“I’m not hungry.” Her voice was hushed, and she avoided looking at the clone as she crossed the room and sat down carefully on the edge of the bed. “I think I’ll just get some sleep. I’d like to be alone. I want to get out of this dress.”

Jeremiah watched the clone and tried to compel him to do something other than stand there with a useless, blank look on his face. Go over there, he thought. Put a hand on her. Hug her or something!

But the clone remained where he was, his face cycling through several expressions in quick succession, settling at last on something that looked like defeat. Finally, he looked down at the floor and backed out of the room without a word. Just before he closed the door, Jeremiah could hear his mother say something else about Christmas Eve. Reluctantly, he realized that he would have reacted exactly as his clone had if he had been there himself. It was easy to judge from outside, but he knew that he would have stood there just like his double had done, looking at his shoes, clueless and utterly shaken. As if to demonstrate the point, Jeremiah closed his eyes and turned his head away from the monitor, without even realizing he’d done it.

When he looked again, the clone was in the hallway and the camera angle had shifted. He looked as though he weren’t certain where to go and Jeremiah could feel his distress in the pit of his own stomach. He’d known for some time that dementia was likely, but he’d never seen his mother like this before. When had it gotten this bad?

After a moment, the clone was approached by Nichelle, the busty, plain-speaking head nurse with skin the color of bittersweet chocolate. He was never sure how she’d greet him when he came to visit: sometimes with a wide grin and a story about something funny that his mother had said, and sometimes with an exasperated sigh and a stern shake of the head. Today it was the latter, but it was mixed with a shadow of concern.

“Mr. Adams,” she said. “Patricia’s episodes are getting worse. Do you know she asked me to alter her wedding dress today?” She didn’t even own a wedding dress, Jeremiah thought. “And she practically accosted poor Dave the orderly this morning because she insisted he was her brother and he was very dangerous. And she keeps asking the doctors to drive her to the airport. I’m afraid Administration needs to see you before you leave.”

Watching, Jeremiah said out loud that someone ought to check her medication. This had happened before, he told Brent, and all they had to do was increase one of her pills to three times a day. After a few days, she was back to her old self.

“Have they checked her medications?” the clone asked. “Maybe she just needs her meds tweaked or something. That helped before.” Jeremiah nodded his head and looked at Brent as if to say, See? I told you.