Alzheimers, part one

My childhood was split between flying first class with Dad and riding in rusted out VWs with Mom.

My mother has Alzheimers. I don’t talk about it publicly because it feels like a betrayal. She doesn’t believe she has Alzheimers. When I tell her that doctors have confirmed that she does, she says it’s just because I told them things.

She’s an independent lady. She had to be. My Dad freaked out and left us when I was five and my brother was a baby, leaving my Mom to take care of us and all the mess he left behind.

Dad went on to make and lose a lot of money. He had initially resisted paying child support, but then was shamed into it, and eventually bragged about it.

My childhood was split between flying first class with Dad and riding in rusted out VWs with Mom.

Mom had managed to get our house in Cochituate in the divorce, thanks to her feminist lawyer who insisted on it. She sold that to buy our house in Brookline, where she’d be closer to job opportunities and my brother and I would have a less suburban life. Mom always worked part time so she could get home soon after we got home from school.

She always worked at non-profits, to feel like her work had meaning. That didn’t stop her from feeling worn down and grouchy. Every day when I heard her key in the door, I’d know I was about to get yelled at for something.

After my divorce, my kid and I had to move in with her. I wanted the kid to stay in the Cambridge schools she loved, and there was a massive housing crisis going on in Cambridge. Rents had shot up, and even if you could afford it, there was nothing available. Public housing waiting lists were absurdly long, and to qualify you had to commit to never making too much money. Mom had a little two bedroom condo in North Cambridge, our best option.

The Alzheimers had already started taking hold of my Mom when we moved in, though I didn’t realize it right away. She had always been so stubborn and insistent on things being a certain way that it was tough to realize this was something new. She refused to move her computer out of the room we were in, forcing me to set mine up in the dining room. Every night when I was trying to get the kid to sleep, Mom would knock on the door saying she just needed to check her email real quick.

The kid and I slept together on a thin mattress on the floor. We weren’t allowed to put our stuff anywhere else in the condo, so aside from our clothes it was piled up around us. We had no space in the bathroom cabinets, so we lived out of my toiletry bag.

We lived there for two years.

The condo was part of a triple decker, on the second floor, and I was friendly with the young couples above and below us. One day the woman downstairs, who knew how rough the situation was, let me know that they’d be moving out, taking their kid to the suburbs. They were renting the condo from the owner, who I knew and contacted immediately. I borrowed money from friends for first and last and moved us in.

We were downstairs from Mom. She’d been trying to get rid of us for two years, but now she would stop by every day, lonely and bored. She’d wait all day for the mail to come, and then knock on the door with mine. I wanted to be patient about it. I could act patient most days. I felt like an asshole for not feeling patient. What I felt when she knocked was that dread I felt as a kid when I heard her key in the lock: I’m about to be in trouble.