Jenna’s son
The small child glanced nervously at the blank sheet of paper in front of him. He studied it cautiously. It stared back up at him, waiting…waiting. It scared the boy a little-the possibilities.
The potential.
In the wrong hands, this blank sheet of paper could crumble the foundations of the modern world. The mousy haired boy swallowed hard.
Then he made his move.
He reached over for the colouring pencils and picked up the black. Slowly, undecidedly, he etched.
Carefully, he replaced it, and picked up a white.
Gently, he added and dotted. He swapped his colours again and again. The story blossomed slowly. It grew bigger and bigger. Strange figures began to appear. Scribbled, yet legible. Understandable, but incomprehensible.
The boy smiled.
Finally.
Finally, they would understand what was happening. That he wasn’t just a medical mystery splashed across the news. That he wasn’t a hero and he wasn’t brave. Brave people smile through the worst. He remembered that his Mummy always told him “Chin up!” when he fell over. But he didn’t want to keep his chin up. He wanted to screw his eyes up tight and cry and cry. Blue sloshed around the crayon world.
Suddenly, red exploded across the page.
Do they think I WANTED this? Why me? Why?
As the anger erupted inside him, the colours did too, screaming across the page.
Soon, his story, gentle and warm, distorted and warped: the lives, the deaths, and the confusion. His tiny world burst out of its paper prison. Mr Al Zheimers pulled out his wand and blew a huge bubble. It enveloped the small child, trapped with his own nightmare. The floor began to tremble. The walls began to shake. The whole world was collapsing-
“Cody?”
Cody stopped, arm suspended over the drawing, fingers poised, twitching slightly, ready to pick up the next colour.
The woman’s distant voice called again and again, getting closer. Finally, she saw him sitting at the table, drawing again.
Jenna walked across the room that was disinfected from the outside world- blank and wintry. The floor tiles protested loudly as her high heeled shoes clacked across them. She pulled the tiny red chair out from under the table and grimaced as she tried to sit low enough. The chair grunted and struggled to take her slender frame. She sat next to him, her blonde hair falling in front of her sad, blue eyes.
Jenna waited a while as Cody continued to colour carefully.
Cody was lost again. Taken from the world. Just colours, all the time…
Eventually, she plucked up the courage to break the hypnotic, scribbling silence.
“Hi, Cody.”
Cody stopped and carefully replaced the orange pencil before turning in his seat to face her.
“Hello.”
“Are you drawing again?”
The boy in front of her nodded with a dreamy look on his face.
He doesn’t know anything…Save for those damn pencils…
The woman took a deep breath before carrying on but, but she took a moment too long. Cody was already colouring again, lost in his own world once more.
“Cody?”
He stopped and replaced the colour-blue this time- before returning to face his visitor.
“Cody, do you know where you are?”
“No.”
“You’re at St. Anthony’s care home…” The child looked confused but, on the whole, not overly concerned.
Why doesn’t he care? Why does he not know how much pain I’m in?
“Do you know why you’re here, Cody?” She was reaching out to him, desperate.
Cody looked deep into her eyes, the same blue as his; saw the tired creases around them. He opened his mouth, as if to talk. The woman leaned forward slightly. But Cody closed his mouth again. Jenna felt stupid for dashing her own hopes.
“You’re in St. Anthony’s care home because… because we couldn’t look after you any more.” The woman sounded bitter, as if the decision to put the child here had not been hers. She felt guiltier and guiltier every time she explained it to her son.
Basically, Cody, you’re father is a stupid, selfish, arrogant-
Cody smiled at her again. “Hello…” he chirped.
Jenna felt foolish but…brave. Cody’s moment of apparent lucidity gave her hope.
“Cody…do you know who I am?”
“No.”
That one word was so brutally final; it knocked the wind out of her.
Stupid, stupid, stupid.
Jenna felt like wrenching him off his bloody red chair and shaking him, as if maybe, if she shook him hard enough, his brain would just magically fix itself, like a neurological jigsaw. But that was wishful thinking. He was just a child and he is already as bad as some seventy year olds.
But there was no time for thinking-Cody was already sinking back into his bubble.
Desperate, she hurriedly blurted the first thing that came to her head.
“Are you sure you don’t know who I am, Cody?”
The boy shook his head again. His visitor sighed inwardly, her blue eyes glittering.
“I’m your Mummy, Cody.”
But Cody didn’t hear her. The blue was flowing down the page, mirroring Jenna’s tears. Of course he didn’t notice; the scribbling was too loud…
Red Paint
The car hurtled along the road. The sky was inky black and starless. The headlights burned tunnels through the night, like white lasers. The beast charged down the road. It gnashed at the hedges at the side of the dusty track. Flames scorched in its belly and it roared through the tranquil countryside.
The demon from the city.
James was furious. He didn’t think he had ever been this angry. How could Jenna be so naïve? So stubborn? Why couldn’t she see that Cody was gone? She had known it was coming for a long time. Why couldn’t she just face the facts, like he had?
The woman he had just stormed away from was not the woman he had married. The Jenna he knew had been easy-going and laughed all the time. This new Jenna was stressed and cried every day. The first few times they had cried together, shocked and numbed by the child who was supposedly their son. But James had quickly recovered. He still comforted Jenna. Crying was to be expected: it was like losing a child, but he hadn’t died: a shell, a ghost, sat where their bright, bubbly little boy should be. But after six months, the tears where still flowing. After a year, James couldn’t take it anymore. He stopped visiting the hospital. Didn’t wipe his wife’s tears away. Even moved into the spare bedroom.
Not like Jenna noticed. She was always visiting the hospital, badgering the doctors and then returning home, heart-broken. But she did notice that James carried on with his life. She saw that he went drinking with mates more and more often. Laughed and joked. He would always be affected by what had happened to Cody but, he could not wallow in the miserable past.
And she hated it.
The argument he had just had was the umpteenth time he had told her. Over and over, the same words. Move on, Jenna. Let go. She refused to listen. And here he was, hurtling down the mud paths in his car. James felt like crying, or screaming, or something. So he slammed his foot on the accelerator and the car roared for him, a throaty howl.
The car ran out of petrol about twelve miles later. Too tired to care, James got out, locked the car and walked towards the tawny glow of the nearest town, vowing to spend the night at the first bed and breakfast he came to. In the morning he would fill some sort of container with petrol from a garage and drive home. He would apologise to Jenna-she wouldn’t apologise to him- and they would carry on as they had.
James reached a warm bed at around three in the morning. He slept heavily, fully clothed. When the Sun rudely awoke him, he lay there for a while, taking in his options. He could go home to a woman he barely knew anymore and try and show her reason…again. Or he could just keep driving. No-one would know who he was or where he came from or who he had left behind. He had enough money to get him from A to B. Hell, he could go all the way to X, Y and Z if he wanted. He could forget everything…
James had planned it all over breakfast. He was sure he had seen a petrol station somewhere. Then he would find his car and pull away into the bright new tomorrow, whatever that was.
The breakfast smelled delicious but he couldn’t eat it: the nervous excitement was too much. He felt guilty too but, he decided that this way was the best for everyone. Cody wouldn’t have to struggle to remember him anymore. Daddy would simply be glossed over. Easy and painless. And Jenna…Jenna would find her own way, without dragging him down with her.
James was a changed man. Like he was reborn from the ashes, a spring in his step and a gleam in is eye. He smiled at everybody on his way to leave the hotel. He tipped the doorman too much, just because he smiled politely. The arduous walk back to the car seemed less gruelling when he whistled a tune.
James almost made his departure, too. But right at the last minute the plans changed. But it wasn’t because of guilt, or a sudden change of heart. Quite on the contrary actually, he was gleefully pulling away into the bright new future, the Sun beaming down on them.
But the Sun was so bright, in fact, that James didn’t see the red car racing towards him, and by the time the woman in the red car saw James, it was far too late to do anything…
Leaving
Jenna turned to look back for the hundredth time. But Cody just didn’t notice. He was too busy scribbling. So, she turned and, with a heavy heart, closed the door on her lost son.
She walked, trance-like, to her usual café. The sun streamed through the window as she drowned her sorrows in the muddy water. Staring into nothing, she let her tears leave her sleep-deprived eyes.
Her mind drifted back. Back to when Cody first got diagnosed, that hated word echoing round the doctor’s room like a death sentence.
Alzheimer’s. Alzheimer’s. Alzheimer’s.
How could this be happening? One child in a million. Why did it have to be HER son? There are seven billion people in the world-why did her son have to be that one? But there were worse things to come…
“Mummy…the other kids all called me stupid today because I couldn’t remember my teacher’s name. Why couldn’t I remember, Mummy? What’s wrong with me?”
Jenna could hear herself replying.
“Remember that story I told you, Cody? About those naughty little pixies that made everyone else forget what to do, and do silly things? Well…Mr Al Zheimers is a very naughty pixie who is making you forget things, Sweetheart. But everything will be fine…I promise. Why don’t you do some colouring?”
But then the memories became too painful, and the pain became too real and the reality was too painful.
She shook herself awake and saw that everyone else in the café was looking at her. She had been talking to Cody out loud. She got up and ran out, cheeks burning. She walked on auto-pilot to Doctor Colson’s office.
She sat and he looked. The same look he always gives her, when she turns up everyday, asking the same questions that no-one can answer.
“I’m sorry, Jenna. We still don’t know. We’ve seen thousands of cases like this before…but in seventy year olds. It’s a mystery. There’s nothing we can do...”
With her heart broken again, she left and returned home. She collapsed in despair onto the bed she no longer shares with her husband and cried herself to a restless sleep. She dreamt of the arguments she had with her husband because she was hardly at home anymore. She understood his needs but, their son was alone and vulnerable in a strange place. He needed her. He needed his Daddy too. But James wouldn’t listen.
“He doesn’t need me anymore…”
“But he’s your son!”
“No…that child is not Cody. He just sits there…blank.”
“It’s not his fault, James! For God sake, you can’t blame him for this!”
“No, I can’t. And you can’t blame yourself either, Jenna. What good is it doing anyone, you going there twice a day for him to obviously not remember you, and for you to be devastated every time?” James couldn’t look her in the eye.
“So what do you suggest I do, James? Just abandon him? He’s just a child. Your child.”
James lost his temper. He was sick of having this same argument over, and over.
“No! He is not my child anymore, Jenna. He is a ghost, who only knows his name. That’s it. He doesn’t know who anyone is, not me, not you. So why do you still go to be told that? And your visits to the hospital are a waste of time, Jenna. For everyone. You are wasting precious time that could save the life of someone who really needs it-”
“Really needs it?” Jenna shrieked. “Cody needs it! How can you just give up on him, James? How can you just forget that-”
“For God’s sake! I haven’t forgotten him, Jenna. He’s forgotten me, and there’s nothing I can do about it. We have to move on from this. There’s nothing anyone can do for him anymore…” He moved forward to pull his wife close to him but, she backed away, disgusted. The silence stretched on forever. Both of them just stood there waiting to see what the other would do. In the end, James packed his bags and left. Jenna didn’t even ask where he was going.
The alarm screamed along with her until Jenna woke up. She saw she had been crying. She was so sick of crying. She was always crying. She wanted to go back to the times when Cody made her laugh all the time and James kissed her and held her hand and told her she was beautiful. Why couldn’t Mr Alzheimer’s have destroyed someone else’s family, childhood, life? With James’s harsh words still ringing in her ears, Jenna dragged herself out of bed; she pulled on the first clothes she found and got ready to go and visit Cody again…
Linda’s Surprise
Jenna moved through the corridors of St Anthony’s, staring straight ahead. She felt that if she looked around and took in her sorrowful surroundings, she would collapse with exhaustion. Her mind could not take any more sadness. She had enough already.
Even when she heard a woman calling her name, she daren’t look. She just marched on, pretending to be deaf. But she couldn’t pretend to not notice the small, plump middle aged woman, who was now jogging to keep up, tugging at her arm. Jenna stopped and gazed at the woman, who gladly also stopped and smoothed out her long, grey skirt and corrected her hair, which was scraped back into a tight bun. She was panting slightly as she spoke.
“Jenna…?”
Jenna did not quite know what to do as this stranger peered up at her through thick spectacles, her expectant eyes magnified several times.
“Y-yes?”
“I ‘ave…a letter…for you…”
“For me? I’m sorry, you must have made a mistake…”
“I don’t think so, Dear. You are Cody’s mum aren’t you?”
Jenna stared, confused. “Yes. Wha-”
The woman grasped Jenna’s hand and pumped it up and down. “It’s a pleasure to meet you, Dear. I am Cody’s nurse. Linda Michaels. So sorry we haven’t met before but we always seemed to just miss each other. Life’s a funny ol’ thing ain’t it?”
Jenna smiled. She liked this Linda. She seemed kind, like a grandmother.
“So Cody is just an angel ain’t he? Ee’s so lovely. He’s ever so polite. The other patients seem to have taken a shine to him-he draws ‘em all pictures. I had to rescue him from Fiona yesterdey! She tried to take him back to her room so’s she could look after ‘im… Ee’s very talented ain’t he…?”
As Linda waffled on, Jenna struggled to take in all the new information. Cody’s made friends? He draws everyone pictures? Suddenly, she remembered why Linda had stopped her.
“Excuse me, Ms Michaels-”
“Please, call me Linda!” she beamed.
“Okay, Linda, you said you had a letter for me?”
“Oh yes! Dearie me, ‘ow could I forget?! ‘Ang on just a tick…” Linda fished around in her deep pinafore pockets, her tongue poking slightly out of one side of her mouth.
Finally, Linda let out a cry of triumph as she pulled out a crinkled letter.
“I woulda gotten this to you much sooner, Dear. But like I says, life’s a funny ol’ thing…”
Jenna took the letter from the nurse’s meaty fingers and gazed at the front of it for a moment.
Mummy
Jenna gaped at the scrawl. How could this be real? Surely it wasn’t real. Surely this had to be a cruel dream and that any second now, her alarm would awaken her. Seeing Linda’s patient gaze, Jenna hurriedly pinched herself on the leg and, seeing that the whole thing was real and the letter was still clutched tightly in her hand, she pounced upon it, savagely ripping open the envelope. Clumsily, she unfolded the paper, and drank in her child’s words.
****************
To Mummy,
Hello! You are probably really confused right now so I had better tell you everything.
Remember that day you told me about Mr Al Zheimers? Well I asked the doctors about him up and I’ve found out that he’s not a very nice pixie at all is he? I knew he made you forget things but I didn’t think that I will forget EVERYTHING!
But I’m not scared. I’m your big boy!
So if I’m not you shouldn’t be either. But I knew you would be. So Linda (That’s my nurse Mummy. She is really nice) helped me write you this letter. Just saying hi. The doctors said I might not remember stuff for long and I know that maybe soon I won’t remember anything anymore. Not even you! And I want you to know that I’m really happy at St Anthony’s and that the people here are really nice. Some are just like me. You never know maybe we can forget things together!
That was a joke Mummy. I may be forgetting things but I’ll never forget how to be funny!
You always say there’s a silver lining to everything and I think I have found one for this. I might get better at drawing! I love drawing!
Tell Daddy that it’s okay if he does not want to visit. I won’t know who he is anyway!
And you have to promise me something Mummy. And you don’t break promises! You have to be happy. You have to laugh and play with friends. You are not allowed to sit around being grumpy about me when I won’t even remember to care.
Thank you for being the world’s best mummy.
Love you always,
Cody xxxxxx
Jenna read the letter over and over. She was crying but this time it was tears of joy. Linda was crying too, pushing her glasses on top of her head and mopping her eyes on her pinafore.
The two women cried together for the little boy. They cried for his bravery and they cried for his drawings. When there were no more tears to cry, they both laughed at the whole bloody thing and they laughed at each other. And then Jenna went to find her darling child.
Cody was sitting at his little table, the blank paper gazing up at him again, curious. Cody picked up a yellow, and drew. He replaced it and picked up and green. Orange, blue, red. He tried the white but it was too busy sleeping to colour. On and on the scribbling went until finally, it was done. Cody picked it up and gazed at it. He smiled.
A woman with blond hair and glittering blue eyes came into the room. She was smiling.
“Hello, Cody.”
Cody smiled back. “Hello.”
She crouched down next to him. “Are you okay?”
Cody nodded happily. Jenna noticed his drawing. “Have you been drawing?”
Cody looked away shyly, then looked at Jenna. Thoughtfully, he slid the paper off of his table and held it out to her. Jenna beamed.
“Is that for me?”
“Yes.”
“Thank you! It’s beautiful!”
Cody grinned and giggled, before sitting down again and pulling out another piece of paper from the huge pack Linda had given him. Jenna watched for a while as Cody carefully chose the right colour. After a while, she got up and kissed Cody on the top of his head.
“Is it okay if I come see you tomorrow, Cody?”
“Yes.”
On cloud nine, Jenna left the hospital. When she returned home, she took a proper look at Cody’s drawing. A boy and a girl were smiling up at her, the Sun beaming happily in the corner. The two people both had blond hair and big blue eyes…
Pinning the picture to the wall, Jenna resolved to give James a call, telling him everything, and to tell him to come home.
