Never Alone

Parkway Terrace was his second nursing home of the day. Wallace had started volunteering with Never Alone Companionship Ministries four months earlier. A year after his wife’s funeral his daughter had handed him a pamphlet and suggested he could request a visit if he was feeling lonely. He accepted it politely, but inside he was furious. Of course he was lonely. But he didn’t need a stranger stopping by once a week — he needed his wife back; he needed an anchor. He didn’t need charity. He had been so offended by her suggestion that he called the number on the pamphlet and signed up as a volunteer instead, just to prove what side of the equation he was on.

He arrived at Parkway Terrace at 10:30 and checked in at the front desk. He had four “new friends” today, and the front desk attendant, Marjorie, said she’d walk him to their rooms for his introductions.

First was Renee Williams, a nice Black lady who said it would be fine for Wallace to come visit her next week. That was the point of the first visit - introduce yourself and try to get invited back the next week.

His second new friend was asleep when they came in, so he marked “unavailable” on the sheet and let Marjorie lead him to the third room—170, Mark Grinder.

Before they went in the door, Marjorie warned him, “He’s a grumpy one.”

But she started in brightly, “Good morning, Mr. Grinder. This is Mr. McDougal. He came to visit you.”

“Why? I don’t know him.”

“Well, I’m with Never Alone Ministries, which means I get the opportunity to come and visit with great folks like you.”

“Did my daughter sign me up for one of those bullshit visitation programs again?” Mr. Grinder shouted at Marjorie. “If she wants me to have a visitor, she can come down here herself. I’m not some goddamn charity case.”

“I know, it’s just she wants—” Marjorie started.

“She just wants to stop feeling guilty,” Mr. Grinder interrupted, “for never coming to visit me herself.”

Wallace stepped in. “I get how you feel. I first learned about Never Alone because my daughter tried to sign me up for it.”

“You?” Mr. Grinder asked.

“Yeah, me. I told her I didn’t want it, and we’re not here to force visits on anyone. If you don’t want to participate, that’s no problem.”

“Alright. Well, I don’t.”

“That’s just fine. If you ever want to come out with me to do some visits, you just let me know.”

“I would, but I can’t seem to get too far away from this goddamn room without shitting myself.”

“Well, I’m sorry about that, sir. You have a good day.”

“Well, that was Mr. Grinder,” laughed Marjorie, as they walked down the endlessly beige hallway with its fluorescently lit linoleum floors. “Next up is…” She checked her list. “Ms. DeLuise.”

As they walked toward the room, Marjorie explained, “Simone is perfectly nice, but her dementia is worsening, so we signed her up for visitors because she hardly ever gets any.”

Marjorie knocked on the doorframe. “Ms. DeLuise, this is Wallace. He came to visit you.”

“Hi, Ms. DeLuise, I’m—” He stopped speaking as she turned toward him.

“Who are you?” she asked.

“You look just like…” Wallace trailed off.

Marjorie looked at him and waited for him to continue. When he didn’t start his usual spiel, she offered: “This is Mr. McDougal from Never Alone Ministry.” She paused to let him take over. When he didn’t she continued. “They send volunteers to spend time—”

Wallace finally registered what she was saying, and his salesman’s instincts took over. “They send us to spend time with great folks like you. It really is a treat for me. Is it okay if we talk for a while?”

“That’d be fine,” said Ms. DeLuise.

Just then, Marjorie’s radio buzzed, and after a staticky conversation she said, “I’ve got to go see to something. Will y’all be okay in here for five minutes?”

“I’m sure we’ll manage,” Wallace said.

Marjorie left, and they stood silently for a moment, like teenagers on a first date.

Then Wallace offered, “So, tell me about yourself. Are you from Memphis?”

“No, my people came from Louisiana.”

“New Orleans?”

“No, northern Louisiana. Cajun country.”

“Oh, tell me about that,” he prompted with practiced enthusiasm, soliciting her to keep talking as his mind flooded.

As she spoke about her childhood, Wallace watched. Her straight silver hair, her blue eyes, the plump shape of her face, her sidelong look - they were all Mary’s, and now they were here on this woman at Parkway Terrace.

Then he saw it, her hands. As she talked, she slowly rolled one into the other like she was gently cracking her knuckles, back and forth, back and forth.

When she paused, he jumped in. “Were you ever related to a Mary McDougal? Mary Carpenter McDougal?”

He had taken her out of the flow of her recollections, and she had trouble finding the thread. “I don’t…”

He clarified, “Really, any Carpenters? They’re from North Texas, so not that far off from where you were from.”

“I … I don’t think so,” she said. “But … I don’t remember as well as I used to.”

“That’s fine,” he said, masking his disappointment.

“Who is she? Mary Carpenter McDougal?”

“She’s my wife.”

At home that afternoon, he pulled up the most recent pictures he had of Mary, looking at them slowly. There were differences. Mary’s hair was always pulled back in photos. She always had her reading glasses around her neck and bright red lipstick on. But those things didn’t matter.

He wished he had a picture on his phone like the one he had in his mind. Mary, reading before bed, propped up on at least four pillows. Her hair down around her shoulders. Her blue-and-white nightgown flowing over her. Turtle-shell reading glasses on her nose, glancing up to tell him whatever was on her mind.

That’s how he remembered her. That’s who he missed. And that was the woman he had seen in room 214 this morning, his Mary.

The next week he brought a photo to compare. After visiting with Ms. Williams and meeting Mr. Grossman for the first time, he walked to Mary’s—Ms. DeLuise’s—room.

“Hi, Ms. DeLuise, I’m Wallace. Do you remember me from last week?”

“Oh yeah. You’re the one who said I looked like your wife. How is she?”

“Oh… she died about a year ago.”

“I’m sorry. What was she like?”

“Actually,” Wallace said, “I can show you a photo of her if you’d like.”

He pulled up the picture he’d chosen on his phone, one he found from when the grandkids had come for a sleepover - Mary with hair down, no makeup.

“Do I look like that?” Ms. DeLuise asked, looking down at the photo and then up at the mirror in the corner. “I guess I do. But next week, bring me a real picture. I hate looking at things on phones.”

The next week was fun. Wallace went looking through printed photos of Mary. He started with the most recent but then kept going back, taking old photos out of frames and flipping through the scrapbooks they used to make when the kids were young. By the end of the week, he had a whole stack of photos. He slipped them into a manila envelope and drove to Parkway Village for his visit.

Miss DeLuise remembered him right away. “Oh, Wallace, did you bring that photo I asked for?”

He smiled. “I brought a whole bunch. I hope that’s not a problem.”

“No problem at all.”

One by one, he laid them out on the bed, describing them and telling the little stories behind each one: Mary serving at a soup kitchen, their first grandchild, a dinner party with friends, a trip to Italy, their daughter’s wedding, their son’s graduation, a sunny Saturday morning in the kitchen. It was fun to introduce someone to Mary again, to tell the old stories to a new audience.

“Thank you so much for telling me about her. We really do look alike. Would you mind leaving one of those photos until next week?”

Surprised, Wallace said, “Sure. Which one?”

“The one of you with your grandchild. I always wanted one.”

The next week, Marjorie was on duty again.

“How are you?” she asked. “Simone—Ms. DeLuise—is looking forward to seeing you. She keeps asking when ‘her Wallace’ is going to come for a visit. You sure are good at what you do. Oh, and I should tell you this. For some reason, she started to call herself Mary. That happens sometimes as the dementia sets in.”

“Oh shit,” Wallace said out loud. “I’m sorry. I mean, oh no. I didn’t know her dementia was so advanced.”

“It’s hard to tell if you don’t know them. It’s okay. It happens sometimes. Mary may have been a childhood friend or just a figment of her imagination. We find it’s best not to try to talk them out of it. It may pass in just a day or two.”

As Wallace walked to his first room, he wondered if he should say something to the staff. But he reminded himself that Mary might have been a childhood friend, that it would probably pass in a day or two. It might have nothing to do with him.

When he walked in the door, he called, “Hello, Ms. DeLuise,” saying it forcefully, as though willing it into existence.

“You know that’s not my name. Come here.”

She stood slowly from her bed and walked to him, wrapping him in a tight hug. His chin rested just on the top of her head.

No. He pushed that thought away.

“Come sit next to me,” she said as she sat back on the bed.

He sat next to her, keeping his distance.

“How was your week?” he asked sterilely.

“I missed you,” she said, looking up at him.

He looked down at her and volunteered, “I missed you too,” —his innate politeness winning out. She covered his hand with hers and squeezed.

“Well, tell me a story. Tell me about something from before. You know I don’t remember so well anymore.”

“Something from before?”

“Yes. Yes, one of our trips.”

“One of my trips with Mary?”

“Yes. One of our trips.”

Wallace imagined standing up and pulling his hand away. Telling her that her name wasn’t Mary. Shouting it at her. Telling her that his wife had died. That his wife was gone. That she was not Mary.

But then he felt her warm hand on his. He imagined her reaction: her crying and screaming, an attendant coming in and asking how he’d upset her. Him telling the story of bringing all the photos and looking through them, of telling her how much she looked like his dead wife. And then he reminded himself - it may pass in a day or two.

So he told her again about the trip to Italy. About their driver in Tuscany. About her slipping on the steps in the Vatican and the Italian grandmother berating the guard for not helping her up.

The whole time, she sat next to him in the bed, squeezing his hand and smiling at him, softly.

Since Mary had died, Wallace stopped talking to himself. He talked to her. But when she responded, he never knew if it was really her or just the voice in his head telling him what he wanted to hear. Just a voice shaped by his memory of it, but without it, he'd have nothing else to hold onto, no counterbalance, no anchor.

So he held on to her voice when she told him it was okay, that this woman seemed seemed so happy, and that because she had dementia and the visits weren’t supervised, no one would know—not that there was anything to know. It wasn't hurting anyone. He wasn't hurting anyone. It was ok to hold on.

That week he started to go through Mary’s closet, something he had dreaded doing. But now he wasn’t thinking about getting rid of things, he was thinking about what he could bring to Parkway Terrace. Some of her dresses, a couple of bras, the little cardigans she wore year round, and her old blue-and-white nightgown. He folded them carefully and put them into two paper grocery bags. He was so excited to take her some of her things. He was even able to clean out most of the rest of the closet. He packed it up and took it to the Goodwill. While he was there, he picked up two bags of used clothes for Ms. Williams and Mr. Grossman, just in case.

“What’s all this?” Marjorie asked at the front desk.

“Oh I picked up a few things for my friends. They seem to always be wearing the same thing. I wanted them to have something new.”

“That’s so kind! I wish we had ten more volunteers like you. Go right ahead.”

He quickly dropped off the bags with his first two friends, so that when he got to Mary's room, he could take his time. He picked out each item carefully, telling her about them as she held them up in front of herself in the mirror.

“Oh it’s so nice to have some of my old things. Thank you Wallace.”

She puckered her lips, and he instinctively inclined his cheek to her kiss. A flame swelled inside of him that he tried to ignore. Kisses on the cheek didn’t mean anything anyway.

The next few weeks were the best weeks he could remember since Mary had gotten sick. He would visit every Tuesday. She always wore one of the outfits he had brought. He brought her more outfits, her favorite blanket, even a favorite necklace.

They would sit side by side on the bed, holding hands. She would ask for stories, and he would tell about their life together. At the funny parts, she would cackle, not Mary’s old giggle, but that was just because of the dementia. He spent most of the day there on Tuesdays. When he left, he felt lighter, more sure of himself.

His daughter even commented on how well he seemed to be doing. He said he was just throwing himself into his volunteer work, like she had suggested. She admitted that was good, but she cautioned him that he also needed to give his mind and body time to be with his grief. She had lots of opinions about grief, and he never seemed to be doing it quite right. But that was ok. She could let go in her ways, and he would hold on in his.

One Tuesday in November, as Wallace signed in, Marjorie said, “Oh Mr. McDougal. Guess what? Ms. DeLuise’s daughter is here for a visit. I know she’ll want to thank you for how kind you’ve been to her mother.”

Wallace froze. “I didn’t know she had a daughter,” he commented with forced ease.

“Sure. She can’t visit much because she lives in Virginia. But she comes down every now and then.”

“Does she know that her mother’s been calling herself Mary?”

“Yeah, she said she couldn’t remember a Mary from her mother’s early life. But that doesn’t mean there wasn’t one. Like I said, these things happen.”

“Well. I can’t wait to meet her,” Wallace lied.

He walked straight towards Ms. DeLuise’s room, skipping his other visits. He held the broad handrail to steady himself. Every twenty feet he passed a framed picture with encouragements to “Hope” or “Persevere.” He imagined how the daughter might respond, everything from gratitude to rage.

Not rage, he reassured himself. Bat what if she knew? Knew what?

The nursing home smell, which he had long since learned to ignore, came swelling back. It hit him full force as he turned the corner. He felt like he might be sick.

As he neared the room, he practiced myriad responses, ready to deploy the full battery of his social skills if needed. He would pretend to be good-natured, good-intentioned, and unthinking. That combination had always worked. He’d be fine.

He gathered himself and then stepped into the doorway. Ms. DeLuise was seated on the bed in her blue-and-white nightgown, holding some of his pictures in her lap, with Mary’s old clothes spread out next to her. She beamed up at him. A dark-haired woman stood next to the bed, with her back to Wallace, looking over the clothes and pictures. She saw her mother look up and turned around slowly. She was holding the golden choker he had donated.

“So you’re Wallace? My mother has told me all about you.”