Still Alice (16 page)

She was in the best physical shape of her life. Good food plus daily exercise equaled the strength in her flexed triceps muscles, the flexibility in her hips, her strong calves, and easy breathing during a four-mile run. Then, of course, there was her mind. Unresponsive, disobedient, weakening.

She took Aricept, Namenda, the mystery Amylix trial pill, Lipitor, vitamins C and E, and baby aspirin. She consumed additional antioxidants in the form of blueberries, red wine, and dark chocolate. She drank green tea. She tried ginkgo biloba. She meditated and played Numero. She brushed her teeth with her left, nondominant hand. She slept when she was tired. Yet none of these efforts seemed to add up to visible, measurable results. Maybe her cognitive capabilities would noticeably worsen if she subtracted the exercise, the Aricept, or the blueberries. Maybe unopposed, her dementia would run amok. Maybe. But maybe all these things didn’t affect anything. She couldn’t know, unless she went off her
meds, eliminated chocolate and wine, and sat on her ass for the next month. This was not an experiment she was willing to conduct.

She stepped into warrior pose. She exhaled and sank deeper into the lunge, accepting the discomfort and additional challenge to her concentration and stamina, determined to maintain the pose. Determined to remain a warrior.

John emerged from the kitchen, bed-headed and zombie-like but dressed to run.

“You want coffee first?” asked Alice.

“No, let’s just go, I’ll have it when we get back.”

They ran two miles every morning along Main Street to the center of town and returned via the same route. John’s body had grown noticeably leaner and defined, and he could run that distance easily now, but he didn’t enjoy one second of it. He ran with her, resigned and uncomplaining, but with the same enthusiasm and zest he had for paying the bills or doing the laundry. And she loved him for it.

She ran behind him, letting him set the pace, watching and listening to him like he was a gorgeous musical instrument—the pendulum-like swinging back of his elbows, the rhythmic, airy puffs of his exhales, the percussion of his sneakers on the sandy pavement. Then he spit, and she laughed. He didn’t ask why.

They were on their way back when she ran up beside him. On a compassionate whim, she was about to tell him that he didn’t have to run with her anymore if he didn’t want to, that she could handle this route alone. But then, following his turn, they ran right at a fork onto Mill Road toward home where she would’ve gone left. Alzheimer’s did not like to be ignored.

Back home, she thanked him, kissed him on his sweaty
cheek, and then went straight and unshowered to Lydia, who was still in her pajamas and drinking coffee on the porch. Each morning, she and Lydia discussed whatever play Alice was reading over multigrain cereal with blueberries or a sesame bagel with
cream cheese
and coffee and tea. Alice’s instinct had been right. She enjoyed reading plays infinitely more than reading novels or biographies, and talking over what she’d just read with Lydia, whether it was scene one, act one, or the entire play, proved a delightful and powerful way of reinforcing her memory of it. In analyzing scenes, character, and plot with Lydia, Alice saw the depth of her daughter’s intellect, her rich understanding of human need and emotion and struggle. She saw Lydia. And she loved her.

Today, they discussed a scene from
Angels in America.
They passed eager questions and answers back and forth, their conversation two-way, equal, fun. And because Alice didn’t have to compete with John to complete her thoughts, she could take her time and not get left behind.

“What was it like doing this scene with Malcolm?” Alice asked.

Lydia stared at her as if the question blew her mind.

“What?”

“Didn’t you and Malcolm perform this scene together in your class?”

“You read my journal?”

Alice’s stomach hollowed out. She thought Lydia had told her about Malcolm.

“Sweetie, I’m sorry—”

“I can’t believe you did that! You have no right!”

Lydia shoved her chair back and stormed off, leaving Alice alone at the table, stunned and queasy. A few minutes later, Alice heard the front door slam.

“Don’t worry, she’ll calm down,” said John.

All morning she tried to do something else. She tried to clean, to garden, to read, but all she could manage to do effectively was worry. She worried she’d done something unforgivable. She worried she’d just lost the respect, trust, and love of the daughter she’d only begun to know.

After lunch, Alice and John walked to Hardings Beach. Alice swam until her body felt too exhausted to feel anything else. The hollowed-out flip-flopping in her stomach gone, she returned to her beach chair, lay in the fully reclined position with her eyes closed and meditated.

She’d read that regular meditation could increase cortical thickness and slow age-related cortical thinning. Lydia was already meditating every day, and when Alice had expressed an interest, Lydia had taught her. Whether it helped to preserve her cortical thickness or not, Alice liked the time of quiet focus, how it so effectively hushed the cluttered noise and worry in her head. It literally gave her peace of mind.

After about twenty minutes, she returned to a more wakeful state, relaxed, energized, and hot. She waded back into the ocean, just for a quick dip this time, exchanging sweat and heat for salt and cool. Back in her chair, she overheard a woman on the blanket next to them talking about the wonderful play she’d just seen at the Monomoy Theatre. The hollowed-out flip-flopping surged back in.

That evening, John grilled cheeseburgers, and Alice made a salad. Lydia didn’t come home for dinner.

“I’m sure rehearsal’s just running a bit late,” said John.

“She hates me now.”

“She doesn’t hate you.”

After dinner, Alice drank two more glasses of red wine, and John drank three more glasses of scotch with ice. Still no
Lydia. After Alice added her evening dose of pills to her unsettled stomach, they sat on the couch together with a bowl of popcorn and a box of Milk Duds and watched
King Lear.

John woke her on the couch. The television was off, and the house was dark. She must’ve fallen asleep before the movie ended. She didn’t remember the ending anyway. He guided her up the stairs to their bedroom.

She stood at her side of the bed, her hand over her disbelieving mouth, tears in her eyes, the worry expelled from her stomach and mind. Lydia’s journal lay on her pillow.

“S
ORRY
I’
M LATE,” SAID
T
OM,
walking in.

“Okay, everyone, now that Tom’s here, Charlie and I have some news to share,” said Anna. “I’m five weeks pregnant with twins!”

Hugs and kisses and congratulations were followed by excited questions and answers and interruptions and more questions and answers. As her ability to track what was said in complex conversations with many participants declined, Alice’s sensitivity to what wasn’t said, to body language and unspoken feelings, had heightened. She’d explained this phenomenon a couple of weeks ago to Lydia, who’d told her it was an enviable skill to have as an actor. She’d said that she and other actors had to focus extremely hard to divorce themselves from verbal language in an effort to be honestly affected by what the other actors were doing and feeling. Alice didn’t quite understand the distinction, but she loved Lydia for seeing her handicap as an enviable skill.

John looked happy and excited, but Alice saw that he exposed only some of the happiness and excitement he actually felt, probably trying to respect Anna’s caveat of “it’s still
early.” Even without Anna’s cautioning, he was superstitious, as most biologists were, and wouldn’t be inclined to openly count these two little chickens before they hatched. But he already couldn’t wait. He wanted grandchildren.

Just beneath Charlie’s happiness and excitement, Alice saw a thick layer of nervousness covering a thicker layer of terror. Alice thought they were both obviously visible, but Anna seemed oblivious, and no one else commented. Was she simply seeing the typical worry of an expectant first-time father? Was he nervous about the responsibility of feeding two mouths at once and paying for two college tuitions simultaneously? That would explain only the first layer. Was he also terrified about the prospect of having two kids in college and, at the same time, a wife with dementia?

Lydia and Tom stood next to each other, talking to Anna. Her children were beautiful, her children who weren’t children anymore. Lydia looked radiant; she was enjoying the good news on top of the fact that her entire family was here to see her act.

Tom’s smile was genuine, but Alice saw a subtle uneasiness about him, his eyes and cheeks slightly sunken, his body bonier. Was it school? A girlfriend? He saw her studying him.

“Mom, how are you feeling?” he asked.

“Mostly good.”

“Really?”

“Yes, honestly. I’m feeling great.”

“You seem too quiet.”

“There’s too many of us talking at once and too quickly,” said Lydia.

Tom’s smile disappeared, and he looked like he might cry. Alice’s BlackBerry in her baby blue bag vibrated against her hip, signaling the time for her evening dose of pills. She’d
wait a few minutes. She didn’t want to take them just now, in front of Tom.

“Lyd, what time is your performance tomorrow?” asked Alice, her BlackBerry in hand.

“Eight o’clock.”

“Mom, you don’t have to schedule it. We’re all here. It’s not like we’re going to forget to bring you with us,” said Tom.

“What’s the name of the play we’re going to see?” asked Anna.

“Proof,”
said Lydia.

“Are you nervous?” asked Tom.

“A little, because it’s opening night, and you’re all going to be there. But I’ll forget you exist once I’m onstage.”

“Lydia, what time is your play?” asked Alice.

“Mom, you just asked that. Don’t worry about it,” said Tom.

“It’s at eight o’clock, Mom,” said Lydia. “Tom, you’re not helping.”

“No, you’re not helping. Why should she have to worry about remembering something that she doesn’t have to remember?”

“She won’t worry about it if she puts it in her BlackBerry. Just let her do it,” said Lydia.

“Well, she shouldn’t be relying on that BlackBerry anyway. She should be exercising her memory whenever she can,” said Anna.

“So which is it? Should she be memorizing my showtime or totally relying on us?” asked Lydia.

“You should be encouraging her to focus and really pay attention. She should try to recall the information on her own and not get lazy,” said Anna.

“She’s not lazy,” said Lydia.

“You and that BlackBerry are enabling her. Look, Mom, what time is Lydia’s show tomorrow?” asked Anna.

“I don’t know. That’s why I asked her,” said Alice.

“She told you the answer twice, Mom. Can you try to remember what she said?”

“Anna, stop quizzing her,” said Tom.

“I was going to enter it in my BlackBerry, but you interrupted me.”

“I’m not asking you to look it up in your BlackBerry. I’m asking you to remember the time she said.”

“Well, I didn’t try to remember the time, because I was going to punch it in.”

“Mom, just think for a second. What time is Lydia’s show tomorrow?”

She didn’t know the answer, but she knew that poor Anna needed to be put in her place.

“Lydia, what time is your show tomorrow?” asked Alice.

“Eight o’clock.”

“It’s at eight o’clock, Anna.”

F
IVE MINUTES BEFORE EIGHT O’CLOCK,
they settled in their seats, second row center. The Monomoy Theatre was an intimate venue, with only a hundred seats and a stage floor just a few feet from the first row.

Alice couldn’t wait for the lights to go down. She’d read this play and talked about it extensively with Lydia. She’d even helped her run lines. Lydia was playing Catherine, daughter of her mathematical genius-gone-mad father. Alice couldn’t wait to see these characters come alive right in front of her.

From the very first scene, the acting was nuanced, honest, and multidimensional, and Alice became easily and com
pletely absorbed in the imaginary world the actors created. Catherine claimed she’d written a groundbreaking proof, but neither her love interest nor her estranged sister believed her, and they both questioned her mental stability. She tortured herself with the fear that, like her genius father, she might be going crazy. Alice experienced her pain, betrayal, and fear right along with her. She was mesmerizing from beginning to end.

Afterward, the actors came out into the audience. Catherine beamed. John gave her flowers and a huge, emphatic hug.

“You were amazing, absolutely incredible!” said John.

“Thank you so much! Isn’t it such a great play?”

The others hugged and kissed and praised her, too.

“You were brilliant, beautiful to watch,” said Alice.

“Thank you.”

“Will we get to see you in anything else this summer?” asked Alice.

She looked at Alice for an uncomfortably long time before she answered.

“No, this is my only role for the summer.”

“Are you here for just the summer season?”

The question seemed to make her sad as she considered it. Her eyes welled with tears.

“Yes, I’m moving back to L.A. at the end of August, but I’ll be back this way a lot to visit with my family.”

“Mom, that’s Lydia, your daughter,” said Anna.

The well-being of a neuron depends on its ability to communicate with other neurons. Studies have shown that electrical and chemical stimulation from both a neuron’s inputs and its targets support vital cellular processes. Neurons unable to connect effectively with other neurons atrophy. Useless, an abandoned neuron will die.