Page 11 of Gone Tonight
I finish the banana bread without really tasting it and rewrap the loaf. As I’m trying to think of what to do next, my supervisor, Tin, comes through the door, holding an ice pack to her forehead.
“Oh my gosh, are you okay?”
“Just a little bump.” She removes the ice. “How does it look?”
I scan her smooth skin. “No swelling I can see. What happened?”
Tin walks to the cupboard and finds the bottle of Advil, then swallows two. “Mr. Baxter rushed the door and I got a knock in the head trying to block him. I’m fine, I just need to sit down for a few. I’m going to take my lunch break now.”
I pour Tin a glass of water as she settles into one of the chairs encircling the round table in the middle of the room. Part of the reason I came in early today was to see Tin, but I don’t want to rush her.
Before I can say anything, though, she frowns. “Aren’t you supposed to be in later?”
“Yeah… I was actually hoping to catch you.”
Tin must pick up something in my voice. Her face softens and she gestures for me to sit down.
“I know I gave notice… but I was hoping I could withdraw it. I need to keep working here a while longer.”
Tin knows all about my plan to move to Baltimore. When I began applying for jobs five months ago, I asked her for a reference. The offer came in quickly from Hopkins, and Tin was the second person I told, after my mother. Tin knows how excited I was to move to a fresh city and construct a whole new life, one that’s all my own.
Mercifully, Tin doesn’t bring any of that up. She tucks a stray lock of shiny black hair behind one ear. “How long would you want to stay?”
“A couple years. Now that I’m done with school, I was hoping to pick up a few extra shifts.”
My mother may not be ready to plan, but one of us needs to. I have to work as much as I can now, because as her memory recedes and her needs grow, I’ll have to scale my hours back. And without my mother’s waitress income, money will be tighter than ever.
I have no idea how long she’ll be able to continue at Sam’s. He’ll cut her some slack because she’s a dependable, hard worker, but he’s not going to be happy when she forgets to put in breakfast orders and undercharges customers for things she forgot to add to the bill.
We need to stockpile cash while we can.
“Catherine, are you okay? This is all so sudden. Aren’t you supposed to move in, like, ten days?”
I refocus on her. “Yeah. It’s my mom… she’s sick.”
“Oh, no. I’m so sorry.”
Tin seems to be waiting for me to continue, but I can’t.
She finally breaks the silence. “Stay on as long as you want. I can put you on a full-time schedule next month.”
I nod vigorously, hoping the gesture conveys my gratitude, then I stand up and busy myself wiping a few crumbs off the counter.
Tin is one of the people I admire most in the world. She’s only five years older than me, but she has two master’s degrees and oversees a staff of a dozen nurses, assistants, and volunteers. She has a lot of experience comforting distraught family members and works with some of the most challenging cases on the Memory Wing.
If I were going to talk to anyone about what my mother is facing, it would be Tin.
But I can’t, not yet.
Not just because the realization of what my mother will become is so overwhelming that I can only comprehend it in short bursts, as if the knowledge is a series of waves breaking over my head and temporarily snuffing out my ability to see, to hear, to breathe.
It’s also this: Tin will immediately recognize, as I have, that the incurable disease that has slithered through at least one generation of my family—from my grandmother to my mother—may be waiting to strike again.
It may come for me next.
Tin said I could start work early today, another gesture of kindness. I gather my bag of Goodwill odds and ends and head for the elevator.
The destination for most visitors and employees is floors one through four.
