Previous Challenge Entry (Level 4 – Masters)
Topic: PUZZLE (11/24/16)
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TITLE: Pieces | Previous Challenge Entry
By Ann Stocking
12/01/16 -
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Mom.
Holding my breath, I held it away from me as I poured the mass down the toilet and flushed. I wondered how many towels and sheets were infused with the odor of curdled milk.
It was the third misplaced item I’d found that morning. A potholder in the potato bin. Sugar in the fridge. Minor, but part of a bigger issue. Every day, Mom drifted further away, as if she were wandering in a labyrinth, back and forth, around and around, ever closer to an unreachable centre. How long I’d be able to care for her at home, I didn’t know.
Mom was sitting in her chair, picking at a thread on her cardigan. I’d put a Fred Astaire movie on TV for her, but he and Ginger were waltzing away without Mom.
“Mom, would you like lunch?”
“That would be nice, dear.”
I sliced some cheese, boiled an egg, made tea. She picked at the cheese, dribbled yolk on her blouse, but drank two cups of tea.
“You like lemon in your tea, don’t you?” she asked.
“No, Mom. Just honey.”
Her brow furrowed, she insisted. “Oh, yes, you do. I always made it with lemon for you.”
“I think you mean your mother, Mom. Not me.”
“My mother! Where is my mother?”
What did the clinic tell us to say?
“She’s just out for a bit, Mom. How about we decorate the Christmas tree?”
“Oh, yes. O Christmas tree, O Christmas tree.”
It took me but a moment to unfurl the pre-lit pine, far different from the days of trudging through snowy woods, chopping down an unwieldy tree, cramming it into a stand, and sweeping up needles until June. But, oh, the fragrance of those bygone trees!
When I put the star on top, Mom clapped her hands and laughed. I joined in her merriment as I handed her ornaments. She oohed over each, crowding them onto the same bough. I’d rearrange it later, as I’d done years ago after the kids had “helped” decorate the tree.
“Remember when we got this?” I handed her a tiny wooden rocking horse. “At the Christmas store in Victoria?”
She held it carefully, kissed it, and hooked it to the bough already burdened with four balls, two crocheted snowflakes, and a pewter angel.
“Such a sweet horse.”
In the bottom of the Christmas box were several jigsaw puzzles. We used to put them together at Christmas time, leaving the ongoing project set up on a card table in a secluded corner. With the kids grown and gone, though, the tradition had been neglected. I had an idea.
“Mom, would you like to do a puzzle?” If she was going to misplace things, it’d be preferable if she lost pieces to an ancient puzzle of the Eiffel Tower or Buckingham Palace. Some of the faded pieces were probably missing anyway.
“I think I shall, yes.”
I set up the card table and a chair and dumped out a puzzle. She sat down, clutching unsurely at her sweater. After staring for a bit, she began turning all the pieces right side up.
Good, for however long it lasts.
I mopped the kitchen floor and made supper, glad for the respite as she worked quietly, sometimes humming bits of carols. Mid-afternoon, I took her tea and cookies, and found she’d completed the entire perimeter and part of the scene.
“Lisa, I’ve been here.”
“Here?”
“I’ve been in the puzzle.”
Was she having a revelation about herself?
“It’s the Heddal stave church. I was there in 2002.”
Ah, yes.
“It’s the largest stave church in Norway and was built 800 years ago during the reign of King Håkon Håkonson. A prosperous time in Heddal. The altar piece is from 1667.”
In detail, she told me the story of the church. About Raud Rygi solving the riddle of Finn the Fair Haired who, according to legend, built it in three days.
She never did finish the puzzle, but for a final, effervescent moment, I saw Mom as she had been. Spirited. Articulate. Brilliant.
And I left the ornaments as she’d placed them on the tree, in a cluster of cherished memories.
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