Page 43 of Good Days Bad Days

Charlie

Present Day

When my alarm goes off at six this morning, I’m a woman on a mission.

Despite having gone to bed late, I spring up, grab my phone, and scan my backlog of emails.

There are plenty waiting for me: messages from my producer, Alex McNamara, the house inspector, and a friendly note from Dino confirming the next steps for the cleanup.

I move on to texts. There are no good-night messages from Ian, which sends a pang of regret through me, remembering the twisted, pained look on his face from last night as he and Olivia left me on the freezing lawn with Cam.

On the other hand, I have three texts from Cam.

I’d texted him with news of my ring discovery last night.

His response this morning is an offer to go down to the Rock County clerk’s office in Janesville at lunchtime to check out the marriage records.

I reply with my decision to visit my mom and ask her about the ring, no matter what kind of day she is having.

Before leaving the house, I quietly get dressed, deciding to let Olivia sleep in. Within an hour, I’m waiting outside Shore Path for visiting hours with the picture in my pocket.

When the lobby doors open, I’m asked to wait in the common area while my mom finishes her occupational therapy session. I stare at the photograph, determining at least two explanations for every detail.

“What a beautiful picture,” Nurse Mitchell says from behind me, making me jump.

“Yeah, Betty sure had a sense of style.” I lay the image in my lap, not knowing enough about its origin to make small talk.

“Still does. I’d take fashion advice from her,” Nurse Mitchell says jokingly. When I don’t banter back, she grows more serious. “She asks to see you every day, you know.”

“Me or Laura?” I ask in a way that comes off as bitter. Mitchell sits beside me on the floral love seat.

“Her ‘friend,’ which I’m assuming is you. Usually, it’s when she’s hungry.”

“Probably because of the soup from our last visit.” I chuckle a little, even though I know Betty’s obsession with Ike’s might also be to blame.

“Probably,” she echoes, laughing softly before clearing her throat. “Listen, your dad told me a bit about what happened, uh, before, when you were a kid. And I know it’s none of my business, but”—she pauses like she’s measuring her words—“I think it’s pretty impressive that you’re here at all.”

“Oh?” I say, taken aback, and search for an easy, appropriate reply. “I mean, I’m here for my dad. He never lets anyone help him, and now he’s been forced into it.”

“Yeah, I can see that. He’s a kind man—codependent as anyone I’ve ever met, but a kind man.”

“My God, he is tragically codependent, isn’t he?

” I laugh loudly at the nurse’s spot-on analysis.

My father, the grand enabler. It was definitely the topic of more than one session back in my postdivorce therapy days.

Nurse Mitchell grows quiet as the OT room door opens, signaling the end of Betty’s session.

“It’s sweet that you’re here for your dad and even for your mom, but I hope you’re also here for yourself.” She unfolds her arms and gives me a sincere smile. “This is hard stuff, Charlie, even without the baggage you’re carrying. A common mistake caregivers make is not taking care of themselves.”

I feel exposed by her statement. I’m not some selfless family member here out of the kindness of my heart, swooping in to save the day.

I came seeking closure and to escape my real life, hoping to gather information about my childhood and the parents who let me go so long ago.

I can’t convince my dad to move out of his dangerous home, and the photograph in my lap reminds me that I can’t seem to leave my mom and her secrets behind.

Before I can respond to Nurse Mitchell’s far too generous assessment of my visits, my mom calls “Laura” from across the hall. Thank goodness. Today she is Betty.

I may not be in Wisconsin for entirely altruistic reasons, but the warmth in Betty’s voice when she greets me on these days makes me think that the benefit isn’t entirely one sided.

My dad will have a safe house to live in, Betty has a friend to have soup with, and both of them have a granddaughter they, so far, are treating with appropriate care and attention.

Maybe it’s OK that I want to ask a few questions here and there, maybe it’s OK if I prefer the days when my mom doesn’t know me to the ones where she does.

With a knowing smile, Nurse Mitchell stands and suggests we take a walk in the garden. Betty loves the idea and slips her arm through mine as we return to her room for a jacket. She’s smiling today, and the weight of her thin, frail arm threaded through mine makes me feel protective.

“This is nice,” Betty says as we walk along the gravel path around the facility’s garden. I inhale deeply, my lungs stretching out against my rib cage, the scent of wet dirt thick in the air.

“It finally feels like spring,” I say, exhaling, the overnight change in the weather turning my breath invisible again.

The weather is warmer today, and I remember how exciting these glimpses of outdoor freedom were as a child.

It meant summer was coming soon, where my world went from the tiny corner in my bedroom that’d been left untouched by my mother’s belongings, to miles of houses, beaches, new friends, and plenty of ice cream.

I think that’s why I love living in California now; I don’t have to stay locked inside for half the year.

“Look. Tulips.” Betty points at the cheerful green sprouts peeking out from the rich brown soil. “I hope they’re pink.”

“We’ll have to check again in a few days,” I say. She won’t remember this walk or these buds in a few hours, much less in a few days, but it’s not an empty promise. If I’m still here, I’ll take her to the garden to see if the tulips have blossomed.

See, I tell myself, not totally selfish.

We always had tulips in April, even after Mom stopped tending the flower beds. The bulbs kept coming up every spring, nature’s timekeeper, “a little gift for surviving the winter,” my dad used to say. I still claim tulips as my favorite flower even though I don’t think I realized why until now.

Betty closes her eyes, trusting me fully to keep her safe.

“I’m a flower,” she says, turning her face to the sun as we walk, and I let myself really look at the woman who I’d forced myself not to love anymore.

She’s wearing her coral lipstick and costume diamonds in her drooping pierced lobes, and there’s an unmistakable glow to her cheeks.

Something long dormant stirs inside of me, like those little green sprouts reaching for the sunlight after a deep winter freeze.

It’s a link stored inside my mind or DNA from when she carried me and cared for me.

I have an urge I haven’t felt in a while—to call her “Mom.”

“Let’s sit down,” I say, patting her arm.

“Oh, yes. Yes.” She opens her eyes and with some help settles into a spot on the cast-iron bench. I cover her legs with the quilt I’ve been carrying over my arm like a ma?tre d’.

“Thank you.” A perplexed look comes over her face as I sit beside her. “I’m sorry, I forgot your name.”

“Charlie,” I say, watching for a sign of recognition and glad when it doesn’t come. I don’t tell her I’m her daughter or use my nickname; that seems too risky.

“You are very pretty.” It’s a common comment from sweet Betty. She’s always full of compliments my mother never would’ve given me.

“So are you. Like a flower.”

“What a funny thing to say.” She giggles, not remembering she’s the author of the simile. “My husband brings me flowers.”

“That’s sweet.” I think of the times my father would come home with armfuls of wildflowers he’d picked from the patch outside of his shop.

My mother would bury her face in them and arrange bouquets that’d sit in clusters until they dried into stiff vestiges of their former beauty.

She never threw them away, piling them in one of the spare bedrooms until the hall stunk of the sickly-sweet rotting corpses of flowers.

At some point Dad stopped bringing home flowers, and eventually, the smell dissipated, and I wondered if my mom missed the surprise bouquets from her husband.

“Do you have a husband?” she asks me.

“Y-yes.” I stutter as I answer, not sure if I really do after last night.

“That’s nice. My husband isn’t here today. He’s probably at work,” she says, smoothing the blanket over her legs, the plain wedding band on her left hand scratched and faded, reflecting the midmorning sun. Which reminds me . . .

I take the picture from my sweatshirt’s large front pocket and hold it in front of Betty.

“Look what I found,” I say, pointing at the smiling picture of my mom in her wedding dress. She saw it a few weeks ago but she treats the photograph as new.

“Oh, she’s beautiful.” She caresses the image.

“Do you know who that is?” I ask, slowly, kindly, trying not to be greedy or selfish.

“Do I know her?”

“Yes,” I say, pointing to the young woman’s face. “That’s you.”

“Me?” She laughs and covers her mouth. “Are you sure?”

“Yes. That’s you on your wedding day.”

“Oh?” she says, picking up the portrait and holding it close to her eyes.

“Do you remember that? Marrying Da—” I almost say “Dad” but stop myself. “Your husband?”

“Oh! Oh, yes.” She runs her fingertips down the picture slowly and then again like she’s tickling a deeply buried memory.

“I made my dress,” she says.

“And your flowers?” I ask, pointing to the fabric flowers in the image, remembering the silk flower segment from The Classy Homemaker episode.

“Make flowers? I can’t make flowers . . .”

“They’re pretend—the flowers. You made the arrangement. Do you remember how you used to make things?”

“I think so,” she says, the information prickling the edges of her mind. I wait, hoping more details will surface if I’m patient. “My husband didn’t like them, though. So we threw them out.”

Threw them out? I’d never seen my father throw out a single one of my mother’s treasures before she moved into Shore Path. Maybe that’s what she means, that he’s throwing them out now. It must be part of hoarder Betty leaking through.

“Your ring is so pretty,” I say, gesturing to the large diamond and thick gold band in the image.

“My ring?” She inspects the black-and-white photograph but can’t seem to see it clearly. I take a picture with my phone and zoom it in so she can see it better. She holds up her hand and then gasps. “I . . . I lost it.”

She leans over, inspecting the ground, and nearly loses her balance.

“Hey, no. It’s not lost. Come here.” I guide her back into a seated position and show her the band on her finger.

“The diamond is gone. My husband will be so mad.”

“No, no, he won’t. I’m sure Greg has it.” I remember to use my dad’s name this time.

Betty’s eyelids flutter and she stares at me, puzzled.

“Greg? Who is he?”

She doesn’t remember Dad. I’ve seen her forget him face to face. When it happens, my father doesn’t even flinch. He’ll remind Betty that he’s her husband—sometimes she accepts the fact and other times she doesn’t, and they let it go. I use the same strategy.

“Your husband. Greg. He’s probably keeping it safe for you.

But look, you still have this one . . .” I return the picture to my pocket and point to the dented gold band encircling her ring finger.

It’s the only one I’ve ever seen her wear.

It looks nothing like the one in her wedding photograph or the one she wore on The Classy Homemaker, but it’s the one she’ll likely wear until the day she dies.

“That’s not my ring,” she says, tugging at the metal circle, but it becomes stuck on her swollen knuckle. “Who stole my ring?”

Her voice pitches up to a decibel that strains my eardrums as she claws at the ring on her hand like it’s eating through her finger, her nails leaving long scratches on her paper-thin skin.

“Stop!” I say, throwing my hand over hers, taking the brunt of her self-attack.

“Who stole it? Who?” she wails, and I grasp her wrists, holding them up.

“Help!” I shout, but no one comes. The garden is empty and all the doors and windows closed.

“Betty. Betty.” I chant her name as she attacks both herself and my protective restraint.

“Betty!” I yell forcefully, and she zeros in on my steady stare, sniffling.

“We should go look in your room. Perhaps it fell off there.” Betty starts to argue, not noticing the blood pooling in the divots of her bony hands, insisting a theft had taken place, so I rush to add, “If not, we can call the police.”

Her muscles relax, and though my heart is still racing, she returns to a less frantic state.

“Yes. We should call the police,” she says steadily.

“Tell them Mrs. Thompson took it. She takes everything,” she says, blood dripping off her nails and into the gravel at her feet.

I take off my sweatshirt and wrap it around her hand.

Drops of red trail behind us as I urge her toward the garden exit.

As soon as I’m through the side door, I flag down a nursing assistant.

By the time we get back to Betty’s room, a member of the nursing staff is there with disinfectant and bandages, listening to the retelling of the incident, which I explain from an emotionally distant place so I don’t break down.

Betty’s energy is low and she gets her wish—to have her ring removed.

“You’ll visit me tomorrow? We’ll go to Ike’s?” she asks with eager eyes as I back out of the room, my stained sweatshirt tied around my waist, her blood under my fingernails, my hands shaking.

“Soon,” I say, my throat tightening. I clasp my hands behind my back to still them. No one speaks to me on the way out, which is the only way I keep myself from losing it in front of the whole staff.

With my head resting against the steering wheel, I let it out, everything I’ve felt since walking into this parking lot, every sob I’ve stopped, every tear I’ve willed back inside.

I think of Nurse Mitchell’s kind words, calling me a caregiver, a good daughter, and feel like a fraud.

What am I doing? Why am I trying to pry information out of my sick mother instead of facing my emotionally removed father with the same energy?

I slap at the steering wheel and start the car, knowing exactly where I’m going next.

Sure, there are times when my mother is painfully angry with me, opening old wounds. Some fester, but some are healing. There’s someone else I need to talk to. Someone who is in his right mind. Someone who has the answers.

My father.