Elegy

THIRTEEN Glimmer

“We should stop there!” Nathalie pointed to a McDonald’s and leaned over quickly, so the seat belt locked in place, and she glanced down at it in irritation. She tried to unbuckle it, but she didn’t even have the hand coordination to push the button anymore.

That’s why she only wore pants with elastic waistbands and shoes with Velcro or slip-ons. On the outside, she might have looked like an ordinary woman in her early forties, other than her penchant for fuchsia leggings and teen heartthrob T-shirts, but her brain injury had left her impaired in many ways.

“Becky said you already had lunch,” Harper reminded her mother as she drove past the McDonald’s.

They’d only made it five minutes outside of Briar Ridge, where Nathalie lived in a group home, and Harper was already wondering if she’d made a mistake. She glanced up in the rearview mirror to see how Daniel was doing in the backseat, but he seemed to be taking it all in stride.

Their initial meeting had actually gone really well. It was the first time that Daniel and Nathalie had met. Since Nathalie could be pretty boy crazy sometimes, Harper had been afraid that she’d throw herself at Daniel or something. But Nathalie had been so excited about leaving that she hardly made a fuss about him.

While Harper had been hoping that Nathalie would talk to him a bit more than she had, she figured it might be better this way, so Daniel didn’t get too overloaded right away. He’d have plenty of chances in the future for her to hit on him.

“I haven’t had a burger in so long,” Nathalie insisted, and slumped back in her seat.

“I’m sure you’ve had burgers where you live, Mom,” Harper told her calmly.

“But I haven’t gone out for so long.” Nathalie continued to pout.

“Maybe after the play,” Harper suggested. If things went well, Harper had considered taking her mom out for supper, but it really depended on how she was doing. “We don’t want to be late, though.”

“What are we going to see again?” Nathalie asked, and her mood seemed to lighten.

“The Taming of the Shrew,” Harper said even though she’d already told her four times today. Nathalie had a hard time with her short-term memory. “It’s Gemma’s play.”

Nathalie cocked her head. “Isn’t she too young to be in a play?”

“No.” Harper paused, then looked over at her mom. “How old do you think Gemma is?”

“I don’t know.” Nathalie shrugged. “Seven?”

Harper swallowed. “That’s how old she was before the accident.”

“Oh.” Nathalie stared out the window at the highway and let it sink in. “That’s right. I’ve been getting things mixed up lately.”

“It’s okay, Mom.” Harper gave her a reassuring smile. “Everybody gets confused sometimes.”

Nathalie didn’t remember much before the accident, and she hardly ever mentioned anything about the girls’ being little or anything that happened before. But that seemed to be changing.

While Nathalie had been rushing around the group home looking for her purse before they left, Harper had a chance to talk to the head of staff, Becky. Becky had said that there’d been a subtle in change in Nathalie over the last two weeks.

Nathalie seemed to be having bouts where she could remember things. One afternoon, she’d said that she had to get going, so she could get home and make supper for her husband and kids. When Becky had tried to ask her more about her family, Nathalie had appeared confused and changed the subject.

Another morning, Nathalie got up early and got ready. The staff asked where she was going, and Nathalie said that she had to be at work early to do the quarterly reports. Before the accident, Nathalie had been an accountant, but she hadn’t mentioned anything about that in years.

Hearing all this from Becky made Harper feel guilty for not visiting her mother last week. Harper and Gemma usually came out every Saturday, but last Saturday, they’d gone up to Sundham to show Lydia the scroll and hadn’t been able to make it.

When they’d visited before, they’d brought along their dad, and Harper wondered if seeing Brian again had triggered something in Nathalie. But she had seen him other times in the past and he’d never jogged her memory before. Nathalie had even lived at home for a short time after the accident. And then, she hadn’t remembered anything about him.

Becky assured Harper that she didn’t need to feel bad about missing one visit. Nathalie didn’t seem upset or agitated by the resurgence of memories. In fact, Becky thought she was doing better, and her headaches hadn’t been flaring up either.

Usually, a couple times a week, Nathalie would suffer painful migraines, and no medication had been able to help her so far. But Nathalie hadn’t complained of any head pain in two weeks.

Her mother was obviously going through some changes, and once this mess with Gemma was finally taken care of, Harper vowed to devote more time to seeing her.

“We should stop there.” Nathalie pointed to an ice-cream place advertised on a billboard. “They have the best ice cream there. When Brian and I were first dating, we used to go get ice cream all the time.”

Harper’s grip tightened on the steering wheel, and she kept her eyes fixed on the highway in front of her, afraid that if she said something, looked the wrong way, that it would break it. She held her breath, waiting for Nathalie to say more and finish the memory.

Because in that moment, in those few seconds when her mom was talking about dating Brian, it was like she was a normal mom. Harper was just like any other girl, and Nathalie was just like any other mom, talking about her younger days.

But when Nathalie didn’t say anything else, Harper knew she had to keep the conversation going if she wanted to hang on to the moment a little longer.

“You and … and Brian?” Harper licked her lips and gave her mom a sidelong glance. “You remember dating?”

“What?” Nathalie faced her, blinking. “Brian? Who’s Brian?” She turned around and looked at Daniel in the backseat. “Oh, is that you?”

“No, I’m Daniel.” He smiled at Nathalie, but his eyes flitted over to Harper, checking to see if he’d said the right thing.

“And you’re Harper’s boyfriend?” Nathalie asked.

Daniel nodded. “Yeah, that’s right.”

Nathalie sat back in her seat and shook her head. “I never dated him, Harper. What are you talking about?”

“You said Brian,” Harper pressed on, hoping to help her mom recapture the memory. “You said that when you were dating Brian, you went out for ice cream.”

“I don’t know any Brians.” Nathalie’s tone had taken on a hard edge, and Harper knew that her mom was getting irritated. Nathalie had been known to fly into a rage when she was contradicted. “Are you teasing me? I don’t like it when people make fun of me.”

“No, Mom, I’m not teasing you,” Harper said gently. “I’m sorry. I just misheard you.”

“Are we there yet? This car ride is taking forever,” Nathalie whined.

Harper sighed. “We’ll be there soon.”

For the first time in a very long time, Harper had seen a glimmer of her mom. She knew she was still in there, buried somewhere in damaged brain tissue and misfiring synapses. The woman who had sung to her when she was sick, who had made her school lunches just the way she liked them, and always got her just what she wanted for her birthday, that woman had to still be in there.

And it wasn’t until that moment, when Harper had caught that glimmer, that she realized she’d been hanging on to the hope that her mom would come back. She thought she’d resigned herself to Nathalie as she was now, but she hadn’t.

While Harper would always love Nathalie, no matter what she remembered or how she acted, there was no changing the fact that she still desperately missed her mom and wanted to talk to her again.