Turn of Mind Read Online Free PDF Page A

it as desperately as when James and I first saw it, as if it were out of our reach. Yet it is truly ours. Mine. I bullied James into buying it, even though it was beyond our means at the time. It is my home.
    Home, she says as if she could read my mind, then shakes her head as if to clear it. She takes me by the elbow, propels me up the steps, into the house, helps me off with my coat, my shoes.
    I have something to show you, she says, and takes a small white square out of her pocket, unfolds it. Look at this, she says. Just look.
    A photograph. Of my house. No, wait. Not precisely. This house is slightly smaller, fewer and smaller windows, only two stories high. But the same Chicago brownstone, the same small square of yard in front, and, like my house, crowded in from brownstones on either side, one in pristine condition, the other, like this one, slightly shabby. No curtains at the windows. A sold sign in front.
    What is this? I ask.
    My house. My new house. Can you believe it? I try to take the photograph from her to see more closely, but she has trouble relinquishing it. I have to pull to get it into my own hands. Even so, she leans toward me, as though she can’t bear to let it out of her sight.
    It’s in Hyde Park. On Fifty-sixth Street. Right off campus. I can bike to my office.
    It’s eerie, I say. The similarity.
    Yes, I thought so too. I paid too much for it, of course. It needs tons of work. But these things don’t come on the market very often. I had to act fast.
    I keep gazing at the house. It could almost be my own, that could almost be my bedroom window, that could almost be the iron gate to my backyard.
    When do you move in?
    Well, it’s a little complicated. Closing was delayed. Because of Amanda. She had cosigned the loan for me.
    And why would that be a problem? Did she change her mind?
    No. No, of course not.
    Well?
    Fiona is silent for a moment. Then, I just decided I didn’t want to bother her with it after all.
    Why didn’t you ask me? Or your father?
    Fiona twists a purple lock around her index finger. I don’t know. Just didn’t want to make you feel obliged. It turned out okay. I was able to come up with enough money.
    Well, you know if you ever need help . . .
    Yes, I know. You’ve always been very generous.
    Mark is a different matter altogether, of course. Your father and I don’t trust his judgment in money matters.
    You’re a little hard on him, you know.
    Perhaps. Perhaps.
    I have forgotten I am still holding the photograph until she reaches out and plucks it from my hand, folds it carefully, and puts it back in her pocket. Then pulls it out and looks at it again, as if checking that it is real, the way I used to pat her little arms and legs when she slept, amazed I had produced this perfect being.
    It is my home, she says, so softly I can barely make out the words. And she smiles.

    From my notebook:
    I watched David Letterman last night. So, in homage:
    TOP 10 SIGNS YOU HAVE ALZHEIMER’S
    10. Your husband starts introducing himself as your “caregiver.”
    9. You find an hourly activity schedule taped up on your refrigerator that includes “walks,” “crocheting,” and “yoga.”
    8. Everyone starts giving you crossword puzzle books.
    7. Strangers are suddenly very affectionate.
    6. The doors are all locked from the outside.
    5. You ask your grandson to take you to the junior prom.
    4. Your right hand doesn’t know what your left hand has done.
    3. Girl Scouts come over and force you to decorate flower pots with them.
    2. You keep discovering new rooms in your house.
    And the No. 1 sign you have Alzheimer’s is . . . It’s somehow slipped your mind.

    If I could see through this fog. Break through this heaviness of limbs and extremities. Every inhalation stabs. My hands limp in my lap. Pale and impotent, they used to wield shiny sharp things, lovely things with heft and weight that bestowed