SITUATION NORMAL OVER THERE (AFU)

Peg rings, in tears. "I've spent four hours looking for it. I've been up since 3:00! It's not anywhere! I'm just sick."

"What isn't anywhere, Mother?"

"My address book! What did you do with it!"

Well, as it happens, I did nothing with her address book, except bring it in to her in the nursing home three times, each time she'd asked me to, not that she ever looked at it there except when we went through it together, me with a red pen, to cross off dead people and circle those still hanging by a thread (including me). 

"Mama, I'm sure it's around. Maybe it's still at Laurel Lake. Call them." 

"Laurel Lake?" she says, then it hits her. "That man no one can find--who came in and just threw a blanket on the bed when I'd said I was cold. He took it. I know he took it. He was very interested in it." 

She is referring it seems to some orderly at the nursing home who comes from the Ivory Coast, or maybe the Ivory Coast was the "darling little girl" (aged 40, easily) who brought breakfast and helped with the TV changer and this is the guy from Macedonia or was it Moldova--anyhow, after further mother-daughter discussion, it turns out that Ivory Coast/ Macedonia/Moldova Man was in fact not thumbing through her address book, which is in a red loose-leaf binder, but looking at her Blue Book, one of her scrapbooks. And was most likely doing so at Peg's invitation. And I'm sure didn't shove either book under his sweater on the way out. Even though, as we all all know, there is big money to be made out there on the black market selling names and numbers of Old Time Radio enthusiasts, Norwegian relatives, and the opening hours of the Becket General Store.

Twenty minutes later, about the time it takes to say "Mama, no one is going to steal an address book, your handbag maybe, but not your (stupid) address book!" six million times, Peg's still convinced she's been robbed. It is only when Terri, the member of staff doing overnights at the house until I decide we can't afford her any longer, calls the nursing home, at my behest, and sure enough, the red address book is discovered safe and sound at Laurel Lake. At which point my mother's mood instantly brightens and I'm about to move onto far less interesting subjects for her, such as How Is My Father Doing, when Peg says what a relief it is, not just knowing all her addresses and phone numbers are intact, but that her money's safe too.

"Money?" Yes, money. She'd glued some cash inside the address book. How much cash? She didn't say. Or why she hid it there. Or felt the need to glue it. Now, she's been slipping five or ten or twenty dollars between pages of books all her life, for "mad money", "in case", in case what, I don't know, I guess in case the banks fail or the mattress doesn't work out--anyhow, we know never to give any books of hers away without first flipping through them to see if any bills flutter out, but her address book? hm, I find suspect: a) because we'd gone through the bloody thing three times, meticulously marking it, I'm pretty sure I would have noticed two pages cemented together with a big cash-shaped lump in the center; and b) because she didn't have any glue sticks in the nursing home, certainly none that I brought her, and Bonnie, I guarantee, would have mentioned the procurement of such in her Weekly Parent Blotter email, Details R Us. And sadly, I will not be there to grab the book and tear it apart when it eventually comes through the door. Possibly under the arm of Ivory Coast/ Macedonia/Moldova Man because you can be sure she's invited him for dinner, along with every other employee of Laurel Lake.

So. Questions That Nag At Me Three Thousand Miles Away:

Is my mother losing her mind completely or has she always been this way but it's now become worrying rather than (kind of; occasionally) endearing? 

Will I have to go over to the States sooner than I'd like to or that Denis would like me to? 

And, now that my son has officially chosen to stay and work here at the Anchor all summer rather than in Massachusetts where the idea was was that he was going to be the Compos Mentis Sleeper-Over Presence looking after his aged grandparents, what might be the chances, one wonders, of Ivory Coast/Macedonia/Moldova Man moving in to throw blankets on Peg's bed permanently? As long as he works out dinner-wise. I'd give up my room. He could look at blue books, red books, any color at all books all day long if he likes. Plus keep any cash that falls out or needs steaming out of them, with which to import as many relatives as he wants. Which brings me to my last two questions: am I going insane or am I there already?