VELOCITY - DEE JACOB [9]
“Is your homework done?”
“I don’t have any,” said Michelle with a bratty, sweet smile.
“Then go read a book. Ben? Is your homework done?”
“No.”
“Go to your room and get started on it.”
“But Grandma says dinner is almost ready!”
“You heard me.”
He slinked toward the stairs. On the sofa, her father, Harry, was napping, oblivious to the chaos. Amy set her briefcase down, and went to the kitchen. White-haired and rather frail, her mother stood at the sink methodically washing lettuce.
“There you are!” said Zelda. “You’re really late today.”
“Yes. It was a long day – and not a very good one.”
“You don’t seem to be too happy with your work lately.”
“I’m not.”
“Why? What’s wrong?”
“Oh … I don’t know.” Amy opened the refrigerator to find something to nibble. “I mean, that’s just it. I don’t know what’s wrong. But something is, and nobody seems to be fixing it.”
Her mom, who was eighty-four years old, shrugged her stooped, bony shoulders.
“Well, you’re a smart girl. I’m sure you’ll figure it all out at some point.”
Amy ignored the “girl” reference, knowing that it was impossible to change her mother’s mind that she was not, and began stuffing green grapes into her mouth as if she hadn’t eaten in days. Even as she did this, she recognized it as a bad sign; she always overate when she was stressed from work. After the first few dozen, she made herself shut the refrigerator door and pulled up a stool to sit at the counter next to Zelda.
“I really miss B. Don,” said Amy.
“Who?”
“Don, my old boss. We used to call him ‘B. Don.’ His first name was Bartholomew, which he hated, so he just shortened it and used his first initial. Anyway, I miss him. He would know what to do. The only trouble with B. Don was that he always kept everybody slotted.”
“Slotted? What do you mean?”
“Kept us in our silos.”
“What?”
“In our separate functions. He liked people to stick to what they knew best. There wasn’t a lot of crossover. That was just his style. He was a good manager, but if he had a shortcoming that was it. I never got to learn much about a lot of the other areas – the whole supply chain part of the business, and a lot of other things as well.”
“Have I ever met him?”
“Yes, Mom, you met him several times.”
Zelda clucked at herself. “My memory anymore … not what it used to be.”
“Please, Mom, let’s not go there. One parent with Alzheimer’s is bad enough.”
At that moment, her father shuffled into the kitchen with a bewildered look on his face.
“Where am I?” he asked.
“You are in Amy’s house,” Zelda patiently explained.
“Who?”
“Amy. Your daughter.”
“Hi, Dad!”
“Oh. Amy. Right, right, right. Well, what are we doing here?”
“We come here almost every day,” said Zelda, “to watch our grandchildren when they come home from school and to have dinner together.”
“Amy lives down south somewhere,” he muttered. “Somewhere in Carolina or someplace.”
“That’s right, Dad. And so do you and Mom. You moved here to the city of Highboro, North Carolina, just about eight years ago, after my husband passed away. But you’re just visiting at my house right now. You and Mom live in your own house not far from here.”
“I thought we lived in Cleveland.”
“We did once,” said Zelda. “But that was a long time ago.”
“Right, right, right,” said Harry, waving his hand, pretending all the shards of his mind had just fallen into place. And he shuffled off, back to the living room.
Amy just looked at her mom and sadly shook her head.
“It’s always the worst when he first wakes up,” said Zelda.
“I don’t know how you do it, Mom. How you put up with him.”
“Because I have to,” she said. “And because I still love him.”
In the morning, when her alarm clock began to chime, Amy struggled to wake up. The very thought of going to work made her groan. Only a few times in her career had that sort of dread come over her.
She finally got both of the kids out the door and off to school and was gathering her things to go to work, when it suddenly occurred to her that this was one of those rare days when she had absolutely no meetings scheduled all morning.