So sorry, Mom.

I love you. Talk to you later tonight.

K, love you too.

She decided to ignore the call from Eric, for now, and put her phone away, this time being careful to use the small inside pocket so she didn’t again lose it to her bag’s dark abyss. She wouldn’t be able to avoid him forever, obviously, but she had no idea what to say to him.

“Mrs. Greyden?” a woman’s voice called to her.

Eileen turned in her seat and saw the woman from behind the counter peeking her head through the doors. “Yes?”

“Your mother finished early today. She’s ready to see you now.”

Her mother sat in a low-backed, blue brocade armchair near the window in her room. Eileen had been here once before, three years ago at Christmas, but had forgotten how spacious and lovely the accommodations were. Like a small one-bedroom apartment with a separate bedroom, bathroom, and living room area. The only room missing was a kitchen. By the time Clare had moved their mother here, the doctors had determined she was no longer independent enough to be placed in one of the “full amenities” suites. Basically, their mother had no business being near a stove. Almost burning down their old house in Casper was how she ended up here in the first place. But her current cognitive status was functional enough for this, a three-quarter suite with around-the-clock supervision. Eileen looked up and saw the cameras placed strategically in high corners; they were monitored at the nurses’ station and were in every room. All her food and beverages were provided either in the restaurant downstairs or delivered to her here if her personal caregiver determined she was not well enough to make it downstairs.

The last time she’d spoken with Clare about their mother, she had said that, for the most part, their mother still made it downstairs to eat with others and would even sometimes play games with the other residents, but she frequently forgot how she’d come to live in this lap of Alzheimer’s luxury and couldn’t keep hold of anyone’s name that she’d met in the last ten years.

Eileen knocked gently on her mother’s open door. “Mom?”

Ella Kaczanowski turned slowly from her gaze out the window, a placid smile on her face. She stared at Eileen for several seconds before finally saying, “Hello.” Her expression was a question that asked, Can I help you?

Eileen blinked, waited a bit longer. Maybe it would come.

“Hello?” her mother repeated again, wrinkling her brow. “Are you lost, dear?”

It wasn’t her fault. It wasn’t like she could control an overgrowth of plaque and neuron entanglement eating away at the person she once was; but even knowing this, it still hurt to have your mother look at you like she’d never seen you before in her life.