No Longer the Clown novel · Chapter 3 of 16

Chapter 3: Thursday Cake

Susan slips back into her act, a neurologist orders his usual, and when the birthday episode comes at six, Addie says she's bringing a doctor.

The bar hit one hundred percent.

I pressed the home button with my thumb.

"I was checking the weather," I said. "You asked me earlier if it would rain."

Susan came down the last step.

She held out her hand.

I put the phone in it.

She looked at the screen for a long time.

The weather was not on it. Just her lock screen, a photo of Dexter at his graduation.

Then her face changed.

It went loose.

Her eyes went wide and wet.

"Who are you?" she whispered. "Where's my Addie?"

"I'm right here, Mom."

"Oh." She pressed the phone to her chest and started to cry. "Oh, I'm so tired, Addie. I keep losing the days."

I watched her do it.

I had watched her do it forty times.

I had held her through every single one.

"Go lie down," I said. "I'll finish the pastries."

She went back upstairs.

The bedroom door didn't close all the way.

Through the gap I heard her voice, low and quick and perfectly clear.

"She had my phone. No, I don't know. Tell Dexter to be sweet to her this week."

I cooked the mung beans until they fell apart.

Then I went home and opened my email in the bathroom with the fan on.

Six hundred and twelve messages.

I read all of them.

On Thursday I was back at the Harrow Hotel at five in the morning.

I laminated butter. I rolled croissants. I piped four hundred rosettes for a bank's breakfast.

At ten I carried a tray of osmanthus cake out to the lobby cafe.

He was at the corner table, the way he was every Thursday.

Navy coat over blue scrubs. Hospital badge flipped backward on its clip.

Dr. Ren Liang.

He had ordered my osmanthus cake every Thursday for a year and a half.

The first week, he sent a note back to the kitchen on a napkin.

"Who made this? It tastes like my grandmother's house."

I had never told Dexter about the napkin. I still had it.

"Morning, Chef," Ren said, when I set the plate down myself.

"Morning, Doctor."

He looked up at me.

"You've been crying."

"Onions."

"In the pastry kitchen?"

"We branched out."

He didn't laugh.

He pushed the other chair out with his foot.

I sat down, which I'd never done before.

"Can I ask you a work question?" I said. "Your work, not mine."

"Sure."

"Somebody with Alzheimer's. Could they forget their own sister and remember a recipe that takes three hours?"

"Sometimes. Old memories hold longer than new ones."

"Could they only ever know one person? Just the one who does the cooking?"

He set his fork down.

"Is this your mother?"

"My boyfriend's."

"Who diagnosed her?"

"Her neurologist."

"Which one?"

I opened my mouth and realized I didn't know.

Two years, and I'd never met him. Dexter always took her to the appointments.

Ren watched my face.

"If she ever wants a second opinion," he said, "I'm at Cascade Memorial. I'll see her myself."

He wrote his cell number on the napkin under his cake.

His handwriting was the same as the first one.

On Saturday I woke up twenty-eight.

Dexter brought me coffee in bed and a card from the drugstore.

"Seven o'clock," he said. "Maison Rue. Wear the green dress."

"I love the green dress."

"I know." He kissed me. "I love you in it."

I spent the afternoon curling my hair.

I put on the green dress.

At 5:58 I was sitting on the edge of our bed, holding my phone, watching the clock.

Dexter was in the bathroom doing his tie. He'd been doing it for ten minutes.

At 6:00 exactly, his phone rang.

He came out still holding the knot.

"It's Mom's neighbor," he said. "She's wandering in the yard. She's asking for you."

He had the face ready. Worried. Apologetic. Tired.

"Go," he said. "Please. I'll call the restaurant and push us to nine."

My own phone rang.

Susan.

I put it on speaker.

"Addie?" Her voice broke. "Addie, I don't know where I am. There's a man at the door. I'm scared."

Dexter squeezed my shoulder.

"You're the only one she trusts," he said softly.

I stood up and smoothed down the green dress.

"Stay right there, Mom," I said into the phone. "I'm coming. And this time I'm not coming alone."

Her breathing stopped for a second.

"Who are you bringing?"

"A doctor."

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