My Gram’s dementia suddenly improved. I wish it hadn’t.

I drove up Sunday in the thrumming rain to take care of my grandma. The thunderstorm beat a cold rhythm down on my truck the whole way. For the last sixty odd years, Gram’d lived in a mountain farmhouse that my grandfather built. I spent most of the ride up to their place wondering how this visit was gonna go. History had taught me there was no foregone conclusion to be had.  What was I gonna tell Gram if she didn’t recognize me? How was I going to calm her down? Last time I saw her she’d come at me with a knife.

Gram had lewy body dementia. And it wasn’t pretty. She wasn’t just forgetful. She was going mad. Over the years Gram became well known for… well for bothering folks, especially the little ones.

She’d do things like stare from around corners.  Sometimes she’d hiss at the grandchildren like some big bitch of a cat while she crawled on all fours. She scared the little ones half to death. One morning, she’d popped into the playroom while baby Jane was there alone. My cousin, and baby Jane’s mother, Sam caught Gram rolling on her back, grasping at Jane with bloodied peeled fingernails, and mewing like a sickly kitten. Gram was topless that time to boot. She’d outdone herself once again. Jane went non-verbal after that and my cousin Sam hasn’t come around since.  She didn’t want to risk her little girl being exposed to Gram ever again.

Lately, Gram had taken to bouts of frantically begging in the night. They heard her chanting from time to time only she couldn’t articulate her words. It was like she was choking on her words with a dry mouth. Like her vocal cords were paralyzed. Sometimes, late at night, they’d find her out of bed with the house’s security alarm blaring. Without fail, she’d be having “long talks with Grandpa” in the barn, speaking tongues after midnight. Only Grandpa was long dead 6 feet under her. 

Grandpa died young in the style of grandpas of his day. That is to say he was liquored up in town and running off at the mouth. Frontier justice some’d call it. Gram’d buried his body in the barn where they used to keep the goats. Family legend has it that Gram had started digging Grandpa’s grave right there inside the barn after the first night she found Grandpa drunk and passed out in the hay loft. Mom and her little brothers never really cared much to go into the barn after Grandpa passed. Who could blame them?

 When Grandpa went, Gram wasn’t about to roll over and die too. She kept up the homestead in Grandpa’s absence. It was even better than before. She started up the first little roadside produce stand the county had ever seen.  Goat cheese and pickled carrots in the winter, yellow peaches and jalapenos in the summer. Business was good. 

Gram never remarried though some suitors had offered her marriage over the years. She thought men were foolish playthings for silly girls. She was a self-styled frontierswoman not a bride to be. She hunted her own food, distilled her own liquor, worked the land, and sold her own wares well enough to put my mom and her two younger brothers through state college.

When the diagnosis came, Mom said Gram didn’t bat an eye. Tear one never rolled down Gram’s cheek. She was just too hardheaded, too unrelenting for any disease to slow her down. She used to brag, “that bitch Lewy never tussled with a woman like her.” If only that had been true. Maybe things wouldn’t have gotten so dark.

It was mom that called me and asked me to come to Gram’s.

“Margie, Uncle Bill needs a break.”

“Shit, me too, mom. I need a break from everything. Work’s been a nightmare. They’re replacing my whole graphics department with AI.”

“Ooh, fancy!”

“It’s fancifully fucked.”

“Oh. I’m sorry to hear that, sugar. I know you work hard on your little computer pages.” 

That felt a little patronizing.

“Why can’t Uncle Bill watch Gram?”

“He’s planning on taking Miss Jean down to Gatlinburg for a few days. Miss Jean’s going to that open eye Alzheimer’s Institute that Billy took Gram to. Do you think you can come up and just… sit with Gram while Billy’s gone? I know she’d love to see you, sweetheart. Billy says she’s doing real well lately. Her new medication is working really really well.”

“Well that’s good news.”

“I know! The doctor from the institute put her on some new meds. She hasn’t even been wearing diapers, Marge. She’s got this new-fangled ipad that goes right to the doctor’s phone. Can you believe that?  It’s a miracle.”

“…Mom”

“And it’ll be a quick couple days, Marge. A quick weekend visit. In and out. I’d go myself, sweety, but I’ve got my knee operation coming up this week.”

“I don’t know, mom. I’ve got a lot on my plate with work and-”

“It could be your last time seeing her, Margie.” Mom left a pregnant pause while she sweetened her tone.

“Gram adores you. She always called you her mini me. She’d be so thrilled to see you… one last time.” 

The guilt trip was successful. I agreed. I packed my overnight bag and was on my way to Gram’s a couple of hours later.

It rained hard the whole way. The fog on my windshield made it really hard to see. I fiddled with the A/C trying to clear it up. I wasn’t fully paying attention as I turned down the old road to Gram’s place.  I was going too fast as I rounded the flooded corner and the steering pulled hard away from me. I tried to yank it back. My truck hydroplaned. I completely lost control. I pumped the brakes as hard as I could. 

I came within a couple feet of slamming into a cable repair truck before my brakes finally caught. The flashing orange lights of the utility truck painted my windshield. Two men in fluorescent vests sat behind the wheel of the white windowless repair truck. They motioned like they were angry, I think one of them flipped me off. It was hard to tell through the spiked adrenaline and rainy windshield. As I drove past them and up the hill towards Grams, I thought I heard someone shout.

The dirt path up to Gram’s had become a treacherous river of mud. About halfway through the narrow climb, my truck got stuck. I spun my tires like mad and ended up dug in deeper than shit. My phone had no coverage on the mountainside either.

I was just about to smash my head into the steering wheel and get out to walk when I saw her. Through the pouring rain dashing my windshield, I saw the figure of Gram in her pink nightie coming towards me. She was shouting something I couldn’t make out. I rolled down the window in the old truck fast. Cold water splashed into my ear. 

“Gram, that you!?” I hollered through the cracked window.

“What can I help you with?” Gram called back.

“Gram it’s fine, go back inside! The truck is stuck! I’ll take care of it!”

“If a truck is stuck in mud, do this in order,” she waddled a couple feet forward, “first, stop spinning the tires. Spinning just digs you deeper!” Gram was wading through shin-deep mud towards me now; torrential rain beat down on her frail form.

“Gram, I know! Please go back in! You’ll catch your death out h-”

“Put it in the lowest gear you have!” Gram waved her hands frantically, now hip deep in the muck. “If it’s 4 wheel drive, engage 4-low, not just 4-high!”

I didn’t know what the hell she was talking about. What the fuck was 4 low or 4 high? She looked like she was getting closer to drowning with every step she took.

I opened the driver’s side door and shouted, “Gram, it’s fine. Please go back inside! I’ll see you back at the house!!!”

Gram stared awhile. Waves of sloshing mud lapped at the waist of her pink nightgown. Rain washed the mascara off her face and she smiled.  She looked like she was buffering.  Like she was freezeframing at the end of a sitcom. Her pupils seemed to overpower the whites of her eyes. I’d seen this look before. She looked madder than a shit-house rat.  

Gram turned back and plodded towards the house. As she walked off, she turned and called.

“You’re tapping into something really foundational about the relationship between trucks and mud – a thing that not everybody sees as clearly as you. The mud is not just mud sinking your truck – it’s a canvas and your truck-”

“Gram, please shut the fuck up and go inside! I got it!”

I put my whole body into that shout. I felt bad about cutting her off so rudely but holy shit what was she on about? I stood and watched her trudge back into the house through the pouring rain. She was covered nearly head to toe in mud. As I watched her, the cold rain stung my face. Only now I couldn’t tell how much of it was rain and how much of it was a cold sweat from the adrenaline of Gram’s sudden appearance. What in the hell was she doing? What was she on about? It’s nice she wanted to help, even encouraging to hear her communicate so clearly. It was the first time in so long that she’d made much sense but at the same time something felt really off about her.

I abandoned the truck, grabbed my bag, and followed Gram up the stone walkway. The gravel garden and the plants along the walkway were overflowing with dark water. I splashed every step of the way up the stairs to Gram’s front door. I opened Gram’s door to the welcome site of Old Charlie curled up on the rug at the front of the foyer. I couldn’t believe he was still alive! I thought he’d had to have been 15, 15 years ago! Guess there’s no telling with swanky fat cats.

I let the door shut gently behind me as I reached down towards the luxurious little furball. He must have smelt me coming and not cared for it. Maybe I accidentally dripped onto him.  Either way, Charlie slowly extended his paw and within the blink of an eye had clawed me 3 or 4 times on my forearm. Deep.

“Fuck!” I hissed under my breath as the fat little bastard trotted off into the kitchen. With every step he took, the little brass jingle bell on his collar rang out joyously as if it was singing, “Fuck You, Marge! You dumb bitch!” The pale white claw marks in my forearm had just given way to deep red rivers of blood when Gram came out from the kitchen. 

“Did that rotten bastard get you!? Charlie!! Oh, you’d better hide you naughty boy! 

She turned her eyes on me. “Let’s see what he’s done to you, dear.”

Lightning flashed. The power in Gram’s home wavered. Gram stood still as a statue in the darkness, as if she’d just been frozen in time. In the background, I thought perhaps I’d heard an explosion. She was groaning and her head slumped. I suddenly felt overcome with the smell of wet earth.

“Gram?”

“Don’t let them know…” Gram spoke in a husky voice.

The moment passed and the lights came back on. Gram hurried to my aid.

I felt like a child again as Gram drew me into the kitchen, put my arm under the tap and ran cold water over the bloody scratches as she clutched my wrist. As Gram blew on my arm and dabbed at it with paper towel, I noticed something. She looked good. Like really good. The lines around her lips. There used to be a million of them but now they were gone. Her long blonde hair draped over her face and it had bounce. 

She looked like she did in her wedding photos. Older obviously but still. Her skin looked smoother too, like a woman 20 years younger than Gram was. Then I noticed she was wearing a blue striped blouse, not the mud soaked pink nighty I’d seen her in just moments prior. I thought she must really have some new pep in her step if she’d been able to change so quickly.

Gram bandaged my arm. It felt so much better already. Thunder rumbled and the power went out.

“Have y’all been losing power a lot?” I asked Gram.

“It’s not me.”

She continued winding the bandage on my arm.

“What do you mean? Gram, that’s plenty good.”

But she wouldn’t stop. She kept winding and the bandage was starting to feel really tight. 

“Gram, that’s tight enough. Thank you!”  I tried to pull my arm back. She pulled my arm back towards her.

The lights in the kitchen flickered and came on with a hum. Gram looked up at me with a knowing smirk.

“Reality check, Marge. Most scratches are totally fine. But ignoring one that’s getting worse – that’s where people mess up. The danger isn’t the scratch—it’s the infection you don’t notice early.” She sounded like she was giving a presentation.

I didn’t think it was that serious. And she didn’t use any Neosporin on my arm or anything anti-bacterial. I wondered if she even knew what she was saying.

Even so I kept a watchful eye out for Charlie and an ear out for the bell on his collar. I didn’t want any more trouble. I laid out on the plastic protected floral print couch in Gram’s living room. My eyes traipsed across the many old family pictures framed on the walls. Maybe it was the childlike peace of being at Gram’s or maybe it was the pitter patter of rain at the window. Maybe it was the lack of feeling in my tightly bandaged arm. Either way I fell fast asleep.

I’d dreamt of being on a jungle adventure. Exploring the rainforest. I’d just come out of some ancient ruin when I needed to jump off a waterfall. In the dream, I jumped. Suddenly I found my hands smacking against the tile floor in real life in the dark.  I was on my hands and knees in the living room, mere inches from smashing my eye socket against the corner of Gram’s coffee table. My hands and knees were damp. Warm water. It was only after I felt the moisture on my knees that I registered the sound of Gram’s tub faucet running at full blast. The power was out in the house. I scrambled my way to the bathroom through the flooded dark hallway and flung open the door.

Gram, still fully clothed, was floating facedown in the overflowing tub. Her ipad floated between her legs. The Ipad replayed a warning through its flooded speaker. “Thinking. Longer. Better. Answer.” The Ipad repeated in a monotone ai voice. I rushed to her and pulled her with all my might out of the tub and into my lap as I sat with my back pressed against the bathroom wall. 

“GRAM!” I beat on Gram’s back with the heel of my hand in the darkness. Nothing but the dull thud of flesh on muscle. I laid her down and started performing what I thought was CPR. I kept the rhythm of “Ha…Ha…Ha…Ha” pressing down on her chest then “staying alive, staying alive” holding her nose and breathing into her mouth. Nothing. I kept going through my tears. Gram’s nose began to run. On my last attempt to breathe into her, I tasted her mucus.

Just then, the power cut back on and Gram drew the deepest breath I’ve ever heard in my life and rose upright in my arms like a vampire rising from its coffin. She shrieked. She wailed. She shook uncontrollably for a long time. I didn’t know what else I could do but hold her there. I tried to ask her how it happened. But she was practically non-verbal. At some point, as we sat there already entangled, I decided to brush her hair. I started slowly. It seemed to soothe her.

She leaned her head against my chest. I swept her hair away from her neck. Gram had 4 or 5 little black staples behind her ear. I stared for a little while. There was a drop of translucent fluid that seeped out and formed around the scarring. Maybe she’d had a facelift? Was that why she looked so good? Maybe she just didn’t want to talk about it…maybe she didn’t like how it looked?

I helped Gram towel off and got her into bed. I pulled her covers up around her shoulders and made sure her feet were covered. I left her TV on Big Bang Theory. Gram had a thing for those boys. When I was sure she was asleep, I got up, and put her still damp ipad on its charger. I gave Gram a kiss on the forehead and went off to dry up the water that had overflowed from the bathtub.

I worked for a good couple hours cleaning up before going to bed. I can’t remember what time I fell asleep but I woke up to a loud noise a little after 3 in the morning. The sound I heard was deafening, almost indescribably ear piercing. It felt like a crack in my brain, like corks had been popped out of my ears releasing thousands of pounds of pressure. There was a sound like a deflating balloon but something about it rang in my mind. I pulled my knees to my chest as I came to. Just as I started to breathe right, everything felt too still. Too quiet. Until I heard a purring sound. I searched the darkness of the bedroom for its origin. Something shadowy skittered off my bed, I felt its weight alleviate the springs of my mattress. It peddled across the floor, and scurried out the door like a rat. It looked like Charlie… only larger. 

I brought the blanket to my face and screamed. I hyperventilated. I felt that I could barely stay conscious through the fear. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw that the light in the barn was on. 
I was awake now. I knew from the stories Mom and Uncle Billy had told that Gram would be in the barn.

I just wanted to get Gram back inside so we could both get some sleep. I threw on a robe over my pajamas and ran out back barefoot. As I hustled over to the barn, I could already tell it was open. I hurried in and looked around. Gram was nowhere to be seen in the pitch darkness. I used my phone’s flashlight to illuminate the surroundings. Nothing looked out of place at first until I noticed the floor. There was a dark splatter of what looked like blood spray at my feet. It was still wet.

The underside of my jaw was sore.  I felt a pain at the back of my throat and inside of my ears.  I felt my nose dripping.  I reached up and pinched the bridge of my nose.  When I pulled my fingers back they were coated in a clear liquid. Something wasn’t right.

I heard a shriek coming from the house. Gram must be hurt, my mind raced as I sprinted back across the yard to the house. I slipped in through the sliding glass door to the living room and hurried up the steps. I barreled down the hallway and burst through Gram’s bedroom door. There she was sleeping just like I’d left her hours earlier. The Big Bang Theory had given way to re-runs of the Twilight Zone. I shut Gram’s TV off. I went around the house locking doors and windows and went back to bed.

The next day the rain was nonstop. I woke up nearly late for a zoom meeting I had to take. I fired up my laptop and plugged it in. Gram didn’t have the internet. I hotspotted my phone and went to login to it on my laptop. I noticed that besides my hotspot there was another wi-fi signal there named “Clara” aka Gram. Maybe Uncle Billy talked her into it. Just as I was pulling the work meeting up, I saw Gram behind me making a cup of coffee in the kitchen. 

“Hi everybody, so good to see the team!” I called out cheerfully as I joined the meeting.

“Marge, how have you been? How’s the visit? How’s…the…visit? How’s. Th-isit?”

My co-worker Stephanie was frozen, her audio stuck on repeat.

Lightning struck and thunder shook the house. All the lights went out. I looked into the kitchen and could only see Gram’s shadow.

“Gram, you okay? That was a big one!” She wouldn’t say anything back to me.

The lights came back on slowly from dim to fully lit. I realized the person I’d seen in the kitchen was actually a chair with one of Gram’s coats on it. I breathed a sigh of relief.

I made my way into the kitchen, now ready for a cup of joe myself. As I rounded the corner, I saw Gram’s cup of coffee on the counter. The backdoor out of the kitchen was wide open. And there was Gram. Out the backdoor in the pouring rain. She stared at me from behind the wall of the garage some 30 yards away. Her eyes were wide. As soon as we made eye contact, she ran out of sight.

I couldn’t chase after her or at least my forty year old legs refused til it was necessary. “Gram, can we settle down please? It’s just me, Margie. Your mini-me!” I hollered at her from the doorway as I tried to put my shoes on.

Gram was faster than she had any right to be. I gave up on the shoes when she was already halfway down the driveway. At some point I’d lost sight of her. I searched the treeline but couldn’t find her.

I honestly broke. I gave up. I couldn’t. Not anymore. I turned around and trudged my way back to Gram’s where I was going to call Mom and get picked up. Fuck, but I had that work call.

I rushed back inside the house. I snatched up my laptop and turned it on. It came to a few seconds later. It was about the same time that it came on as I heard the back door snap shut. 

I muted myself. “Gram, that you?”

I didn’t hear anything. I unmuted the work call.

“Apologies guys, I’m so sorry for the delay.”

No sooner had I opened my laptop to the zoom call than Gram had jumped onto my back. She clawed into my shoulders. The laptop slipped out of my hands and crashed onto the floor. 

“Marge? U alright? Should we call 9/11?” One of my co-workers called out..

“No, no. Everything’s fine!” I managed to close the teams window just as Gram hit me in the face with her ipad.  My bell was rung.  I fell face first off the couch.

Gram grabbed me by the throat and pinned the back of my head to the floor by putting her whole weight on me and riding me into the ground.

“You’re with them! Admit it!” Gram screeched.

“Chill out ya old bitch!!” I kicked her old ass right in the fucking gut as she towered over my back. She recoiled, doubling over. She tried to run.  I turned and tossedlaptop, hitting her square in the back of her knee.  Her left leg flung forward and out from under her.  She fell forward into the wall, putting the crown of her skull through the drywall.  She made a sound like a beaver that got punched in the face. Her hands felt their way up and Gram was able to push herself off the wall.  As she stood, she held her stomach and looked like she was going to shit herself.

Gram ran off into her room bouncing off the hallway walls. I could hear her weeping for a while. I felt like I’d lost my everloving mind.  I just donkey kicked my sick grandmother into tears.  I tomohawked her octogenarian knee with a macbook. I sat outside Gram’s bedroom door.  I apologized to her.  I told her I loved her through the door.  I waited a long while for a response but none ever came.  I went my own way, laying down in my bedroom with the door locked.

I woke up a couple hours later to something that smelled absolutely delicious. I heard the nostalgic sound of Gram humming a tune. I’m not sure I ever knew what tune it was but nothing made me happier. I followed my nose out of the bedroom and into the hallway. The heat from the kitchen radiated all the way to my bedroom door. It felt like a warm hug. I saw Gram but only in shadowy vignettes as she crossed the hallway from the kitchen.

“Is that your famous chicken pot pie, Gram? Sure does smell good!”

Gram smiled. “You know it!” She let out a silly little laugh and shook a wooden spoon at me playfully.  She looked so good.  So alive.  “You ‘bout ready to eat, Margie?”

“Yes ma’am.” I pulled out a seat at the plastic covered dining room table.

Gram brought me a slice of pie in a piece of fine china with ice blue designs.  It was so intricately painted. It looked like it belonged on the cover of a magazine. The pot pie smelled absolutely heavenly too. And it tasted even better than it looked. I gave into my gluttony. I finished my first piece and Gram served me seconds.

“I’m glad you like it,” Gram smiled. 

“It’s even better than I remembered,” I replied.

“Well you haven’t tried this one before, silly.”

I giggled thinking she was right. Just like this visit, everyday is a new experience. I chowed down.

I obliterated my second portion.  The only thing left was a little gravy around the edges of my plate and a little plop of chicken goop in the center.

When I forked the little plop of chicken goop, it felt like a hearty little morsel. I pulled it to my mouth but as I bit into the goop, it rang. It rang like a bell. It rang in a way I’d heard a thousand times before.

“Where’s Charlie, Gram?” I asked.

Gram looked down at her plate.

“He was a very naughty boy,” Gram replied.

I felt a heat rush through my body, from my heart to my fingertips. I reached into my mouth and pulled out a little brass bell. The very same one from Charlie’s collar.  My eyes snapped shut and I puked my mind out. I didn’t stop puking until there was nothing left inside of me. I knocked over chairs and nearly took Gram out as I feverishly tried to feel my way to the bathroom.

At some point I lost consciousness. When I came to, I was face to face with Gram as I laid on the barn floor.

“Hurry up!  He’s almost awake.”  

Gram released her grip on the back of my head and my skull thudded into the dirt. Through the haze of what must have been a concussion, I saw Gram step down into a massive hole in the barn. I watched her pull her hair back, revealing the scars on either side of her head. She plunged her middle and forefingers into the wounds, digging about. When she pulled her fingers back they were coated in blood and the clear liquid I’d seen before.

“He’s almost had his fill.” Gram sounded excited.

“Who, Gram?” I barely recognized my own voice.

“He’s gonna need some of yours too. He’s a hungry boy!”

I pulled myself onto my elbow. I had a better vantage point to see what Gram was doing. She had both of her hands shoved into the jaws of a desiccated corpse I can only assume was my Grandfather.  I swear that the corpse shuddered beneath her hands. I didn’t wait to find out what was coming next. I dashed out of the barn, closing, and locking the barn door behind me.

No sooner had I sealed the barn door but something heavy crashed against it, splintering some of the door’s frame.

“Come now, mini me.  It’s time to meet Grampa.”

I ran as hard and as far as I could. I can see the house from here. It looks like the power is off. I don’t know if that’s a good or a bad thing. I heard a man’s voice or at least I think I did a few minutes ago. It’s getting light now. Maybe my Uncle Billy is back. I’m trying to get this message out to anyone that can pass it along to my Mom or my Uncle. Tell them Margie says there’s something wrong with Gram and Grampa.