WORDS ESCAPE HER BUT LAUGH IS STILL THERE

The Boston Globe

BEVERLY BECKHAM

She has lost her words. Last year, I could feed them to her. Fill in the blanks. "How is . . . the bald one?" she said when I came to visit. She exaggerated bald, drawled the word, made a joke, covered up.

I covered up, too. "How is Bruce? He's great. Definitely bald, but great."

We laughed then, as we have since we were 7 and laughter gilded the afternoon. It was a constant. Words came and went: "Across the street," "Niece," "You know, the place where you live," nouns and verbs and whole phrases pulled away by some current that was pulling her away, too. But laughter shored her up.

She remembered that my father had called her "Legs," because she was all legs, even when she was young.

And we laughed as we always have.

She remembered sitting in the kitchen in the house where I grew up, eating my mother's chicken soup, then bursting into song in a big, teasing voice: "I'll die to-mor-row!" We sang it together.

And laughed as we always have.

She remembered my first day at her school, February, second grade, flailing her arm and calling to the teacher, "Miss Nagel, Miss Nagel. The new girl is crying!"

And we laughed as we always have.

But a few minutes later, she couldn't remember her granddaughter's name.

I forget things, too, I said, lying, lying.

Two years ago when I visited, she opened the door to her small apartment and said, "Hey? You're old, too?" and we hugged and she laughed and her laughter was camouflage.

Same Janet, I told myself.

Her apartment was immaculate. Same as always. She used to come home from school and straighten up the kitchen that her mother had just cleaned. Fold a towel. Put away the butter. Never a thing out of place.

Still never a thing out of place. A small table. Four chairs. A love seat. A bed. And pictures on a bed stand. "My shrine," she said.

We drove to a restaurant. She ordered what I ordered. We talked about children and grandchildren, and so what if her words made a loop that went around and around. So what that she kept asking, "Do you have any grandchildren?"

Old times were still vivid. She remembered seeing "Imitation of Life" and sobbing. Laughing during the most solemn part of a novena. Laughing in the back seat of my father's car because we were going to ChicoPEE. She remembered Judy Bozan's birthday "February 16" and shoveling my driveway the day the Beatles first appeared on "The Ed Sullivan Show."

"Your mother made chocolate-chip cookies and cocoa. How is your mother?" she asked.

And I lied and said, "My mother is fine."

Janet and I grew up together. We went to the same church, lived in the same neighborhood, and watched the same television shows.

We played marbles and jacks and tag. And on summer nights, we sat on my front steps and told each other stories. We were two sides of the same coin.

Whenever I've needed to know something, I've called Janet. "Who lived in the house where we used to go sledding?" "Whatever happened to the girl with the long braid?" "Remember the Easter everyone got to wear nylons and I had to wear ankle socks?"

She has been my source, my corroborator, and repository of a million memories.

Last year when I saw her, she couldn't remember how many children I had. But then she looked at a picture of my son and said, "He's your first."

Same Janet, I told myself.

Last year, I called from the car five minutes after I left her. The phone rang and rang. Finally she picked it up.

"I already miss you," I said.

And she hesitated for so long that I thought she'd forgotten I'd been there. But then she laughed and said, "I already miss you, too."

Same Janet.

We have always talked on our birthdays. Every year, no matter where we've been, I've called on her birthday and she's called on mine.

It was her birthday last week. Her daughter handed her the phone.

"Happy birthday to you," I sang and she laughed. Same laugh, 7, 8, 20, 40, all the way to now, her laugh has been a thing that comes from so deep within that it trills from her, like steam from a kettle.

"Can you believe we're so old?" I said.

And she said, "How" and "Where" and "I could just say, hey, go away."

Her words have gone away, marched beyond her reach.

"I miss you, Janet. I love you," I said.

She laughed again, a golden sound, the beautiful, familiar laugh that I love.