Coke and Jesus

My mother had become many things before she became a person living with dementia. In the 80's she became a cheerleader at ISU after being a lifeguard at the community pool in high school. After graduating, she was a wife for a whole eight months until she became the community college's outreach program director – then she became a feminist and a hot divorcée. She soon became a wife again, who hosted a radio show on Fridays... until she became a bit-deflated-but-still-independent-and-hot divorcée after word of her reputation got around to her husband. But third time's the charm, and when she divorced the third time, she at least became an MBA graduate and a mother. Somewhere in the battlefield of the third marriage she decided that I was enough and remained a single mother.

I knew my father only through the traits my mom and I didn't share. I never asked his name, why would I? I noticed once when we were brushing our teeth how my mother and I shared our dimpled cheeks. We shared our noses and long legs – we even shared freckles. But her bright blonde hair distinctly contrasted with my wavy black curls, and my olive skin was always a point of envy when she burned in the summer. My lips were full and in a permanent pout while hers smiled easily. I loved the crow’s feet she complained about because they hugged her green eyes. My black eyes hid under thick eyebrows with a worry line etched in the middle.

Our days were filled with Lean Cuisine food fights, belting Barbara Streisand and Celine Dion ballads (I hear your judgement, haters), and cuddling on the couch taking turns reading Steven King aloud, our faces warped by the giant red flashlight we held to our chins. My mother made me read the truly scary bits, telling me that this was good practice for adulthood. If I could handle Pennywise as a kid, I could handle anything as a grown-up.

When I went off to college, she became a young retiree after becoming a wife one more time. She remained a wife for 16 years, but gradually became forgetful, confused, then paranoid and eventually violent. She became impossible for my stepdad to live with, and in what still seems like seconds when I look back, she became a stranger to me – and became the youngest resident to live at Sunnyside Memory Care.

She became delusional and would call me in a hushed and frantic voice at three in the morning telling me that she had slept with someone’s husband and they resented her. She told me that she had become pregnant with four babies by way of immaculate conception. I was exhausted with the weight of everything, and the knowledge that my mother was convinced I was the only person on the planet who knew how to bring in the alfalfa harvest. I couldn't look at her eyes when I visited, it felt like someone else was occupying them. The crow’s feet weren’t friendly anymore. I still don’t know what alfalfa looks like.

When I saw my mother for the last time, I was more annoyed than surprised when she told me she did lines of coke with Jesus in Cancun on New Year's Eve in 1990.

"Oh wow," I shifted uncomfortably in the wicker chair in the courtyard. I couldn't pretend to be interested in her delusions – not that she noticed me anymore, "What was that like?"

"As you would expect," she leaned back in her chair with a smile that was coyer than I would have liked, "He had long hair and loved women who cried at his feet."

I really wasn't in the mood for that particular delusion. I had worked late the night before and had to gather the will power to make the trip to see her. She probably meant some guy named "Hey-Zeus" instead of the Son of God himself, and her dementia had mixed it up. Interesting about the coke though, I thought, Funny little image, there.

She leaned forward. "He divined the future," she whispered, "He knew you would come to see me today."

At that point, I almost lost it. It was a Wednesday. I saw her every fucking Wednesday like clockwork.

I took a deep breath. Remember what Dr. Agatu had told you, I reminded myself, you love her and it's easier to play along with the delusions than fight them. You can't argue logic with a woman who snorted coke with Jesus.

"What else did he say?" I managed.

"We talked about everything," she leaned back in her chair again, putting an unconscious hand over the womb that carried my four imaginary siblings. "We talked about you, this place," she motioned around the neat little courtyard with the uncomfortable wicker chairs, "We talked about bad sex. We talked about everything."

I nodded numbly as I counted down the seconds until I could sit in my car and drive home… and maybe drive through Dairy Queen. Obligation and guilt alone pinned me in that stupid chair. A cookie dough blizzard would hit the spot right now, I mused.

"He told me you would be preoccupied," she chuckled.

The guilt gripped my stomach in an icy fist, and for the first time in a very, very long time, I dared to look her in the eye. In that moment, on the wicker chairs, we were reading Stephen King to each other with flashlights. Her eyes looked familiar. She had missed me, too.

"What else did he say?" I whispered, allowing myself an ounce of belief in her story. I was itching to hold the red flashlight.

"He said..." she looked down at her hands covered with rings, which played a part in her paranoia. They were safer on her fingers where no one could sneak into her room and steal them, but they were a bitter reminder to me that this lucid moment was going to be short lived.

"He said there would be a time when I hold you back," she met my eyes again, "That I would be the direct cause of your inability to grow."

I felt armor I didn’t know I had chip as I watched a tear roll over the dimpled cheeks we shared. The perfectly studied calm, cool facade I'd been sporting was beginning to shatter. The guilt was too big to ignore, and I was choked with anger and grief.

I managed a tight, "That guy doesn't know what he's talking about," and quickly patched up the cracked armor.

I met her fearful, "Don't question Jesus!" with my own, "Mom, we're Jewish," and shut myself up in the safe armor entirely in an act of selfish self-preservation.

She threw her arms up in exasperation like she always did when I was being an ass. She shook her head as she got out of her chair and strode to the building entrance. My eyes rolled of their own accord, and I followed her in. The A/C slapped me in the face as I followed my mother through the Memory Care Unit. The smell of stale, old people belonged to that place like they belonged to their walkers, or their baby dolls, or whatever the residents had to steady them. Evelyn, the Activities Director, was attempting a coloring session at a table. We exchanged polite nods.

"So, what do you want to do now?” I offered.

"I want to show you something before you get your DQ," she said sweetly. Her observation was a shock.

My mother pushed open the door to her room and made a B-line for her bed. There was no stopping to think. No, "where did I put that," or "what was I doing again?" Her movements were filled with certainty, something about her I took for granted when she was of sound mind. She lifted her mattress and pulled a small box wrapped in brown paper from a hole inside her box spring.

"Jesus told me to give you this when you are ready to let me go." She plopped the mattress back down with a thud and handed the box over to me. I was surprised at the weight of it. The paper was rough and dry, and I thought of the lotion in the glove box of my car. On the paper was my mother's handwriting: Caroline and Jesus, Cancun 1990.

"I think you might be ready... But I will warn you, you're not going to like what's in it."

The armor fell away, and I was left standing exposed and raw. My mother had told me a story – and got details right. She met a guy in Cancun named Jesus in 1990. She was lucid in front of me, smoothing her sheets in a studied movement. Tears stung my nose and eyes as I watched her make her bed. When she finished, she traced the flower pattern of her duvet.

The shattered armor allowed the child in me to reach through. I craved her hug, her smell. I wanted to curl on her lap, close my eyes, and feel her voice in her chest like I was two again.

But when I touched her hand, a scream peeled out of the woman in front of me. A flash of hot pink nails scratched my cheek and I stumbled back in shock and fell to the ground.

"WHAT ARE YOU DOING IN MY ROOM!" She reached down and pulled my hair. I felt my nose connect to the nightstand. Stars twinkled in my peripheries.

"HOW DARE YOU STEAL THAT BOX! JESUS GAVE IT TO ME!"

A flurry of movement erupted around me. Hands helped me upright and soft voices tried to calm the screaming woman. A nurse got her to sit on the bed.

I gingerly touched my nose, my fingers came away with blood – broken. I looked down to see my shirt and pants were ruined.

Evelyn knelt by me to ask if I was okay. I couldn't speak past the shock. All I could do was watch my mother hysterically sob into a nurse’s neck.

"SHE TRIED TO HURT MY BABIES," she wailed, rocking back and forth. Her mouth open with sobs. She clutched the box to her chest.

I ran.

I ran through my mother's door and past the courtyard with the wicker furniture. I almost plowed over an ancient, vacant woman holding a baby doll. With shaky fingers I punched in the code to get out of Sunnyside and scrambled into my car. It was my turn to scream. I screamed at Jesus, whoever the fuck he was. I screamed at Mom, I screamed at myself, I screamed until it hurt to breathe. I put my head on the steering wheel and closed my eyes, blood dripping from my nose.

A knock at the window tore my head up. It was Evelyn holding that fucking Jesus box. I rolled down my window.

"You okay, hun?" She asked in a sweet southern drawl, "You're bleeding pretty bad."

I nodded, despite the stabbing in my nose. I reached into the console to find a few Jimmy John's napkins. They'll have to do.

She paused a moment, "She’s calm now..."

I stared at the box in her hand. Caroline and Jesus, Cancun 1990. Mom's right. I wouldn't like what was in the box.

"Your mom wanted me to give -"

"- Keep it.”

I rolled up my window and drove home.