Shadow Image by Martin J Smith

back to her, when he began to speak.
    â€œThere are terms we use sometimes, ‘we’ being families affected by Alzheimer’s,” he said, his eyes fixed on something outside. “You either ‘know,’ or you ‘can’t know.’ Which are you, Ms. Kennedy?”
    A cherry log crackled and hissed behind her. “My grandmother on my father’s side, but I was little, and it was before it had a name, I think. So which am I?”
    He turned and looked at her, but didn’t answer. “I’m going to tell you something that might seem callous. But I’m going to tell you anyway, because I want you to understand. Last night, Ms. Kennedy, with my wife out of the house for the first night in six years, I slept like a baby.”
    Was he waiting for her reaction? “I understand from your son—”
    â€œIt’s not like I didn’t have things to think about. My God, trying to make sense of what happened yesterday, trying to understand what I could have done differently, I should have been wide-eyed from the moment I got back from the hospital at eleven. But I wasn’t. I slept. Straight through. First night in years when I wasn’t up five or six times with her. She’d launch these projects, just vital nonsense that couldn’t wait, day or night. It’s like her brain’s on a timer that clicks on at random times. One night, maybe two years ago, she got out of the house before I woke up. She was sitting in the Benz, naked, trying to find the ignition. Said she was heading for Heinz Hall, late for the symphony.”
    He crossed the room and leaned against the mantel at the opposite end of the fireplace. “Scared the hell out of me. After that, I never slept too deeply.”
    â€œThat’s understandable,” Brenna said.
    â€œNo, it’s not,” he said, smiling. “You can’t know.”
    Their eyes locked. Another pop and hiss from a fireplace log. “Point taken,” she said. “So tell me something I can understand. What was she like? Before, I mean.”
    Vincent Underhill’s face transformed. Suddenly, he laughed—deep, genuine, affectionate. He seemed to search for a word. “Unique,” he said.
    Brenna took advantage of his sudden mood shift. “Help me get to know her a little. Let’s try this: If Floss Underhill were one of the seven dwarfs, which one would she be?”
    He thought a moment, then laughed again. “Is there a Cranky?”
    â€œThere’s a Grumpy.”
    Vincent Underhill shook his head. “No, that’s different. Cranky is more like it. Didn’t give a good goddamn, pardon my French, what anybody thought.”
    â€œShe smoked cigars, didn’t she? I remember that from somewhere.”
    â€œYes!
Everybody
remembers that.
Fortune
magazine sent a reporter and photographer out to the house about thirty years ago. We must have talked for two days about things going on around the state, economic development stuff. And what do you think made it into the lead? What do you think everyone remembers about that story? My wife firing up a Macanudo in front of the photographer! We’d managed to keep her little vice a secret for so long, not that
she
gives a damn, of course.”
    â€œShe still smokes them?”
    Underhill’s smile dimmed. “We can’t let her have matches.”
    â€œOf course,” Brenna said. “I’m sorry. I’m just trying to imagine her on the social circuit around here.”
    â€œOh, Christ, don’t get me started,” Underhill said, his mood buoyed again. “She was an absolute scourge. Had no patience, none whatsoever, for those women—‘the ladies who lunch,’ she called them. Not that they didn’t fall into line when she told them to, when she needed money or volunteers for one cause or another. But she was much more comfortable in filthy horse clothes than in anything Bob