Maame(2)

I made him pass the phone to a nearby woman, who explained that he was only ten minutes down the road.

“Are you sure?” I asked her.

“We’re definitely on Spar Lane,” she said. “I live here.”

I knew then Dad hadn’t simply fallen asleep on the bus or mistaken an unfamiliar street for a shortcut, but that he genuinely didn’t know how to find his way home using the route he’d been taking for six years.

I jogged to Spar Lane and there he stood, in front of the gate of someone’s house, looking left and right, left and right. Trying. I reached him and jokingly threw my hands in the air. “You walk down here every day!”

He nodded but didn’t smile, and as we walked home, the frown stuck between his brows deepened until we passed where he bought newspapers on Sundays and his shoulders sank with relief.

I now mark that day as The Beginning.

Google: Is Parkinson’s disease genetic?

Scientific studies have shown that genetic factors can play a part in developing Parkinson’s disease as a result of faulty genes.

Most cases of Parkinson’s aren’t hereditary, however a medical study recently revealed that patients suffering from early-onset Parkinson’s disease are more likely to have inherited it.

Parkinson’s disease can be triggered through a complex combination of genetic susceptibility and exposure to environmental factors such as toxins and trauma.

Genetics cause up to 15% of all Parkinson’s.

Hereditary Parkinson’s continues to be rare. The majority of Parkinson’s cases are “idiopathic.” Idiopathic means there is no known cause.

I suppose now is as good a time as any to let you know that I have an older brother, James. He lives in Putney, so it’s just Dad and me here in Croydon. My mum spends most of her time in Ghana, running a hostel that my grandfather left to her and my uncle when he died. She’ll come back home for a year, then return to Ghana for a year, rinse and repeat. It wasn’t always a yearlong thing, she used to only go for a couple of months at a time, but excuses would sprout up like inconspicuous mushrooms: “It’s so expensive and long a flight, it doesn’t make economic sense to stay here for such a short time” or “British weather doesn’t agree with my arthritis” or “My brother is no good; he’s not business-minded like me.”

A year after Grandad passed, I overheard talk of upheaving us all to Accra, but Mum said no. “My degree from Ghana helped me not one bit here and Maddie is an A-plus student. That cannot go to waste. She will do better than us if here, and so you, their father, must stay.” Thus her yo-yo traveling began.

My brother James pretty much left when Mum did. She was the iron fist of the household and Dad didn’t know what to do with us when she was gone, so he did very little. James also didn’t know what to do with himself, so he spent most evenings and weekends at various friends’ houses. I barely saw him. He went to a different school from me and then straight to somebody else’s house; he had decided early on that his friends were his family.

Mum hated that; she’d shout on the landline, punctuated by the automated voice reminding us how much we had left on our blue calling card. “Stay home, James! Stop eating at other people’s houses when your father has put food in the fridge. Their parents will think you have no mother!”

James, at fifteen, would shout back, “I don’t!”

I’d lie to friends and tell them Mum was only gone for a month or two, three tops, because I knew they wouldn’t get it. They’d ask, “What about you?” But I was fine. I was raised to be independent, to wash my own clothes, to shop for food and cook my own meals, to do my homework on time, to iron my uniform and assemble my school lunch. I didn’t need to be looked after. I was proud to be so trusted—I didn’t know any better.

Then they’d ask, “What about your dad?” And he was fine too because my parents aren’t the same as yours and their marriage isn’t conventional. They do things their own way. I thought back then that it worked. I ignored James when he said it didn’t.



* * *



Dad’s sitting in his armchair by the window facing the TV. He always looks thinner in the mornings, his loose cheeks a little heavier (the medication ate a lot of his fat in the early stages), but doesn’t everything look different in the morning compared to how it did the night before? He’s still handsome in my eyes; we keep his hair, hardly any of which is gray, cut short, and his face looks brighter after its morning wash.

If I had more time, I’d sit with him for a bit. I like our living room in the mornings. The floors can get quite cold as they’re light wood (easier for spotting and cleaning up any mess), but I’ve timed the heaters to come on when Dad’s helped out of bed. The walls are painted a peach-orange and we’ve got mismatched shawls and blankets covering the cracks in our tan faux-leather furniture. Whenever Mum returns from Ghana, she gets the sofa coverings to match the armchair’s coverings, but I forget to wash and dry the sets at the same time.

“I’m leaving now, Dad,” I say, loud enough for him to hear. “See you in the evening, okay?”

His eyes don’t focus on me, and they’re not quite set on the TV either, but when he hears the word “okay,” his eyes widen and he replies, “Okay,” and smiles again.