Fast & Loose Elizabeth Bevarly (bts book recommendations .txt) 📖

to say good-bye to Rufus, but something in her eyes told him she’d already forgotten who he was. He smiled and told her it had been nice to meet her, then turned to Bree to give her a reassuring look. But Bree wouldn’t meet his eyes, and instead focused all her attention on her mother. He watched the two women go back into the building, then watched through the panorama window as they walked down the hall not saying a word to each other. Then he strode slowly back to where he’d parked the Wagoneer next to Bree’s Honda.

And he debated whether or not to drive away.

Bree hadn’t seemed to want to say anything more to him. On the other hand, she hadn’t told him to take a hike. Going with his gut, he decided to wait for her. After about twenty minutes, she emerged from the main entrance of the nursing home, her head down as she looked for something in her purse.

She looked up again as she fished out her keys, and when she saw Rufus leaning against his truck, she halted in her tracks. For a moment, she only looked at him, then she began to make her way slowly forward again. He said nothing as she drew nearer, waited to see if she would get in her car and drive away, or if she would say something. For a minute, he thought it would be that first. She unlocked the driver’s side door of her car and stepped behind it, never saying a word.

Then she looked at him from over the car’s roof and said, “She was diagnosed with early onset Alzheimer’s a little over two years ago. She was okay living by herself until about nine months ago. That was when she started showing bad judgment in things—let some guy in the house for a”—she made quotation marks with her fingers—“carpet cleaning estimate, and he stole her wallet and checkbook while he was there. Then, in one day, she bought about two grand worth of jewelry she couldn’t afford from one of the shopping channels. Then she ran a red light and got broadsided by another car. Everyone was okay,” she hastened to add, “but it was strike three. I had to find a place where someone could watch her, because I can’t be there for her all the time.”

“Bree, you don’t have to explain any of this to me.”

He might as well have not spoken, because she didn’t seem to hear him. She just kept looking at him and kept talking. “You know, when you get past the tragedy of Alzheimer’s, it’s actually a fascinating disease. It attacks the most recently matured part of the brain first and then moves backward, so the sufferer kind of begins to age in reverse. They pretty much go from being a mature, responsible adult, to a less mature, less responsible young adult, to an immature, irresponsible adolescent, to a child you have to watch every minute, then to an infant where they can’t take care of themselves at all. Right now, my mom’s moving from stage four to stage five. She has the maturity and judgment of about a twelve-year-old. And her memories are disappearing pretty quickly.”

Rufus had no idea what to say. So he only said, “I’m sorry, Bree. I know it must be hard to see someone you love go through this kind of thing.”

Again, though, it was as if she didn’t hear him. “She goes in and out of recognizing people and things, too. The last time I was here, I had dinner with her, and she put salad dressing on her spaghetti and parmesan cheese in her iced tea.” Now she did focus on Rufus, meeting his gaze steadily. “The woman who runs the support group said you have to have a sense of humor about Alzheimer’s. You have to laugh when stuff like that happens, otherwise you’ll never get through it. But you know what, Rufus? That’s bullshit. You can’t laugh about this stuff.”

Her chin crumpled just a little, and her eyes grew damp, and she looked away when she spoke again. “Today wasn’t a good day,” she said, her voice coming out a little rougher now. “Some days, she does remember who I am. Some days she remembers all the way back to the day I was born. Some days, it’s almost like having my mom back the way she used to be. But those days are coming fewer and farther between.”

She swallowed hard and shook her head, a smile coming from out of nowhere. “I wish you could have met her before this. She was always so vivacious and funny. I mean, she had this crappy life full of hard work and she was saddled with a kid she had to raise herself, but she was never bitter or angry. She never raised a fist to curse fate. She always made do with what she had, and she squeezed as much out of life as she could.”

“She sounds a lot like her daughter,” Rufus said softly.

Bree shook her head. “No. No way. Mom was a way better person than me. Is a way better person than me,” she hastily corrected herself, a look of vague horror crossing her face when she realized she was speaking about her mother in the past tense. “She’s braver than me. And smarter than me. And more content than me.” She met his gaze again. “It’s not fair. It’s not fair that she had such a hard, crappy life, and now she has to spend what’s left of it like this. It’s going to get bad, Rufus. Really bad. And her money is going to be gone in less than a year. And then I’ll have to put her in a place where they don’t give a damn about what happens to her.”

He understood so much about Bree in that moment, realized so many things he should have realized way before now. “She’s the reason