MaineCourse

Parting Company

I carry the box of newspapers and plop them down next to the lawn mower, the lawn chairs, and other assorted junk from my garage. I’m multitasking, cleaning the garage and sanding cabinet doors in my adjoining shop. That’s why I’m wearing hearing protectors, and when Dolly calls, “Michael,” it only registers as a light tap on my mind’s door. I pull out the wheel barrow, and this time, hear a harder knock, “Michael.”

I look over to see Dolly framed in the hollow between the row of tall evergreen trees and the skinny dead maple that separate our yards. She rarely crosses my property line, as though that hollow represents a door and she is waiting to be invited in.

I pull off my earmuffs, wave, and walk over to her.

Dolly, almost eighty now, is wearing dark pants, a cream colored top that matched her makeup, and a blue jacket. She mostly dresses in navy blue, what I imagine she wore in her youth, when she brushed off those flecks of dandruff and strands of tinted blonde hair.

“I never see you anymore,” she says.

“I know. I should have trimmed those evergreens when Lew asked. Now we can’t see each other’s houses."

“And your truck is so quiet.”

My old truck, my red Nissan, had a metal ladder rack that clanged when I pulled into my bumpy driveway. I hated the noise; I was embarrassed by it. Dolly, who felt safer when I was home, told me it comforted her.

“I know. It doesn’t wake the neighborhood. What’s up?”

“It’s my door. I need you to fix my door.”

Dolly lives in a small cape with weathered shingles that have never been painted. Folks with houses near the sea don’t bother with paint, but instead of flat shingles weathered an ocean gray, hers are mildewed black and brown with curled edges. Not much has been done to the house since her husband, Lew, died, and that was fifteen years ago. We walk up the three steps to her deck over the now soft floor boards. Dolly points to the inner door, ‘What do you think?” I pull open the blue screen door with the single rusty, coiled spring, and looked closely at her entry door. The blue paint is still flaking and the windows are still smudged with finger prints. I turn the tarnished brass knob and let go. The door opens as if touched by a spring breeze.

“It seems to be okay, Dolly.”

“Are you sure?”

I open and close it again.

“It works fine. I wish I worked as well.”

“What about over here where my sleeve gets caught?”

Dolly points to a recess on the doorframe where maybe a lock for the screen door had been.

I hesitate, not sure what to say. Of all the repairs her house needs, this isn’t one.

“How about this door?” Dolly put her hand on the wooden screen door.

Relieved we’ve moved from the chink in the door frame to something real, I said, “It’s old, but it works too. I could replace it with an aluminum door with glass. The new self-storing doors look like combination storm windows, but instead of seasonally swapping the screen for the glass, you simply raise one pane of glass in the summer and lower it in the winter.” As soon as I began, I knew Dolly was lost. I didn’t know she was about to have company.

“I had to take my cat, Pumpkin, to the vet. She was doing this.” Dolly pretended to pull at her shoulder with her teeth. “He said Pumpkin was too young when she was... you know.”(She wouldn’t say weaned.) ‘He said she was looking for a ... .”(She wouldn’t say nipple.)

“But Pumpkin is okay now?”

“I would hope so. I clap my hands and she comes. Honest and truly, the neighbors must think, “That crazy lady.”

That was the last intelligible thread in our conversation. We talked about her cat sucking on something, which led to her granddaughter’s baby, and then to the neighbor walking up the street, back to her cat, to Matt on Halloween, to shopping, to the upcoming winter weather, to her neighbor, Mary. On the surface you might say where’s the gibberish? But imagine writing our dialogue, then cutting the sentences into thin strips, grabbing a handful, and flinging them onto the floor. Pick sentences at random and you have Dolly and Mike.

Diane tells me this is classic dementia, when someone continually changes thoughts, a sentence at a time, smiling and nodding when it might seem appropriate, but it is not. Except it is I, who smiles and nods.

I try bringing us back.

“Dolly, look at Mary’s house. Her storm windows work like your new storm door would.” Only Dolly’s blank stare can compete with mine.

I gave up.

“By the way, how is Mary? I never see her.”

“She doesn’t leave her house.”

“How does she eat?”

“I buy her milk.”

I imagine a cat. I also picture one widow who no longer makes much sense taking care of a widow whose car has been tarped for three years. I need something solid to lean against, and this porch isn't it.

“I’ve got to go Dolly, but I’ll take care of your storm door.”

Not long ago, our talks would end on Dolly’s porch. Now Dolly imitates Mary. The conversation speeds up when it’s over. I walk backwards past her clothesline and the scrawny apple tree, smiling as Dolly chases after me with her voice. I pause at the skinny dead maple, nod as if I’ve understood her, and wave one last time.

---

My orchid, which blooms every year at this time, has ten buds.

By that description, we are all demented. Still, it's sad to see someone alone worried about her cat and her sleeve getting caught in the door. And worried about her neighbor who's probably in the same shape she is. The orchid is so pretty.

Posted by sane.

"Relieved we've moved [ ] to something real"... But what IS her reality, and why didn't you dig for it more? Does her mortality scare you more, the closer you approach it?

You live with one well-qualified to render an opinion of dementia on Dolly, and perhaps from more evidence than you lay down here; perhaps from direct experience, or similar conversations I imagine you relaying. But what opinion would she render your own self from a similar (admittedly unachievable) remove, as of that of this piece (that being the point of same, perhaps, as hinted in a few phrases)?

Lovely piece of writing, especially the one slightly defensive, didactic paragraph.

Posted by loyal reader.

Posted by Michael at November 14, 2004 12:54 PM