It's ten years since her husband died and over sixty since they wed. A war came early in their marriage, separating them. Although he never made it overseas, to her, he was always staring down death. Every night she fell asleep praying for his safety, and every morning she woke dreaming of his warm body.

In their circles, he was referred to as “the dabbler,” owing to his wide and varied array of interests—dentistry, ham radio, photography—anything that struck his fancy. It was a revolt against a poverty that left school inaccessible. For several years he was absorbed by jewelry making, forging, among other trinkets, the ring that hugs her finger to this day. And yet, for all this dabbling, he never looked farther when it came to women—he had many passions throughout his life, but only one love. 

As the hostilities of the world waned, they were together again and soon joined by two little girls. Money was scarce. They fought and cried and swore, but more often they laughed and made love, remaining together until his death, two years after their golden anniversary.

And now, if you ask her about him, she says, “I wish I'd gotten married,” forcefully waving her hand as if to shoo away the daydream. The faded photograph of her husband on the windowsill is one of the few personal possessions in her room, but it means nothing to her. Nestled among photos of other strangers, it may just as well have come with the frame. Times of nursing him through colds and the flu, of picnics with the kids, of his unromantic but utterly charming proposal while out foraging for mushrooms—these, as well as the year he spent dying from a blood disorder—are gone, wiped out, never happened.

Her voice retains the same cadence and inflection, but I no longer know where the words come from. She looks like her but isn't her. She's nobody, nobody who continues to speak, breathe, eat, laugh. Her actions aren't mechanical or instinctual but still born of humanity. Yet, for all practical purposes, this 78-year-old woman has existed no longer than the better part of two years. Each time I visit she's cordial, but there's no resemblance of the familiar, of babysitting me so my parents could have a night out, of our special trips to the mall for pizza, of sitting with me in the car when I wet my pants at the zoo and couldn't stop crying. She's become closer to the volunteers and nurses than to me, allowing any mention of family to disappear down any of the number of twisting halls of the home.

I wish I'd never gone abroad. She was coherent when I left, wishing me luck and giving me $20. For the first couple of months, she sent letters each week, usually recipes from the Tribune that I'd never make. While I spent my erratic days drinking between (and during) exams, I'd come back to my room to find her letters and know such things would go on forever. After returning to the States, I started stopping by each week to see her for a few hours, although I would spend more and more of that time in my car crying. I drop in on Thursdays—my one day off—the same day as the local high school volunteers.

I can't stop replaying an incident from when I was nine. She was watching me while my parents took in a play. Assured everyone was as indestructible as I was, I began horsing around, pulling her back and forth, begging her to play some game, or watch some show, or go somewhere. Who knows what I wanted; all I know is I knocked her down, causing her to fall and hit her head against the worn corner of an armchair. The sound was sharp and hollow. Maybe that's what broke something and started this. Who knows? Then again, I'm always finding ways to blame myself, give myself power in this powerless world. Regardless of the cause, this is how things are. When I arrive at the home, she's sleeping off her early lunch, her breathing shallow. Taking a seat beside her to wait for her to wake, I watch her fall over and over again, hearing that ugly crack of her skull echo through the room.

She coughs herself awake, groggy from sleep and the sun. I smile and give her time to get her bearings. Then, setting myself up for heartbreak, I introduce myself as her grandson and wait for a flicker of recognition. She replies with a forced “hello” and the assurance that she had not been sleeping. I struggle to come up with open-ended questions, end up inevitably complimenting her sweater, and we pass the time in a mutual haze. 

When conversation draws to a halt, my eyes wander the room for something to work with. Daytime television commercials yell over groans, cracks, and coughs—the beauty of the aging human body—but there's never much talk among the residents. Individualized cocktails of meds are passed around in tiny paper cups. The nurses at the desk, in between visitors and confused residents, gossip about last night's reality shows. A shriveled man sits in the darkened dining hall. He's there every time I visit, alone, dressed in the same checkered pajama pants and green shirt, going through the same motions. Other than an old wicker basket containing sugar, salt, ketchup, mustard, and crackers, the unset table is bare. No one ever pays him any attention. Examining each package of crackers as if inspecting a diamond for purity, he settles on one, eats them plain, brushes his mustache with his handkerchief, grunts, then gets up and hobbles off stage, his mouth flopping open and closed. Returning in short order, he repeats the process four or five times before disappearing for good, just as the staff arrives to set up for the second lunch.

The field of drooping white heads perks up when the volunteers arrive. Lindsey, a girl of sixteen, draws laughter and smiles from my grandmother, whereas my efforts elicit little more than blank stares and half-hearted grins. Sitting alongside, I watch my grandma regard this girl, this stranger, with the warmth and kindness she lavished on me for so many years.

The two of them have in-jokes and poke fun at the other residents as I look on. While we share blood and genes, I'm no longer family, but for that matter, neither is she—to anyone. We are unpersons together, only she doesn't know it. During family gatherings, we'd goof around while everyone else discussed who was dying of what; now my words fall flat. It's as if she made a conscious decision to forget the past, the loss too much to bear, and I happened to be collateral damage.

Losing her before physically losing her, my twentysomething selfish heart became determined to make myself part of her life again. Relatives—everywhere when I was growing up—died, moved away, became generic Christmas cards, and I grasp at the few connections remaining. My grandma used to love telling me stories, and so I tell her one. Forget remembering; this is starting over. On my next visit, I sit in the car until the volunteers arrive and walk in with them. Before Lindsey can get to her, I rush to my grandmother and introduce myself, careful to use a name not found in our family tree.

“Hello Malinda, I’m Charlie.”

She smiles and relaxes her hold on the cane she always has in her hand, seated or standing.

“Have a seat, Charlie.”

She motions toward the couch with her free hand, and in the movement, her ring catches the sun. Despite everything else, she never removed it. The idea of my deception stings, and I whisper apologies to her and my grandfather but continue the charade.

“How’s your day? Been outside at all? It’s beautiful right now.”

“The sun'll only age you,” she says. “Don't want to start looking like the rest of these old codgers!” She winks and chuckles to herself, then asks about my family.

I change the names but otherwise leave the family history—our family history—intact, and for the first time in years, she unwittingly takes great interest in her own relatives. She listens, asks questions, and even pats my hand in sympathy in response to my father's cancer. When she looks out the window and says, “I don’t have any family left, they‘re all dead,” I express my regret and feel my heart break clean in two.

She begins to remember me—as Charlie—from visit to visit, and I shoot a bitter eye at Lindsay for trying to steal my last remaining grandparent. But it's dementia I'm angry at, not a teenage girl willing to give up her free time to provide companionship to the forgotten. We laugh again, and I relish the warm moments, even though they haunt me at night. She doesn't often retain details but shocks me when she brings up something from weeks earlier.

Short of getting her back, it's everything I could ask for. Her favorite game of tooling around in a stolen wheelchair, making fun of the other residents, is ours now, not Lindsey's. She even asks me some of the same pestering questions I'd grown tired of as a child, telling me I'm too skinny and insisting I “at least have an apple.”

#

When I sign in, she isn't in the lobby. I take the elevator to the second floor, walk past the breakfast nook, wave to the fish in the tank, and go to her room. No answer, and no longer a name on the door.

I lost my grandma a second time, Charlie lost his new friend, and this time no stories or clever tricks can change that. The hallways melt and reform as I hold onto the wall, but no tears come.

In the elevator, there's a list of upcoming birthdays posted on circus-themed paper. Lindsay's at the card table, playing games with another white-haired old lady, and I hurry past, straight into the dark dining room. The man in the green shirt sits alone, eating dry crackers. He's earlier than usual—the tables haven't been cleared yet from the first lunch, and for once, he looks appropriate. Grabbing an untouched green apple, I say, “Thanks,” to which the old man, thinking I spoke to him, says “Thank you, son,” and smiles, spitting pieces of dry cracker onto the table.

Gregory T. Janetka is a writer from Chicago who runs the history site One Hundred False Starts. His work has been featured in Glass Mountain, Gravel, The Phoenix, and other publications. More of his writings can be found at gregorytjanetka.com.