Papery, soft hands are plucking at my shoulder. They are not the ones I recall braiding hair in my childhood.
"Where is this?" Mom asks, again, as the scenery streams by outside the cab.
"Atlanta," I say. "Georgia."
"Where are we going?"
"Emily's wedding." I hurry on, not wanting to test if she remembers. "Emily, your granddaughter. She's getting married."
The confusion is getting worse, the doctors at the nursing home say. The Aricept isn't working any more, the other medications aren't either. When I visit after work, she seems disoriented, angry. I don't know what to do.
She turns away from me, starts to read the signs on storefronts. Burger King, Chevron, Banana Republic. World's Best Coffee. 20 percent off.
At least she can still talk. At least she can still see. So many things to be thankful for. Kina hora, as she would say - as she increasingly does, the language of her ancestors welcoming her home.
The driver stops the taxi in front of the synagogue. I pay, acutely aware of my own mental acuity as I take out my wallet, pay, put it back. Sometimes I misplace things, sometimes I forget words. It scares me; I think it scares Em more.
I help Mom out of the car, my hand on the small of her back. I can feel her bones pressing against my palm.
"Where are my things?" she asks. "I had them with me. Someone's been stealing my things."
She's been saying this for months, accusing the nurses of going through her drawers. "Your bag's right here," I tell her, hefting the gold lame purse from the trunk. "I'm carrying it for you."
"They keep taking my things," she insists. "They take everything."
I've tried arguing this with her before. I've showed her all her possessions, counting them out one by one: here's your watch, your wedding ring, your high school portrait. It doesn't work.
"It's OK," I console her, which doesn't really work either. "Everything's fine."
Inside, even before most of the guests arrive, the scent of too many matronly perfumes mingles with lilac and tuber rose. Kate, the maid of honor, dashes up to me. "Come see the bride," she urges me. "She's been dying for you to get here."
I leave Mom in the care of my younger sister, take a deep breath and follow. In the dressing room, Em is just having her makeup finished. She wheels around and practically jumps into my arms, beaming her slightly crooked smile. The photographer crouches unobtrusively behind us and snaps a shot.
I hold her gently, trying both not to mess her hair and not to cry. I've seen her before in her wedding dress, but until now it's always seemed like she's playing dress-up. Now, her face is still my little girl's, but it's also unmistakably a bride's - radiant, gracious, terrified. She's twirling a sprig of flowers incessantly between her French-manicured nails, and under her foundation, her cheeks are a little flushed. She is the most beautiful thing I have ever seen, everything about her existence a miracle, but I can't quite express that.
"You look perfect," I say instead, and, "Daddy would be so proud."
"I know," she whispers warmly, still beaming, as Kate starts to pull her back into the bustle of preparations.
I'm not ready to let her go. The Hallmark moment I've been anticipating still lingers, unfulfilled.
"Wait - can Grandma come in for a sec?" I say to her half-turned shoulder. "It'd mean a lot to her."
She flashes me a look, but nods.
"I'll go get her," I say.
I lead Mom back a few minutes later, quiet, but pliable. Em kisses her gingerly on the cheek.
"Hey, Grandma," she says with an exaggerated lilt, her face a mask of determination. "I'm getting married!"
"Oh!" Mom says, pleasantly surprised.
"His name is Ben," Em soldiers on. "We met in grad school."
"That's very nice."
This is practically a real conversation - as good as it's going to get.
But it's not what I've been imagining for years. I remember when Mom would watch four-year-old Em pretending to marry her stuffed animals, a borrowed dishtowel draped on her head for the veil. I remember the warmth in her eyes.
I should let it go, but I don't.
And Mom's drifting from us again. "Where's Eddie?" she says.
This question used to gut me, but it's become more and more frequent.
"Dad's not here, Mom," I tell her, matter-of-factly. "He passed away 15 years ago."
Mom takes this in, as always, with surprising tranquility.
But Em, threading in a pearl earring, is watching with a critical eye. She can see things unraveling.
And then she asks what I've never dared to.
"Grandma, who's Emily?"
Mom looks helplessly back at her as I stand frozen - the hopeful, unwilling audience to an awful quiz show.
I realize suddenly that I am holding my breath. I'm still waiting for the moment.
More than God, chance or fate, I realize, I've always put my faith in the power of narrative. Terrible things happen all the time, I believe, but there are supposed to be moments of comfort and beauty, crystallized instants that happen because they should. And now I wait for the thing I realize I've expected all along - for Mom's sudden moment of clarity on this holiest of days, for her to bless this marriage with her remembrance.
It doesn't happen, of course. She seems barely to realize she's been asked a question.
"Emily, your granddaughter," I prompt again, a little hoarse, and she nods. "Tell her you love her." Obediently, Mom does, before my sister walks her off again.
But the damage is done. Em follows me out to the hallway, shell-shocked but somehow unsurprised.
"It'll mean so much to her," she spits back at me with the venom of a hundred old teenage spats. Both of us are struggling not to cry. "You think she’ll even remember this tomorrow?"
"I’m sorry, honey,” I tell her. “It's just...what she was once - she was an incredible woman, you know. She had such a loveliness about her, and so much strength - and I wanted you to have that. I wanted you to share that."
I discover with a dull shock that I'm speaking in past tense. It's what I've known for years, but never allowed myself to realize. She's gone.
Em swallows hard, her face dutifully returning to serene. "I know," she says, kissing me on the cheek. "I'll see you in a bit."
I embrace her again and go find Mom where she's sitting by the centerpieces, plucking at the sleeve of her dress.
"Where are they?" she asks, and I realize her bag is still slung across my shoulder. "Where are my things?"
I don't say a word this time.
"They've taken it again. They've stolen everything."