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—”
“She doesn’t take medication!”
“Well, maybe it’s something more serious. But Ms. Dugan, it’s something.”
The passenger door opened. “Are we going?” Lois wanted to know, that impatient edge back in her voice. “I could have been home by now!”
Mr. Fulbright crossed his arms. “Or in Seattle,” he muttered under his breath.
“Yes, Mom. Coming.” Then, feeling protective of Lois, she glared at the grocer for his cheek.
“Goodbye, Lois,” Mr. Fulbright said. “See you soon.”
“I doubt it,” she said, slamming the door.
“Well, thank you,” Charlene said. “Though I really think—”
“When you run a neighborhood market in an area with a large retired population,” he said, “there are some things you learn to watch for. They’re my charges. It won’t be that many years before I’ll benefit from having people watch after me now and again. Just as the postman keeps track if the mail stacks up, merchants keep an eye out for their regulars.”
“Thanks, but—”
“Get your mom to the doctor now. We don’t need a senseless tragedy just because it’s hard to think about Lois getting older.”
As Charlene fastened her seat belt, she muttered, “God, he’s annoying.”
“Tell me about it,” Lois said.
“I guess he knows what’s right for everyone, huh?”
“I never could stand that guy. He’s a hoverer, you know? Always looking over your shoulder when you pinch the grapes. Probably a pervert. I’m not shopping there anymore.”
“I can’t say I blame you, Mom. Especially if you’re going to find yourself held hostage in the back room.” Charlene shuddered, but not for thinking about Mr. Fulbright’s back-room office.
“The