot.”

Dad issued a sad smile. “But then”—he again wiped at his eyes—“I started to walk back. And even though I knew the streets, the landmarks, the restaurants and churches . . . I couldn’t remember how they fit together.”

Dad looked at me, helpless to explain any of this. I had nothing to say in return.

“Missy,” Dad said. “I was lost. I was lost in my own town.”

Dad went on. “It’s like everything I’ve known my entire life has been thrown in the air and has landed in different places.”

At that, Dad started to bawl onto my shoulder.

PART TWO

CROSSING OVER

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

On the first day of October, the day my mother was killed exactly thirty-one years before, Dad and I crossed the threshold of Neurological Associates, a group of doctors who specialized in memory impairment. Dad was tested and prodded, underwent a brain scan, a neuropsychological evaluation. He patiently endured a battery of diagnostics: the Clock Drawing Test, the Mini Mental Stage Examination, and the Functional Assessment Staging Test. Naming, visual retention, patterning, and recall quizzes. Ad nauseam, he recited his family’s history and submitted to physical exams, plus more tests that scrutinized sensation controlled by the central nervous system. Again and again, he was observed by technicians whose job it was to detect weaknesses in his memory’s integration, his reasoning processes, his language recall. His blood was drawn, his urine collected, his vitals charted.

Finally, we sat with Dr. Bergman. He opened Dad’s chart, then closed it. He told us Dad had indeed suffered a ministroke . . . and that there was evidence of Alzheimer’s.

“We should have had you checked out,” I said.

Dr. Bergman handed Dad a packet. I reached for it and began reading.

“Tell me about the medication,” I said, pointing to a superlong word in the literature. “What’s our course of treatment?”

Dr. Bergman rattled on about acetylcholinesterase inhibitors, drugs that work by helping to increase the amount of acetylcholine in the brain, a chemical that is important for memory and learning. Then he talked of glutamate pathway modifiers, another chemical in the brain that is important for learning and memory. There were also vitamins E and C, and a baby aspirin, once a day.

“How long until I’m totally cuckoo?” Dad wanted to know.

“Dad!” I objected. “Dr. Bergman is going to set you up with medication. You’re not going to go cuckoo.”

But Dr. Bergman didn’t shy away from the question, however flippantly Dad had chosen to phrase it. “It’s hard to say,” he said. “But because you’ve already suffered a ministroke, it might progress faster. And, of course, the ministroke is almost always a precursor of more to come. So that’s a worry, too.”

After I had dropped off Dad at home and was on my way to my house, my phone rang. It was Lucas.

“We’ve just come from the doctor,” I said. “There’s indication that he had a ministroke. And what’s worse, there’s evidence of Alzheimer’s.”

I began to cry, so I pulled over to the curb. In that moment, I needed Lucas for one thing and one thing only: I needed him to ask how I felt about it. I would start at the beginning, explain that my father was my anchor, and how he and I have been braving it alone all of these years. I would confess that without my father, I feared I was nothing. I’d narrate my childhood, describing how Dad greeted me every morning with smiles and optimism, never missed one of my school events, and cheered on my every accomplishment. I’d venture to measure the size and weight of Dad’s pride for me, how it was too large to hold in even his giant hands.

But Lucas was a problem solver and a tax attorney and a sensible, reasonable guy who was able to extract emotion from his decision making. “From a business standpoint,” he said, “I’m sure you know that now would be a good time to put his and your affairs in order.”

“Put our affairs in order?” I repeated, attempting to tamp down the anger rising in my chest.

“You know, your paperwork. The financials.”

I closed my eyes and squeezed my hands into fists. “I’ll talk to you later, okay?” I said, and then hung up without waiting for a response.

He was just being practical, saying what made sense, building a bridge of pragmatism over my river of emotional churning, but talking about business at a time like this made me loathe him. His misunderstanding of my father’s and my relationship was so profound it left me shaking.

For hours, I sat at my computer and researched Alzheimer’s disease.

The human brain is a remarkable organ. Complex chemical and electrical processes take place that let us speak, move, see, remember, feel emotions, and make decisions. Inside a healthy brain, billions of cells called neurons communicate with one another, receiving messages through electrical charges. Messengers called neurotransmitters move across synapses or microscopic gaps between neurons. This cellular circuitry enables communication within the brain. Alzheimer’s disease interrupts the neurons’ ability to communicate with one another.

And then I researched the link between Alzheimer’s and stroke victims.

Neuroscientists have known for years that the risk of Alzheimer’s disease is doubled for stroke victims. During a stroke—no matter the size or severity—the oxygen to the brain is depleted and as time goes by, the toxic chemicals related to the development of Alzheimer’s disease accumulates. Even strokes that are without symptoms and thus undetected can serve as the catalyst for Alzheimer’s disease.

I went to my bookshelf and pulled down my high school senior yearbook. I flipped to the index in the back, found Joe—pages 66, 134, 257. I opened to his senior picture, a gorgeous shot of him in a blue blazer and burgundy tie, his earnest gaze I held so dear. Next to his name it listed his activities: football, baseball, student council, the Lettermans Club. Then I found my page, plain-Jane me in my white blouse and beige cardigan, my puffy hair restrained with a headband, my rosy cheeks casting a glowing sheen, sitting up straight with my hands folded on my lap. Cross country, tennis, yearbook, Key Club.

I sat in my town house, having never felt so deserted in my life, so utterly depressed, rootless and alone. Yet the memories were
something.
They held value that I clung to fervently—my hopeless lifeline—even though I was certain my recollections, my attendant feelings, weren’t exactly correct. How I remembered high school now—with such longing. How I perceived Joe now—as if staring long enough at his senior photo might invoke some telepathy between us. I knew I was floating in some make-believe froth of pointless desire, trying to will my past to be big enough to compensate for my present.

Then I thought of Dad and his now suddenly, horribly tenuous relationship with his own memories, a thousand times grander than mine. His wonder years growing up in the 1950s, falling in love with Mom, shipping off to Vietnam, and befriending all the guys like himself. Then a lifetime of service in a career he valued, along with his clients, his philanthropy, Jenny, and me. How would Dad survive without those memories? What would he do without his sacred ground?

I logged on to Facebook and clicked on Joe. I needed to talk to someone, and he was the someone I wanted. First I looked through all of his posts, all of his photos: his wife, his children, their activities, their
life
. And then I opened up a message to him and began typing.

Hi again. There’s a reason for my dad’s forgetfulness. He’s sick. Alzheimer’s. It’s hard to believe. I suspected something was wrong, but hearing the diagnosis felt like a dagger to my heart. It never occurred to me that he would be anything other than the towering guy he’s always been. I know how much you liked my father. I just wanted you to know.