I Ran Slowly
Right beside my son stood two airport security guards, and they were walking toward me.
For one moment I thought about running.
But at seventy-two, a woman does not run the way she did at thirty. And running would have handed them the exact picture my son wanted the world to see. A confused old woman. A woman who didn’t know where she was or what she was doing. A woman who needed to be managed for her own good.
So I did what my late husband, Antonio, always told me when my patience ran out.
When everyone expects you to scream, he used to say, speak softly.
I stood perfectly still in front of the automatic doors, with my granddaughter’s little folded paper tucked inside my bra and my hand pressed to my stomach.
Mauricio reached me first. The tenderness he’d been performing all morning was gone now.
Mom, what are you doing, he said through his teeth. You’re going to make us miss the flight.
The guards came up beside him. Ma’am, is everything all right, one of them asked.
Before I could answer, my son arranged his face into a mask of practiced sorrow. My mother is having an episode of confusion, he said. We’re traveling to a facility for treatment. She has early-stage dementia.
Dementia. That word came out of his mouth like a key. A key that would lock me away anywhere he liked.
The guard studied me. Ma’am, do you know where you are?
I held his eyes. Los Angeles International Airport, I said. Terminal Three. It’s a little after ten in the morning. And my son is trying to force me onto a plane against my will.
What happened next changed everything… FULL STORY on the next page.
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