The Memories Book.

The woman woke, dazed for a moment. Her brain did not work as it should, dementia, the Dr had said. She was often confused and knew there were things she needed to remember.

She looked around the room once lavish yellow flowered wallpaper faded like her memories, the curtains once gold looked worn, she was worn, the whole room felt sad and so did she.

She wondered what it was she could not remember.

She looked at her bedside and saw the small black book, it looked old.“Mum” was written on the cover, she was a mother she knew that. Fortunately she could still read, although her eyesight was fading.

She opened the book.

The first words were,

“You are loved” she smiled

“You are safe”

“Your carer will be with you soon”

Her whole day was laid out in the little black book, some days she did not need it as her memory was clearer, but gaps remained. There were pieces missing, like a jigsaw brought from the charity shop only to find that all the pieces were not all there, a cruel joke. It was frustrating.

Her brain previously was library full of books, so much wisdom, so many ideas, dreams and hopes now her life was in just one small book. But this is how she kept going and made it through the day. With routine, wake up confused, look at her black book and slowly be calmer.The first words were in her daughters writing then the instructions were not, which confused her. Still, she followed the instructions in the book.

“Go to the bathroom”

It had pink and white wallpaper with birds and flowers, with dirty net curtains, all decor was pastel pink, pink loo, pink sink, pink bath which had support handles, to prevent her from falling. It felt shabby and dated. She would go to the mirror and look at her reflection. She would long to see the younger version of herself, the vibrant colorful girl of her youth.But the face was old, the grey coarse hair made her sad. She did not feel colorful.

On the shelf above the loo was the crochet lady toilet roll cover that her daughter had always made fun of. It was dusty and looked like it had been left untouched since the 70s.

“Wash face”

“Brush teeth”

Sometimes she felt violated by these instructions when she was not a child.

“Put on a dressing gown hanging on the back of the door”, she turned and could see the pink quilted gown, worn but welcome in its warmth. Her house was cold.

“Go to the kitchen, kettle is full, put the switch down”, her brain would make her try to switch it up, or not put the switch on, and then she wondered why the kettle took so long.

“Turn on radio” she liked her tunes and would do a little dance, remembering the times she would glide across the floor with her husband. Her life, a constant struggle but there had been good times. As she listened to the music, she waited for her jumbled brain to sort its memories.

A man giving her an envelope well-dressed.

The school yard, her daughter as a child in a grey school uniform.

The envelope on a table

The envelope on a shelf behind a blue teapot.

Her daughter hurt at a hospital, the scene does not have an ending.

She would go to the sitting room, which was painted brown, her couch was rust with tassels. She would turn on the newer television, it had been a gift she knew, from who she forgot.

Her hand on the remote would change channels, the news, a kids show. She could not focus, the channels of the mind changing rapidly too.

A pile of black books on a desk.

A woman in the rain crying.

A nurse in blue crying.

The envelope again in a drawer of a desk she does not remember.

The woman goes to the bureau in the corner, like she does every day. It is full of books, journals, written daily for years. Her mind was always forgetful even before the dementia. She reads, searching for clues to things she is missing.

Once your brain is full, do memories get deleted, an internal hard drive that is full and crashes.

Would her daughter visit? She felt like it had been a long time.

The brain is an amazing thing, buried memories appear in dreams or in snippets breaking through, a dirt coated window, wiped and occasionally seeing outside.

What was she looking for? She remembered an envelope, she thought it had money, she wanted to leave it to her daughter.

A tear rolled down her cheek, she often felt sad.

She rarely left her bungalow, and her carer would bring her groceries and make simple food. She had ornaments, lots of cushions, a sweetie jar but no one visited anymore, she had a cat. No, no cat. She remembered the cat had died.

Today was Tuesday, she knew as she had taken the cat picture from the front of her daily calendar. Often, she would forget and it would be Tuesday all week.

She started to read.

Aug 12th

Frank, meeting at the old mill.

Shopping list, soap, milk eggs.

Every day she would look through a book, in hopes it would help her remember.

Today’s book had 1979 written on the cover that year there were lots of arguments. That was also the year her husband had died. She was home when she got the news and had collapsed to the floor, the police at the door had not said anything, but she knew.

This memory stirred something. What had he given her before he left.

Yesterday she had looked through a book from 1965, happier times. These books were out of order, as was her mind. She would go through them and once done try to put them in a different drawer. She often got them mixed up.

June 30th 1965 Franks birthday. Hot, picnicking in the park, baby paddled in the lake, we ate ice cream, walked along the river bank and both daughters were skipping, Frank taught them how to fish.

On the mantle was a photo from that day black and white. Frank had taken it, of the three of them, with his Pentax camera. She looked at that picture, and she remembered the dress she wore was yellow flowers, the blanket they laid down was red tartan, they had eaten cucumber sandwiches. Still, some pieces of the puzzle were missing. Later that day Frank had gone away, for the first of many times.

July 5th pay milkman

July 7th pay newspaper bill, there were numbers in the margins like she was keeping a running balance of money she had.

The woman remembered she had kept the money in a biscuit tin. Frank would give her some money, not regularly, but he tried.

July 25th Frank working. He has a job as a photographer for the local paper, it does not pay much, pictures of sports, football, events, he was really proud of one he took off the Mayor cutting ribbon of the new shopping center. His photos are good.

Dec 8th 1979

Frank is away again and the girls miss him, we barely have enough food for the week, hoping to get some shifts at the local factory. More doodles in the margins, amounts like she was trying to figure out bills.

Her life was in these books, if only she could make sense of it.

The woman stopped, her mind a jumble again, her carer had arrived. She made her lunch cheese, bread, apple, soup. Lookin forward to her lunch and the gossip she would hear. They often talked about the past, “do you remember”? was often the starting point, how the chippy had closed, a fancy restaurant had opened, someone's husband had died, someone had a baby. Openings, closings, births, and deaths.

The cat walked into the room, very much alive. The woman was confused, but now she remembered it was another cat that had died, the ginger one, this one was black and white. Had it been fed?

“Feed cat” was on her list in her book.

Her carer assured her that the cat had been fed.

The carer would look at the pile of black books with concern, she knew the woman was searching for answers, unfortunately there were things that the woman should not remember. The carer had been coming twice a day for 10 years, but the woman did not realize, that it had been so long. A kind smiley faced lady who wore scrubs with cats printed on them. The carer liked the chats with the woman, even if the mind was disordered. The carers own life was in turmoil, she would put on a brave face for the woman. She was trying to conceive and had been told it would be impossible without medical help and alot of money. Once she burst into tears when the woman had asked not very tactfully when she was going to have children because, “you are not getting any younger” When the brain starts to fade maybe so does the filter of what to say.

The woman had made a note in her newest black book.

“Wants baby”

What had Frank done with the money?

After lunch, they would sit in the living room with “Pointless” or “Escape to the country “ on the television. Was life pointless, did they need an escape? These were questions of the woman's fuddled brain. She continued to look through the journal.

1979

Frank has built a photo darkroom in the spare room.

Chemical smells, and lots of photos hung.

Told me not to go in, but I did. Said one entry.

The woman remembered a photo of a beautiful girl, a pin up, a crashed car and a dead body.

Her thoughts came too fast, she knew Frank had tried to get money from someone, the man in the bowler. She was frustrated with her mind. She threw the book in anger.

Two photos fell out of the book.

The man in the bowler, the carer knew who he was, an important man back then, who had since gone to jail.

The woman looked at the photo, and now she remembered he had killed Frank. She was to relive those memories again, like it was that day. The day that her husband and two daughters had died, the girls were not meant to be with him, in the car when the bomb exploded.

Now she knew the truth, and how the carer had tried her best not to let her remember too much.

She knew where the money was, where she had put it. She looked at the other photo that had fallen out of the book. A simple Polaroid of the crochet toilet roll holder.

She went to the bathroom and took the crochet toilet roll cover off, she smiled to herself, no one ever looked in here. This was where she had hidden the money. And she had placed two photos secretly under the leather of book cover to help her remember.

Neatly rolled up inside was the envelope. The money that was left, that had cost her husband his life and indirectly her daughters. Her mind had been forgetful before hence the journals, but this tragedy had made her shut down for years.

She walked to the living room and handed the envelope to her carer, she had no need of 20,000 but her carer did. For the carer birth would now happen, for the woman death was welcomed.