Page 24 of The Pieces of Us

I can’t identify the first or second, but the last bottle I bring up to my nose flips a switch in my brain.

‘Bergamot, lemon balm and –’

‘Lavender,’ I murmur. ‘I’ll go for that one.’

‘No mistaking it, right?’ Petra smiles. ‘We need a lot more research on the effects of aromatherapy on dementia patients. But a recent study found that patients who received aromatherapy with lavender oil twice a day experienced fewer periods of agitation. Lavender is also known for helping with sleep.’

I relax my hand inside hers and she applies the oil in long, smooth strokes to the back of my hand, then turns it over and turns her attention to my palm and fingers.

Within seconds, my shoulders have dropped.

She works her way from my little finger to my thumb, pinching and stroking and squeezing. ‘This is heaven,’ I tell her.

She smiles. ‘Just relax.’

I do, and the buzz around me takes on a different melody; the discordant voices fusing together to create something that could be described, momentarily, as quite beautiful. Just like Minnie and Jack’s eccentric bouquet.

Petra’s just finishing, gently stretching my wrist, when Minnie shows up. ‘I’d like to go home now,’ she says, folding her arms across her chest.

‘Then that’s what we’ll do. Thank you, Petra. That was amazing.’

Walking across the room with Minnie, I slip my hand into hers. I press our palms together, hoping to transfer some of the lavender’s healing powers on to her skin.

We say goodbye to Mandy, Sam and Jack, promising to do our best to meet here again next month, all of us knowing what doesn’t need to be said – that nothing is guaranteed when someone with Alzheimer’s is involved.

‘I thought I was going to take Jack’s flowers home,’ Minnie grumbles to me as we wait to get our coats.

‘You can,’ I say brightly. ‘I might let you hold them if you behave.’

‘Don’t do me any favours,’ she says, but I can hear the smile in her voice.

We walk home slowly through the park, one of her hands wrapped round Jack’s bouquet, her other in mine.

‘I want to go home,’ she says. ‘I want a cup of tea in my Scottish mug.’

‘That’s where we’re going, Min.’

She tightens her fingers round my arm.

‘Did you have fun?’ I ask her.

‘I loved the flowers,’ she says without hesitation, and it’s all I need to hear.

Asim calls me at work the next day. ‘Great news,’ he says. ‘The couple who saw your mum’s place last week have made an offer.’

‘Go on.’

‘Five grand over the asking price. Which is good. But I think I can get them to go a bit higher. Leave it with me.’

‘I will.’

‘How was the Memory Cafe?’

‘We both loved it.’ I tell him about the magic table, flower arranging, the incredible hand massage. ‘Maybe Jeedo will be up for it next time?’

‘He’s reluctant to leave the nursing home these days,’ he replies, and I feel a pang of empathy, and also relief that Minnie’s not at that stage yet, that she still likes to put her best clothes on if she thinks she’s going to Aldi.

‘Maybe I’ll be able to persuade him,’ Asim says. ‘I’m sorry we couldn’t make it.’

I’m sorry too , I think, and immediately feel flustered because it’s been such a long time since I last felt this particular kind of buzz. I make polite call-ending noises, telling Asim that I’ve got a customer.

‘I hope you get a chance to relax tonight,’ he says, and I want to say something back, something better than thanks or bye but I don’t know what, so I don’t say anything.

Pete’s out doing deliveries for the rest of my shift, so I enjoy the peace, the predictable nature of my tasks.

Give flowers water and light and they’ll bloom at the right time.

When I get home Lena is sitting at the spotlessly clean kitchen table, her knitting needles moving at a steady, measured pace. She’s making a cardigan for her husband, chunky cable columns in charcoal grey.

‘You don’t need to tidy this place.’ I rest a hand on her shoulder. ‘That’s not part of your job description.’

‘I can’t do nothing,’ she says, aghast. ‘What do you say? Idle hands come from the Devil?’

‘The Devil makes work for idle hands,’ I tell her. ‘And your hands are the opposite of idle.’

‘Minnie sleeps often,’ she says. ‘I like to be busy.’

‘How was she today?’

‘Same as usual.’ She taps one of her knitting needles against Minnie’s care diary, where I know every detail from Lena’s shift will be recorded.

I sigh. ‘Same is good. It’s not as if she’s going to get any better.

’ I pour Lena a cup of tea without asking if she wants one, because I don’t want her to leave yet.

Ruby is at Sean’s – to talk about the pregnancy, she told me over text earlier today.

I so often wish for a quiet home, and the rare time it happens I feel uneasy, detached.

There are no beautiful flowers here to occupy my hands and my mind.

I lean against the kitchen counter, sip my tea and watch Lena’s needles move.

After she leaves, I join Minnie in the living room. She’s looking at the iPad but the screen is blank. ‘It’s broken,’ she tells me.

‘It will just be the battery.’ I ease it out of her hands. ‘I’ll sort it. Minnie, can we have a wee chat? I’ll make us a cup of tea?’ She doesn’t pick up on my nerves. Her ability to pick up on the subtleties of language – and body language – is long gone.

‘That would be nice,’ she says. ‘I think I nodded off there.’ She says this like it’s hard to believe, like she doesn’t nod off several times a day.

‘Don’t get up,’ I tell her. ‘I’ll bring the tea through.’

While I wait for the kettle to boil, I replay the phone call I had with Lisa last night. She suggested a different approach to the adoption mystery, while I wait for a response from social services or the National Records of Scotland.

‘Minnie still has some really clear long-term memories, right? I know they sometimes come back to her at unexpected times, but maybe you could find a way into a conversation around you being born, instead of asking her potentially inflammatory questions?’

‘You’re so clever,’ I told her. ‘You’re going to fix so many people’s problems once you’re a fully fledged psychologist.’

She laughed. ‘I hope so.’

I thought about her suggestion. ‘I’m going to try it.

When I’ve asked her before, it’s almost as if she has a trauma response to it.

And I don’t know if she gets upset because she does understand what I’m asking her and can’t handle all the emotions it triggers, or if it’s because she doesn’t understand, and that just makes her feel more fragile and terrified than ever. ’

‘Just try to get her talking about that time,’ Lisa said. ‘You never know what she might say that could be a missing piece.’

Armed with two mugs of Scottish Blend and a packet of Rich Tea Biscuits, I take my chance. ‘Minnie, I’d love to know what you remember about the day I was born.’ I try to make my voice casual as I sit down beside her.

‘It was very hot,’ she says through a mouthful of biscuit. ‘Very, very hot.’

‘The day I was born? In July?’

She screws up her nose. ‘No. I think it was March. Yes, it was March.’

‘I was born in March?’ The words are out before I can lower the volume.

She pulls a face. ‘Don’t shout at me.’

I sigh. ‘I’m not shouting, Minnie. OK, sorry. I did shout. I’m sorry. I thought I was born in July.’

‘It was definitely July,’ she says. ‘What kind of mother do you think I am? Do you think I’d forget something like that?’

I take a deep breath. In for five, out for six.

‘No,’ I tell her, my voice wobbling. ‘Of course you wouldn’t.’

‘Shall we watch a film?’ Her eyes light up. ‘Something funny. Who’s that guy Ruby loves so much? The one with the handsome face? Big nose, though.’

‘Sure, we can watch a film.’ I lean across and brush the biscuit crumbs off her lap. ‘I’ll look for something funny.’

‘Yes,’ she agrees. ‘I need a laugh.’

While I flick through the channels, I try again. ‘So I was born in July. On a hot day. Was my dad there?’

‘Hmmm. There was no dad there.’

‘My dad wasn’t there?’

‘That’s what I said,’ she says crossly.

‘What hospital was I born in? The big one that was in the city centre back then?’

‘Oh no, not in a hospital.’

‘No? I was born at home?’

‘I think so, yes.’

I wait, ever hopeful, until she tells me a few seconds later that maybe I was born in that hospital after all.

I focus on the TV until I find something that I know makes her laugh.

I draw the blanket over our knees and feel her rest against me.

A shoulder, an elbow, a hip bone that’s been so familiar to me my entire life.

This hip bone has carried me around streets and up and down stairs, moved to the rhythm under my dancing legs.

I can’t let this go , I think. I want to but I can’t. I can’t go piece by piece when such a huge piece is missing.

When I settle Minnie into bed, a jar of mints from her morning ritual is still in the middle of her floor. I push it under her bed, and the cardboard box that Asim found catches my eye. I look at it for a few seconds, then pull it out, checking that Minnie’s asleep before leaving the room with it.

Below the cookbooks and copies of Woman’s Own from the eighties, there’s a small jewellery box.

I spread the contents across the kitchen table: a cocktail ring with a large black stone that Minnie wore to parties, a chunky charm bracelet, an oval locket engraved with flowers minus its chain.

I use my thumbnail to prise it open but it’s empty inside.

I place the cocktail ring, charm bracelet and empty locket back inside the jewellery box, then notice a silver bangle made for the tiniest of wrists.

It’s not familiar, but I guess I wore it before I was old enough to retain my memories, judging by its size.

I wrap my fingers round it, squeeze gently to make it even smaller and wait for a spark of recognition.

It might have been Minnie’s, of course. I inspect it more closely and notice three initials engraved on the inside in elegant script: E.

S. M. They mean nothing to me, but I wonder what they might have meant to Minnie, and whether she’ll ever be able to tell me.