Saturday

The first thing that caught my eye when I walked in Mum’s room at The Home was the kit on her chest of drawers. I’ve never seen a Newcastle Pad before but it didn’t take much to put two and two together. I knew that Juliette had asked for a urine sample to be taken. A kit with a pad, a syringe and a sample bottle in had to be a Newcastle Pad. Reggie told me that they had been able to get a sample that morning. His dip test came up negative. Whatever it was that made Mum behave so oddly on Wednesday it wasn’t a UTI.

Although it was quite late, Mum wasn’t really very awake and she kept drifting in and out of sleep as I read to her.

As was expected, Mum wasn’t that communicative. She never is on the first day after a Sleepy phase. The only thing she said that I could understand was

“My Daddy. I want my Daddy.”

That’s the first time she’s referred to him like that. She’ll often talk about her dad. She’ll even say that she’s seen him. But she always, until now, calls him Dad.

She also had a raging thirst. I’ve never known her drink so much during a visit. And she hardly ever asks for more.

She was very keen for me to read to her when I suggested it. As I sat holding her hand and reading I could hear a commotion in the lounge. Audrey was being transferred into a wheelchair for a trip to the bathroom.

I haven’t visited Audrey for quite a while. The visits to Mum have been tough enough without being delayed by an extra half an hour or more listening to her. I just kept my head down and hoped she wouldn’t see me.

She did.

“LUKA!!”

She can’t hold anybody’s name so just makes one up. And she’s never called me the same name twice. She made me promise to go and speak to her later.

When I went to see her, she had a lot to say. Her vocabulary wasn’t that great today and it couldn’t keep up with her excitement at being able to tell her story. But I could tell that she was especially pleased with herself because a huge and unwieldy project had been delivered successfully against the odds. There were three people who’d been key to getting this thing over the line and she named them. Real names, not made up ones. Although Reggie accused her of “telling porkies” there was enough there to convince me that these were real events. A long time ago perhaps, but real enough. I also felt a lot of empathy for the situation she’d been in.

“That all makes a lot of sense Audrey” I told her, “I’ve seen that a lot myself. I only ever got called in to projects when they’d already gone seriously wrong too. It sounds like you did exactly what I would’ve done.”

She doesn’t need much to make her happy. A little respect for the intellect that’s still there but sadly hidden by her difficulty communicating is all it takes. She wanted to throw a small celebration for the people who’d been key to making this project a success to thank them for all they’d done. And I was invited.

When she’d got to the end of the story I told her it was time to go and see my mother. Audrey said that my mother was a wonderful woman.

“Utterly wicked of course but a wonderful woman.”

She insisted that I pass on her regards.

She’s never met my Mum.

Author’s Note

My Mum is in a nursing home in a small village in the Thames Valley. The photo is not of the home. I used an AI image generator to give the reader some idea of the home she’s in.

All, some or maybe even none (you’ll never know!) of the names have been changed to protect privacy and hide real identities. If you think you recognise someone then let me know and I’ll edit the post or remove it entirely