Of New Friends and Fruit

To my surprise, Bea remembers her new friend in the morning. My mother’s voice sounds so normal that I have to remind myself of her handicapped condition: “We have to go over what we are going to do tonight.”

Her lady friend has now provided a name – Elizabeth – and the two have organized some activities that involve getting out of bed.

“How about a last name?” I ask.

“Too hard to pronounce.”

After applesauce and in the middle of a bowl of vanilla ice cream, Bea suddenly croaks, “Can I have a vegetable?”

“A vegetable?”

“And a Protestant?”

“Protestant?”

“Did I say Protestant? No, not Protestant. I mean those men who came with vegetables yesterday. They were here with Elizabeth and Marie’s mother’s baby. What was that baby called? I forget.”

“Shall I name some vegetables?

“No. I shall think of it myself. That was twenty years ago. I would like a little fruit.”

“Fruit?”

“Yes, apples and pomegranate.”

Keeping up with Bea is like racing backwards and forwards through time, a stressful enterprise, even for the most sure-footed chronicler!