Olivia

My finger hovered over the keyboard, ready to tell him that I couldn’t come to the office. The point of being a virtual assistant was to stay at home, what didn’t he understand about that?

I had to look after my mom, and I couldn’t afford to hire a nurse to help her. The company paid me well, but they didn’t pay that well that I could afford a nurse. I hummed over the idea of asking for a raise over the next few weeks, so I could pay for one.

That could be an option.

Scarlett knew about my situation, which led me to work more hours than if I was present in an office. The time that I wasn’t helping my mom, I was working. I used to be a top executive, but the moment Mom started suffering from dementia, I started working from home. At first it was fine getting a nurse to look after her part-time, because she would have good and bad days, and I could be in the house and get a lot more done during office hours but lately she’d been getting worse. So, bad that the strain of working and little sleep was starting to get to me.

Since I’d been at home, she’d spent most of her time with me in the room. Sometimes she read the same page over and over again with little concentration. Other times, reading became too much for her and she would sit like a zombie in front of the TV.

It had been nearly three years of working for Hamilton Investments and I didn’t want to change it. I used to have other clients, and it was easy to juggle them around because I could get so much work done. I could work for the other clients at night or in the early hours of the morning such as overseas clients, but, lately with Mom's added confusion, I’d resorted to sticking to the one client, Hamilton Investments.

“I need to tell him the truth. Maybe he’ll be reasonable?” I suggested to my laptop, psyching myself up to pick up the phone and just have a conversation with him. Emails were so impersonal, and he was human after all, he would understand if I spoke to him.

Mom shouted out, “Who dear?”

“My boss.”

She shook her head, “Who are you?”

I was just about to answer her, when I could see the confusion in her eyes. The confusion that appeared from time to time whenever she hadn’t taken her pills.

“Shit!” I shouted as I headed to the kitchen. One thing about Mom, especially when she was this confused, was that she wouldn’t get angry. If anything, she would cry about her confusion.

“Who are you?” she demanded, and as I stood up, I turned and saw her. She hadn’t been this bad for a while.

I was disappointed because we’d had a good day yesterday, and it made me think that maybe the doctors were wrong. They warned me that she would deteriorate, and I refused to hear the words from their mouths. I’d sought different opinions, but they’d all told me the same thing. I’d read online about others that had found relief through diet and had managed to turn things around for themselves. Sure, they hadn’t been cured but their diet and medication had slowed down the process and I thought that if I put in the time and effort then, the same thing would happen for Mom.

Yesterday, we went to the park and she’d reminisced about the good old days; not as if she was living the old times which she did on occasion, but she was remembering it as if she had tapped into her long-term memory and was telling me about her childhood. It had been as if she was her old self and she not only talked about her childhood but mine too. Sure, she thought that she was talking to a stranger, but it gave me hope. Warmth. Knowing that some part of her memory remained, that somewhere up there in her brain my mom still existed. The one I had lost nearly three years ago. Once in a while she would come back. Sometimes, those moments nearly broke me because they served as a reminder of what we were both losing to her disease.

“I’m here to help you.” I started to breathe slowly, trying to get her to focus. It was a technique that I’d learned when I took a course in order to learn about taking care of a relative with dementia.

Her dark eyes were filled with tears as she looked over at me. I knew the next stage was coming soon. I think she sensed it too. “I just don’t remember. I don’t know who you are. I don’t know where I am. I don’t remember anything.”

She looked down and I saw that her pants were soiled. I had to change her and get her into bed. I had seen the generous financial offer that Mr. Hamilton had sent with his final email demanding that I go to the office, as if he’d read my mind. I couldn’t turn it down; because I’d taken a big demotion with this job and I couldn’t afford to turn up my nose at the idea of getting some help even if it was only a couple of days per week.

I had to go into the office, there was no two-ways about it. I took a deep breath as I smiled at Mom trying not to take my frustration out on her. I’d run big corporations and I used to get stressed all the time, but it was nothing compared to having to look after Mom. The emotional strain took its toll on me at times and I had to remind myself that it was natural. I was only human; it would get to me. I used to go to a support group, but then I stopped going, because most of the time all we would do would be to get together and cry. I had my aunt come and look after Mom for a couple of hours whenever I went there; but then I found it was too depressing to continue so I stopped. Besides the bills needed to be paid and having a social life didn’t seem that important anymore.

“Bath time,” she asked me with hope in her eyes. She got excited about the idea of taking a bath. It was a little too early in the day to have a bath, but we both needed a distraction. Usually, I did it at night when she became restless and didn't want to go to bed.

I decided to take her up early and let her do something she enjoyed. As soon as I took Mom up for her bath, and added the bath salts, she smiled at me.

I loved seeing her smile.

She looked over at me with a beaming smile of joy. “It looks so nice.”

I nodded in agreement and helped her climb in the tub. She sank into the water with a sigh and it was as if all her worries were washed away as the warm water surrounded her.

I wished that I could climb in there with her, as I started to get anxious about having to go to the office. After Mom had her bath and I had her safely ensconced on the living room couch, I cleaned the kitchen, and then got on the phone to my brother.

It would take two weeks for my first increased paycheck to come through and then I’d be able to get a nurse. Ross did say it was for only six weeks. I assumed that things would go back to normal after that. Until then Brett, my brother, would have to take care of her. A visit once a month when he only lived five minutes from the house wasn’t good enough. I was sick of acting like the only child and taking on every single responsibility. For once in his life he would have to stop living off his minimal paycheck from Starbucks. He only worked there on the weekend, That was all he needed to do to pay for the room that he lived in and he could survive on that. My brother wasn’t ambitious and always got by, by doing extraordinarily little in life. He would have to do something meaningful with his life, which at this point included looking after Mom.