What the River Said by Sandra Cavallo Miller

Author:Sandra Cavallo Miller [Miller, Sandra Cavallo]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781647790097
Publisher: University of Nevada Press

16

Originally, Pepper planned to drive to Phoenix and pick up his niece at the airport. Because that was now impossible with his fracture, he instead arranged for her to travel by shuttle to Flagstaff, then take another shuttle to the canyon. While he worried that she had to navigate alone, she assured him it was nothing.

“I take the train by myself into the Loop all the time, to go to the museums,” she told him. “My parents are allergic to museums, so I have to either go by myself or I don’t go at all. Have you ever ridden the El through Chicago? Trust me, this is nothing.”

Pepper didn’t argue. Arizonans were mostly friendly and safe, despite their penchant for firearms.

With Ashley scheduled to arrive late afternoon, Abby tackled a full day of work. FirstMed contemplated hiring a temp while Pepper was disabled, but their communications were poor and nothing happened. Worried they might again hire someone inappropriate, Abby let it drop and shouldered it all.

The frail old woman with her frailer older husband returned for his memory test. Eighty-two-year-old Winnie Swanson led in eighty-seven-year-old Jerry Swanson, pushing his battered aluminum walker down the hall. One leg of the walker bent inward, making it list to one side, pulling Jerry crookedly to the wall.

“What happened to your walker?” Abby asked, watching him drift.

Jerry looked blank, so Winnie told how last year he slammed the car’s trunk shut on it while the legs were still sticking out. She admitted she should not have yelled at him quite so loudly, but he scared the dickens out of her. When Abby suggested a new walker, Winnie rubbed her finger and thumb together in the universal sign for money.

Abby patiently performed the dementia exam. Winnie sat by him and kept tapping her hand against her mouth, as if to stop herself from blurting the answers. Once, she accidentally prompted him and Abby reminded her to let him try; Winnie nodded tightly. She wore a brown sweater bearing a large golden brooch, a smug-faced swan with green glass eyes. Every now and then she reached over to brush lint off his shoulder, or adjust his uneven tweed lapels, or fuss with his hair. Abby saw her dismay mount as Jerry declared the current year to be three decades earlier, and when Abby held up a pen and asked him to name it, he mumbled a string of odd syllables until he finally called it a panda.

For the last part, Abby drew a circle on paper, then gave him the pencil and asked him to fill in the numbers like on a clock. He seemed frozen, so Abby started him off with the twelve and encouraged him to keep going. In a shaky hand, he slowly put the number one in its place, then painstakingly followed with the rest of the numbers right next to it, on top of each other, running them off the page. He looked wretchedly up at Abby.

Winnie’s lips quivered and a tear worked down her cheek.

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