The Wedding Party

She turned to look. “Oh, that’s Dr. Malone. She’s new. Pediatrician. She’s awesome. Everyone loves her. I guess you haven’t met her yet.”

“No, not yet,” Charlene said.

“You’ll like her,” she said. “She’s very cool for a doctor.”

No, I hate her, Charlene thought, then retracted the thought with shame. She had never had thoughts so jealous and immature where Dennis was concerned! Not even when she had witnessed goo-goo eyes directed at him while they were out together. From young nurses to legal colleagues, women took quick notice of Dennis’s classic good looks. Dennis was an absolute gem. And, she reminded herself, completely loyal.

Charlene got herself to the parking lot, into the car, and out of the vicinity before she succumbed to the needy impulse to rush to the hospital cafeteria, where she might catch them in the act of holding hands over the tuna surprise, gazing adoringly into each other’s eyes.

She drove to her favorite mediterranean café and parked. She sat in the car feeling alone and bereft, feelings that were completely alien to her. Suddenly she knew her life would be awful if she didn’t have Dennis in it. And she knew how much more awful it would be if some doctor young enough to be her daughter had him. “Okay, it’s an age thing,” she said aloud in self-analysis. “A little premenopausal panic. Well, I’ll be damned if I let myself turn into some wimpy dependent old woman who can’t even have lunch because—”

Her cell phone twittered inside her purse. She plucked it out and studied the caller ID—it was her office. She didn’t admit to herself that she felt enormous relief.

“Yes, Pam?”

“Char, you’ve had a disturbing and confusing call from Ron Fulbright, the manager at the Food Star Market in Fair Oaks. Something about your mother. I think you’d better go over there.”

“My mother?”

“Yes, something about her not being able to find her way home…”

“What? That’s ridiculous.”

“Well, that’s what I said. To which Mr. Fulbright said this wasn’t the first time. They’ve started having a bag boy keep an eye on her when she leaves the store, watching to see if it looks like she knows where she’s going.”

“Wait a minute, wait a minute. She drives to the market, right?”

“Apparently she walked.”

“But it’s drizzling. She wouldn’t walk there in the rain.”

“Mr. Fulbright has her in his office. You’d better go get her. I could hear Lois in the background. She’s…ah…unhappy.”

“Well, I imagine so,” Charlene said, indignant. “Call him back. Tell him I’m on my way.” She clicked off without saying goodbye, put the car in reverse and headed toward her mother’s neighborhood.

Lois must have been somehow misunderstood, Charlene thought, and the grocer interpreted this as her being lost and in need of her daughter’s rescue. But it was absurd! Lois had only just returned from a rather taxing trip to Bangkok. At seventy-eight, she was anything but lost. She was an independent traveler of the world. Widowed for over twenty years, she was a modern, youthful, brilliant woman who refused to be called Grandma.

Charlene beat down a powerful sense of foreboding, terrified by the prospect of her mother—her rock—falling apart.

Two

Charlene racked her brain for any incident in which her mother had seemed confused or disoriented, but could think of none. She lost her keys, but who didn’t? She forgot the occasional name, as did Charlene. Although there was that time, not so long ago, when she put the yogurt and cottage cheese away in the rolltop desk and then couldn’t locate the source of the foul odor…. But they had laughed about it later.

When she arrived at the grocery store, she was directed to Mr. Fulbright’s office in the back of the store. She heard her mother before she saw her. “May I have a drink of something, please?” Lois asked in a small voice. Charlene was brought up short. She hadn’t heard that kind of meekness from her mother since Lois’s gallbladder surgery sixteen years ago.

Charlene peeked into the partitioned room. Lois sat hunched on the hard chair beside Mr. Fulbright’s desk. Though Lois Pomeroy was petite, she was such a formidable personality, Charlene tended to think of her as larger than she was. And Lois always sat or stood straight, her head up. She was prideful and pigheaded. In fact, she was a bossy pain in the ass, who at the moment looked stooped and cowed and…frightened. It was very disturbing.

“Anything you like, Mrs. Pomeroy.”

“Just water, thank you.”

“Be right back,” Fulbright said. He nearly ran into Charlene as he exited his cubicle. “Oh, my heavens!” he said, laughing nervously. He grinned at Charlene in a big, perfect Cheshire smile. “Go ahead in,” he said.

Lois raised her bowed head and saw Charlene. “Oh. He said he called you. I told him not to.”

“Mom, what happened?”

“I just got a little turned around, that’s all. It happens to people my age from time to time.”

“And has it happened before?”

“Well, no, not really….”

“But Mr. Fulbright said they’ve been having bag boys keep an eye on you until it appears that you know where you’re going. What does that mean?”

Mr. Fulbright brought the water. Lois sipped before speaking. “Well, there was one time last year—”

“Last month,” Mr. Fulbright corrected.

“It wasn’t last month!” Lois shot back. “Sheesh,” she added impatiently.

“Yes, it was, Lois. Remember?” he asked too patiently, as though speaking to a child. “You were all turned around in the parking lot. Driving in circles. You went around and around, then back and forth past the store. One of the boys flagged you down and asked if you needed something. Remember?”

“Oh, that was last year!” A little strength was seeping into her voice under the mantle of anger.

Mr. Fulbright rolled his eyes in frustration. He then connected with Charlene’s eyes, smirked and shook his head. “Well, if you say so,” he relented, but he shook his head. “You have some groceries, Lois. Let me carry them to your daughter’s car, okay?”

“Don’t bother yourself, I can do it.”

“Yes, I know you can, but it’s my pleasure. I’m afraid if I don’t take good care of you, you’ll shop at another store.”

“I’m thinking about doing that anyway,” she said. “Been thinking about it, actually.”

Charlene got her mother settled in the front seat of the car, the groceries in the trunk, and stood behind the car with Mr. Fulbright.

“This is an old neighborhood, Ms. Dugan. It’s an unfortunate part of the job that we see some of our best customers go through aging crises. Lois got lost about a month ago and couldn’t get herself out of the parking lot, much less find her house. She kept coming back to the store, driving around and around the parking lot, until someone helped her. She knows it happened—she started walking instead of driving, and don’t let her tell you it was for the exercise.” He rolled his eyes skyward, where heavy, dark clouds loomed, just waiting to let go. “Who would take that kind of chance in unpredictable weather like this? A person could drown! It’s so she doesn’t get too far away from home before she realizes she doesn’t know where she is.”

Charlene was absolutely horrified. “This is impossible! She just returned from the Far East!” But in thinking about it, Charlene realized that that trip, a tour, had taken place over two years ago.

“Nevertheless…”

“What happened this morning?” Charlene asked. “Exactly.”

“I had one of the boys watch her walk down Rio Vista to make sure she turned toward her house, but she walked right by. She could have been going to visit someone, so Doug stayed with her just in case. She went another block, doubled back past her street again and finally sat on a retainer wall, in the rain, looking dazed. He asked her if he could help her and she started to cry.”

“Cry? My mother doesn’t cry! For God’s sake, this is crazy!”

Mr. Fulbright touched her arm and Charlene snatched it back as though burned. “She should see her doctor. It might be just a fluke, a medication screwup or—”