HARMONIC DISSONANCE

    Link to order the novel-: Harmonic Dissonance 

       SYNOPSIS

Harmonic Dissonance is about two married couples -- (straight) Elle and Patrick and (gay) Corey and Noah. Patrick and Noah have dementia and are at the same Memory Care facility. During their stay, Patrick and Noah form a sexual relationship even though Patrick is straight. Both no longer recognize their spouses. The novel explores the impact on Elle and Corey as they confront the impact of Alzheimer’s on their marriages; the way their roles have changed. Elle and Corey are forced to form a bond with each other—as a coping mechanism. Elle ponders whether her husband has been a closeted gay man during their marriage. Corey and Noah’s adopted son is missing in Afghanistan, making Corey deal with another potential loss in his life without the support of his husband, Noah.  

EXCERPT FROM HARMONIC DISSONANCE-WRITTEN BY  GORDON BLITZ: 

Elle had a routine of visiting Patrick at the Sunrise Memory Care facility at ten every morning. It was a perfect match for her new four-day work schedule shift of 12 to 12. Dr. Henry had explained, “Patrick should be at his most coherent in the morning. When the evening comes, the sundowner syndrome takes over. And be consistent time-wise. It should help Patrick in knowing you’ll be there.”

Elle had only recently learned about sundowners and sundowning. She couldn’t believe it was a “thing”. The term sundowning referred to how a person with Alzheimer’s disease gets confused and agitated when the daylight fades around dinner time. The change in the brain function cannot cope with daily stress and the biological clock gets out of sync. 

Patrick’s diagnosis of “moderate to severe cognitive impairment” two years ago had gutted Elle, like a fish that had had all its organs removed. She quit her job as a nurse to spend quality time with Patrick. The doctor had warned her, “We won’t know how aggressive his dementia will be. Right now, he is coping well with the disease. He makes lists and makes sure he puts his iPhone, car keys and door keys in the same place so he doesn’t lose them. But we know it’s going to get worse and the descent can be sudden. I don’t envy you, taking this on yourself. It’s a shame you don’t have kids or relatives to help you.”

After the neurological testing, Elle was surprised that the doctor interviewed her separately. He said, “We need to get a baseline from a third party and verify the way Patrick’s answers correspond with your perspective." A battery of questions revolved around, “Has Patrick had mood swings? Does he have uncontrolled anger? Have you noticed confusion? Are there tasks that he is unable to perform? Is he able to take a shower himself? How are your conversations with him?” Elle felt like her answers would incriminate Patrick as though she were testifying in court and helping a jury sentence Patrick to being jailed by Alzheimer’s disease. What would happen if she did not answer truthfully? Was she failing to stick by her marriage vows of "in sickness and in health"? She fudged by explaining, “Patrick has always been forgetful and a little moody. Look, he’s a writer. Isn’t it part of the creative process to be a little bit off and scattered? His personality hasn’t changed that much. I mean he is almost 70.” Afterward, she was smacked with guilt that she had not answered honestly. So, her road to martyrdom had begun.

Elle had been a saint until Patrick began disintegrating a year ago. His brain had become scrambled and he was found in the lobby of the condo, sitting on the newly upholstered couch in his underwear. After Elle was informed by the president of the association, she had dashed downstairs. She needed to remember to lock the door from the inside to avoid Patrick trying to fly the coop. Despite what the literature had said about how to talk to a dementia victim, she reprimanded Patrick, like he was a child.

“What are you doing? Where are your clothes? You can’t just wander off. Come on, get up from the couch. We’re going back upstairs. My God, Patrick.”

 Patrick had been smiling but her scolding words prompted a defiant response.

He had barked at Elle, “Who are you? I’m staying here. I don’t want to go with you.”

 It was the first time Elle heard those three words, who are you? and it felt like their 40- year marriage had evaporated. Even though she had known that his brain was like an old incandescent light bulb that had a flickering filament of cognition, she had not understood how quickly it could completely burn out.  

 “It’s Elle, your wife.” She always insisted Patrick call her Elle because she hated the stuffiness of Eleanor, and the way it sounded. 

 “Oh, right. Elle is my wife. I wrote a story about her. Did I show it to you? Or maybe it was songs I wrote. Eleanor Rigby, or was it just Elle?” And when he started singing the lyrics, Elle thought that Patrick had a fiber of memory and realized she was his wife. His opaque-looking eyes told a different story though. Patrick’s eyes, which used to twinkle with curiosity, had become stagnant black buttons. Elle had heard of patients who had such severe corneal opacity, white or clouded scarring that stopped light from passing their cornea, that the only cure was a cornea transplant. That’s what Patrick needed, a brain transplant.

 Patrick’s mind may have been on another planet but his music knowledge had held on. If he heard the name of a song used in conversation or a few lyrics, he immediately began singing to himself. She remembered when they were dating and they heard the song “Eleanor” by The Turtles, Patrick had said, “I don’t know why you hate your name and make me call you Elle.” And even after he sang a few bars from the song, Patrick couldn’t persuade her to change what she wanted to be called. 

She couldn’t imagine what Patrick felt when he admitted to her four years ago, “I can’t write anymore. I don’t know where the words are.”

All those years of struggling as an author. The bravery of switching professions from being an attorney at the age of 40. He was able to make the career change because of a huge settlement from a medical malpractice case. Plus, it gave Patrick the ability to buy his beloved Z.  He lined up songs about cars: Wilson Pickett - “Mustang Sally”, Beach Boys - “Fun, Fun, Fun” and Jan and Dean - “The Little Old Lady from Pasadena” to play during any gridlocked drives. Patrick felt like he was driving in the nude, being unencumbered by a solid roof. When the sun was broiling, he would remove his shirt, and despite the over-the-top temperature, it felt like the wind was nipping at his chest. And the wind swirling on his back rug was freeing, as though the hairs on his back were flying.

 With this latest indignation of dementia, he was forced to stop driving. The Z sat in the garage like a museum piece. She had found Patrick crying in the garage and when she asked him what was wrong, he said, “I don’t know. What is this Volkswagen doing in our garage?”

 When Patrick was somewhat cognizant years ago, he had told Elle, “If there ever comes a time when I don’t recognize you, I want to be put in a nursing home. I don’t want to hurt you.”

 It felt like Patrick would be making the decision for Elle when she had to install him at Sunrise Memory Care. She had procrastinated after the incident in the lobby because his memory returned in spurts…weeks without an episode. It was as though his brain had been loosely patched, only to become unraveled without any warning.

  To delay the inevitable, she tried to convince Patrick to go to the Senior Day Care Center.

“Don’t you want to go out? They have activities at the adult day care center.”

Patrick replied, “But what is going to happen if I feel sick and I want to lie down? I will be embarrassed.”

He kept rubbing his hands together as if he were Lady Macbeth trying to remove spots of blood, but in Patrick’s case, Elle had no idea what he was washing away.

He sat on their burnt maroon couch, covered with a sheet to prevent the itchiness to his skin. Elle hated the way it made the living room look, off-balanced. Because Patrick spent most of their marriage using the house as an office, it felt like his domain. She felt homeless until Patrick got ensconced in Sunrise.

Elle’s voice kept increasing in volume and tone, like the way a Barry Manilow arrangement had lofty musical modulations. Despite the contrivance, those key changes had been the highlight of her years with the Singing Nurses. Thirty years ago, she had taken a short sabbatical and latched onto other nurse comrades who were closeted singers. A perfect outlet that prevented burnout. But in the last ten years, her poor blood sugar had stretched her vocal cords making it impossible to vocalize without straining. She barked, “Patrick, you can’t just stay home and watch television every day. You have to socialize. I’m very disappointed in you.”

“Why are you hollering at me? I can’t take it; stop.”

He used tears to smother Elle with guilt.

She clamped down and walked away. Being passive-aggressive was her fighting solution.

It took the day she found him trying to put his head in the toilet bowl that she felt confident she could convince a jury of her peers that Patrick needed the kind of care Sunrise Memory would provide.

Thank God he had taken out long-term care insurance when he was 35. She wondered if he was prescient, knowing that he would take advantage of the policy. Both his parents had been stricken by the disease and he assumed it would conquer him. She remembered... he said, “I don’t want you to worry about me getting sick and it draining all our savings. I know how hard you work with those 12-hour shifts. I want you to be able to retire if you get burnt out.” He was spot-on; they never could have afforded the establishment he resided in.

The first time she entered Sunrise, she thought she had arrived at a bed and breakfast. Smells of lilac and peonies blasted through the lobby. A basket of freshly baked oatmeal raisin cookies gave Elle an excuse to break her diet. The waiting area had a sofa with a dense walnut frame along with tightly woven burgundy textiles that melded into her back for supreme comfort. The colonial décor gave the room an earthy solace. With only fifteen residents, Patrick was getting the 24-four-hour attention he required. It was only in the residents’ room that the antiseptic smell overpowered her, so the large outdoor patio and garden were their meeting place.

On the Sunday after the Thanksgiving visit, Elle did not find Patrick in his usual garden spot. Instead, a man she suspected was a visitor or could have been a worker, was standing there. Elle asked, “Have you seen my husband, Patrick? I never go to his room. We usually meet at the exact spot where you are standing. His attendant Felice always brings him out here at ten, my appointed time. Are you new here?”

The man had that melting candle skin that the obese succumb to when they lose weight too quickly. Patrick, who had always been thin, had lost so much weight that it looked like his flesh was hanging onto his bones by a thread, wilting like a peace lily. As if it wasn’t horrific that he was becoming incoherent, he had turned into a wrinkled old man. His skin had become so thin that when he let her touch him, she had to be careful that her quarter-inch fingernails did not break his skin. She pushed the hospital nurse’s guideline nail length because her stumpy short fingers needed elongated nails to beautify her hands. The luxury of visiting a manicurist weekly gave Elle a short escape and improved her mental and physical health. She loved the idea that the dead skin cells were removed and promoted new skin growth.  

The man, who was staring at the ground, looked like he was afraid to make eye contact with Elle. He mumbled, “I don’t work here.”

When Elle apologized, he looked up at her and said, “I don’t know where your husband is.”

 “I haven’t seen you here before. Is it your wife?”

How typical for a straight woman to assume that Corey was visiting a wife. He contemplated ignoring her comment before he decided he could use the opportunity to educate her or better yet just ramble in minute detail so that she would get bored and leave him alone.

“It’s my husband, Noah. I transferred him from Culver City Senior Care a year ago. His dementia had gotten worse and they suggested this place. I think it was just an excuse because they could not or did not want to handle him. It was as bad as a snake pit anyway at that place. Thank goodness I found this facility. When I went to his room, the attendant stopped me and said they were cleaning him up and to wait out here. I think there were some changes because of the holiday and the different staff. I was told they would bring him out here, later.” He stopped looking at Elle and began staring at the roses along the edge of the patio, hoping she got the hint about being left alone.

“I’m Elle. Oh sorry, I’m sorry I figured you were visiting your wife. That was foolish on my part. Nice to meet you.”

Corey was forced to answer, “Yes, that’s okay. I’m used to it. This marriage thing is fairly new. Hard to believe it’s only been two years since it temporarily became legal. We thought it was a big deal becoming parents but there is something about being married. My name is Corey.”

“It’s a shitty disease, isn’t it? I wonder if Patrick will ever recognize me again. He thinks I’m some strange woman visiting him.” Elle’s iPhone interrupted her words, giving Corey a rest from the small talk.