1. Max and Rosie Pt. 1


    Date: 10/19/2017, Categories: Love Stories, Author: Sisyphus, Rating: 13, Source: LushStories

    their reckless abandon. Finally, after the initial shock and disapproval, their parents met each other and held a celebration, inviting relatives and friends to a big party, the summer after Max and Rosie graduated. Max and Rosie were glad they hadn’t had a big expensive wedding. Max was twenty-two and Rosie was twenty and they had no idea what they were going to do to support themselves. For a while they worked as waiter and waitress at a small café, glad they could work together, but eventually, they went on to graduate school and lived in a tiny fourth-floor apartment, surviving on the small teaching fellowships they were awarded. Rosie got her Master’s degree in Theater, Max in English, and she taught drama at the local high school until Leah was born, while Max taught literature and creative writing at the Montgomery County Community College. Four years ago, the symptoms of Rosie’s illness became apparent. Max had wondered why she’d taped labels to all the drawers in the kitchen with the words silverware and on the cabinet doors, the words dishes, cups, glasses. This baffled him because all she had to do was look inside and she would know what was there. Then one day she called him on the phone and asked if he would come pick her up at the market. When he asked why she just didn’t drive her car home, she said she was tired and didn’t feel like driving. The next day, he drove her back to the market for her car and she followed him home. Soon, she stopped driving ...
    altogether and asked Max to drive her places and it became clear, she couldn’t remember how to get to where she wanted to go. When they went to see Dr. Goldstein, their family doctor, to determine what was going on, Max could see she was trying to hide her failing memory using her sense of humor. “What’s the name of the President?” Dr. Goldstein asked. Rosie looked at Max and then answered, “Obama. President Obama.” This was two days after he had been elected and they watched the celebration on television. Max and Rosie had talked about it during the drive to the doctor’s office, but when he asked her what day it was, she said, “What difference does it make?” Her deterioration was slow but the forgetfulness became more consistent until Max had to teach part-time at the college. The day she was found in the backyard of a house on the next block, trying to open the door, thinking it was her home, it became clear she could no longer be left alone. Max couldn’t afford to stop working completely or he would lose the full amount of his social security and they needed the health insurance the college provided. Still, he was in debt for the medicines they’d tried in an attempt to slow down the disease, realizing eventually, nothing would change the inevitable. “Let’s go for a walk,” Max said, coming over to the table. “Let’s go to the park and feed the ducks.” “Oh yes, the ducks, we haven’t fed them, have we?” she said, seeming to vaguely remember that they often took a walk before dinner. ...
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