We didn’t understand what was happening as things got worse. We kind of understood the memory loss, the groping for a word. Mom always had a disjointed way of storytelling – nothing was particularly linear. She’d pick up a storyline three days after as if there were no break, as if no time had passed. We always called them “Bettyisms” but we, her daughters, always understood the reference and could bounce back into the flow of whatever it was she referred to. These Bettyisms always bewildered my father, however. He could never pick up the thread. He had no idea what she was talking about even though it was perfectly obvious to us.

When she got worse, neither could we. We couldn’t string the storyline together. There was no earlier point of reference. Her nonsequiteurs befuddled us as much as our father. We should have paid more attention then. 

Her stories grew more wild, more out of sync with everything in her life. A stranger had come into her house and stolen her purse. It was that man. It was that boy on the bicycle. It was those women who came to take care of the cats when mom and dad traveled. They had a key. They broke in. She couldn’t find her purse. She couldn’t find her Purse. She couldn’t find her PURSE! Then the weeping. The wailing. The out of control frenzy of looking for her purse.

We’d find it in the hamper, buried under dirty clothes. Thrust deeply under a sofa. In a cabinet behind cleaning supplies. Hidden away from thieves who could creep in during the night while she slept.

Her purse would be restored to her and it was like a light switch went on. The darkness of her despair disappeared as if it had never been. That was the most unnerving thing of all. The abrupt volte-face while we still stumbled around adjusting to a madwoman.

It made no sense. How could we understand how the pieces of her mind were being stolen away like a thief steals in the night.