Turned turtle

 "I didn't fall down."

The voice came from an unfamiliar place.  Entering Demeter's apartment for the second of my three daily visits, I could see she wasn't in her usual seat at the far end of the loveseat.  I could also see her walker near the corner of the living room, and just beyond it, two bare feet, toes facing up.  One thing I've learned, over years of teaching, parenthood, and working with differently abled people:  panic helps no one, so I shoved the instinct aside, and strode over to find my mother, flat on her back in the space behind two armchairs which back the bookshelves, with a small cushion pillowing her head.

"I didn't fall," she repeated.  "I was down on my hands and knees, and I couldn't seem to get up this time."

"Why were you on your hands and knees, Mama?"

"I don't remember."

Silently, I reasoned that she couldn't have passed out; the Lifeline monitor hanging from her pendant would have registered a fall, and I would have been notified.  I started moving the armchairs, so I could position myself behind her head and draw her to a sitting position.

It soon became apparent that that I wouldn't be able to lift her to her feet.  Demeter isn't heavy, but she was too tired to help, and thus a deadweight.

Thinking quickly, I phoned the Resident Fan Boy, and called him away from his customary Sunday lunch with younger daughter.  They had just started, so arranged for the food to be packed.

In the meantime, I braced Demeter's back against my shins, and leaning, managed to turn one of the armchairs,  a bit of a struggle against the carpet pile, but now Demeter could rest her head and arms in the seat.  

It was a muggy afternoon, and Demeter doesn't like the windows open; the traffic noises resound in her hearing aids.  Able to step away now, I turned on the fan, noticing it was plugged in a different place.  I usually plug the fan in a multisocket behind the couch, where I'm far less likely to trip over it.  It was now in a rather difficult-to-access cubby, hidden amid the bookshelves.

After her weekly shower, she had dressed and gone into the kitchen to make lemonade, because "I know we're out of Ribena".

(We're not.  She had seen me recycle the previous bottle and assumed I hadn't bought the replacement some weeks ago.  I had.)

After this exertion, she felt warm, so attempted to turn on the fan, which I had turned off before leaving after my morning call, because Demeter finds it chilling and noisy. When, for some reason, the fan didn't seem to work, she decided to replug it.  On her hands and knees.  Demeter is 94.

Then she couldn't get up, so she lay on her back, exhausted, for an hour.

I finally was able to help her to roll to her knees, by supporting and raising her buttocks, then, bracing myself against her right side,  she pulled herself to a crouch, and I guided her into the chair.  I went to retrieve one of the lemonades from the fridge.  They were uncovered, and she had left the stirring spoon in one of them.

I phoned the Resident Fan Boy, now hurrying down from Harris Green.  While still on Yates, a cyclist rolled up behind them and barked:  "Choose a side!"  As he rolled past, something in the RFB snapped.

"You're riding on the sidewalk!" he shouted.  To his consternation, the cyclist stopped, tossed his bike to one side, and strode up to the RFB.  "Now it gets real!" he snarled.  Probably more like surreal, the RFB thinks he was drunk or high.  Younger daughter was terrified, and stepped forward to protectively grab her father's arm.  The cyclist did not come within six feet.  My husband and daughter turned and walked off in the opposite direction, hoping that he was in too much of a hurry to turn and pursue them.

I was reiterating to Demeter (gently, I hope), how trying not to be a bother winds up with more worry for  everyone, especially when I'm a two-minute walk down the street, as the dynamic duo came, flushed and frazzled, through the door.

Younger daughter grasped Demeter's hand in concern, something very unusual for her.  It had been a frightening afternoon, especially for someone on the spectrum.  

The RFB helped me get Demeter safely to her accustomed place in the corner of the loveseat, before helping younger daughter set up the restaurant lunch on the dining room table, while I steamed a corn on the cob for Demeter.  

There was plenty of Ribena for everyone.