Audrey rushed home when classes ended, to see her mother. Mrs. Beavis, the nurse they’d hired, had come twice that day, as promised, to check on Ellen and make her lunch. Ellen was happy to see Audrey at the end of the day and asked her all about school. Nothing earth-shattering had happened so far. They’d been given a book on hospital protocols. They had to learn the basic instruments for surgery for an appendectomy by the next day. Eventually they would know all the instruments and rules.

“I think I’d like to be an OR nurse,” Lizzie had said earlier, after they’d been given the assignment.

“I’d be too afraid to make a mistake,” Audrey said nervously. “Maybe pediatrics, if I’m not taking care of my mother,” she’d said softly, because that would mean her mother had died. There were no cures for Parkinson’s, and she wasn’t going to get better, only worse. Audrey intended to be at her side as long as she lived.

Ellen had had a better day, and cooked dinner for Audrey and herself that night. It was almost like the old days before she got sick, except she looked so frail now. Audrey told her about Lizzie and her medical family, and Ellen enjoyed hearing about her day. Some of Ellen’s old friends dropped by to see her once in a while, but she had little to occupy her, and how well she felt varied from day to day. Sometimes she could go out with Audrey to do errands, or even have lunch at a restaurant. At other times, she could hardly get out of bed. The effect of the medicine she took was erratic. Everything they used to treat Parkinson’s seemed so experimental. Walking was hard for her. She had developed an unsteady gait of tiny short steps and had to use all her energy to propel herself forward. It had been shocking for Audrey and Will to see how she had deteriorated in the past two and a half years. They had thought it was psychological at first, a reaction to their father’s death, until she was diagnosed with Parkinson’s. The prognosis and the fact that nothing could be done about it was devastating. There had been some progressive treatments used in France, but they had not proved effective. Surgical interventions had been attempted in some cases, but they had not made any great improvement in the patients either. Ellen simply had to live with it as best she could.

She was brave about it, and Audrey was determined to do all she could to improve the quality of her mother’s life and support her. Ellen’s care fell to Audrey, not to Will, who was expected to embark on his naval career as soon as he graduated. That had always been the plan, and his mother’s illness didn’t change that. But it changed everything for Audrey, who had hoped to go to college, but now nursing school seemed like a wiser course and would help her be more useful to her mother. Audrey intended to apply herself and learn all she could.