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Eleven Christmases have since passed, but I still haven’t received that second installment. As far as I can tell, there are three possible reasons for this:
Nonie doesn’t actually know she has Alzheimer’s but she has a sense that there’s something wrong with her memory — “Sometime I remember everything and sometime I don’t. I think if I want to remember, I remember, and if I don’t, then it just goes straight through my mind.” She still classifies in the early stages, and for the past four years, her memory has been relatively stable. She still remembers all our names and how her parents interacted at family meals: “My dad had one drink and he was so loving. He kissed my mom all the time and she pushed him off. Some men get violent, you know, but not my father. So loving, so loving,” she says, scrunching up her nose and smiling. “One drink and then, Venuto inserire! he’d say. Come to bed! Ha! Had I known what that meant then, boy!” She remembers her first husband, my father’s father, Guido, perhaps a little too fondly — but that can’t be blamed on the disease: “He was the best man. Oh! You can tell a man by how good he is to his mother. If Guido brought me home a little something — you know, ice cream, walnuts, a basket of fresh fruit — first he brought some over to his mother. Oh, he was a good man. A good, good man.” She even remembers her first date, when she was 16, with a guy named Alfred: “Black hair, blue eyes. Oh, he was handsome. A handsome, handsome man. A good kisser, too. My mom didn’t want me to go with him, so I used to sneak around the corner on my roller skates.” And much to my chagrin, she always remembers to check in on the status of her granddaughters’ love lives. As soon as the sound of one of our voices filters in through her hearing aids, she bursts, “How’s your love life?” The question is a reflex to the sound of our very voices, a reflex that makes me shift in my seat. It’s only little consolation that I seem to be fairing better than Linda — Linda who has all of her silverware. When I was visiting home from college over Thanksgiving break, Nonie told me, “You know, your picture gets an earful every day while you’re away. I talk to you all the time.” “Which one do you talk to?” My dad asked chuckling and rolling his eyes at me. “There are two big ones there on the mantle.” “Mostly the one on the left,” she answered earnestly. “The one on the right, a little. But more the left.... You know when Linda comes over, I gotta hide your pictures. Oh, Linda. I've only got one there of her. You know, I thought she was going to be the first. I thought she was going to get married, have children, be something. But instead she's nothing!” I nodded and pulled a pack of Big Red from the refrigerator meat keeper, where Nonie stored all her candy — gum included. “Nothing!” Nonie repeated, ramming her arthritic fist into the table. Then she turned on me, “What about you? Do you have a boyfriend?” “Uh... yeah.” “Oh!” Nonie said, clasping her hands together. “Is he good looking?” “Yeah, he's cute.” “Blond hair?” “No.” “Blue eyes?” “No.” “What, is he Jewish!” “Yeah! How'd you know that?” “He from New York?” “Woah, seriously, how’d you know that?” Only later did I find out from my boyfriend (who found out when retelling the story to his grandmother) that ‘from New York’ was a euphemism for being Jewish. “Well, that's nice,” Nonie said, pushing her palms against the table. “Long as you like him. Only you have to like him. No one else. He treats you good?” “Yeah” “Is he good looking?” she asked again, sewing the conversation into a loop that repeated several times. After I had told her that he wasn’t blond haired or blue eyed but Jewish three times, she said with sudden excitement, “You're going to get married?” “God, no!” I said jerking back from the table. “I'm too young!” “You should get married before you're 20,” she said staring me down with her small eyes. “Jesus.” “Yeah, 20. Otherwise you're a babalaka!... You don't want to be a babalaka, do you?”
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