A warm welcome to author Lynn Lorenz joining us today to talk about her new release “David’s Dilemma”.
Welcome Lynn 🙂
Thanks to everyone at Love Bytes and especially to Dani! I truly appreciate y’all letting me post a blog here for my release of David’s Dilemma.
The gist of the book is the struggle of David, a gay man who becomes the caretaker of his father who has been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease and how it affects David’s life.
Some of you may heard me say that my father inspired me to write David’s Dilemma. In the last year of his life I had suspected he might have Alzheimer’s, but dismissed it as old age. After all, he was in his 80’s.
And he was a true raconteur. He loved to tell stories and he had some funny as hell ones. Which, over my lifetime, I’d heard a million times. And so had anyone else around him.
But that last year, I noticed the same few stories being repeated. At the time, he lived in New Orleans and I lived in Katy, Tx, but we talked on the phone. When he got sick and they put him in the hospital, I had already started the book. (It was published after his death, so he never really knew about it.)
Six weeks before he died, he spent that time in the hospital being poked, prodded, tested and watched for an intestinal illness. Two weeks into this, his long-time girlfriend/wife of 18 yrs, came to the hospital and told him that when he got out he couldn’t return to their home. She also called me to explain herself.
And that’s when I learned from her what was going on, had been going on with my dad. He had become argumentative, paranoid, and at one point almost violent. She was afraid of him, and believed she couldn’t care for him at home. My dad was a big man, and she was an elderly lady with health issues of her own.
She wanted him gone.
As I spoke more and more to my father, every day on the phone, we’d have the same conversation, from crying over what will happen to him, to begging me to find him a new “home,” to raging about her throwing him out, to telling me he’d left everything he had to her because he loved her.
He was deep in the disease, but not so bad he didn’t know who I was, but often he didn’t know why he was in the hospital. Disoriented. Scared.
This is who I based David’s father, David Delaney, Sr. on. And along with the struggle with Alzheimer’s, came the other things. Like no filter. Spouting all the racist and bigoted beliefs he had all his life, which I and my brother were never shielded from.
What I’m saying is David’s Dilemma is perhaps the most personal book I’ve ever written. Including my fears for my father, my hopes for him, and my surprising relief, when six weeks at the hospital my father had a series of strokes and died.
Relief because I know he would never get better and to see him become less was so painful even now I tear up. He had always been larger than life. Funny. Engaging. But he had a dark side, for sure.
Relief because I’d already been planning to move him to Texas so he could be near his grandkids only to have him fight me because he wanted to be near his ex-wife, the person who put him out of his home.
I didn’t want to fight that battle. But since I was the only one taking any responsibility for him, I went ahead and made plans to move him into a rehab, then to Houston. I knew it would change my life, move it in a direction I wasn’t ready to go but would do out of a sense of duty. He was my father.
I wanted to build David’s character, a man bound by duty, but struggling to retain his own life. And having no idea how to handle it. And I wanted people to understand his father, a racist, homophobic, bigoted man, who was also lost, frightened and confused.
Alzheimer’s leaves victims strewn around it.
Glancing at his watch, David, Sr. stood and dropped the empty shoebox into the trashcan on his way to the kitchen. It was almost time for lunch, and Davey would be home from school in a few hours.
He wandered down the hall and into the kitchen. Davey sat at the table, reading the newspaper, his back to David Sr.
“What are you doing home? Shouldn’t you be at school?” He got a cup and poured some coffee.
“Dad, I’m not in school.”
David’s patient voice riled him. He could tell when he was being talked down to, as if he was some old man.
“I know that.” He cleared his throat and glanced at the paper over David’s shoulder. “It’s Saturday. No school on Saturday.” He nodded, pleased with himself.
“It’s Sunday, Dad, and I haven’t been in school in nearly fifteen years.” David sighed, turned the page, and continued to read.
David Sr. clutched the cup tight, his gaze darting around the room. He could have sworn Davey was still in school. He stared at the back of his son’s head. There was a touch of grey at his temples, his hair a deeper brown, his shoulders broader.
Davey’s a grown man.
He shuffled over to the chair and sat down. When had that happened? He ran his hand over his chin and felt his own age, deep lines that he didn’t remember being there. In the glass of the window over the sink, he caught his reflection.
He was old. So much older than he remembered.
He had to say something, make normal conversation. “What are the plans for today? Are we going to church?”
David looked up. “If you want to, I’ll take you to the afternoon mass at three.”
“Sure. That’d be nice.” He nodded. “At St. Mary’s, right?”
“That’s right…. St. Mary’s.” David smiled at him, folded the paper, and stood. “Be back shortly. I’m just going to the bathroom.” He left the room.
David Sr. watched his son leave. Sure, he remembered it all now. Davey was working now. He’d graduated college. David Sr. remembered the ceremony. He’d been so proud of his boy.
He frowned. He remembered something else. Something bad David had told him after the ceremony, but he couldn’t recall what it was.
David shut the bathroom door and sat on the edge of the bathtub. He pulled out his cell phone and called Travis.
“Hello?”
“It’s me.”
“David! So, is it a go for lunch today?”
“’Fraid not. My dad’s really out of sorts today.”
“Shit, I’m sorry.”
“He thinks I’m in school again. Still.” David wiped his hand over his face. “I don’t even know what I mean anymore.”
“It’s okay, baby. Maybe it’s too soon. Let’s give it a while.”
“A while? It’s only going to get worse. The doctor said it’d be in stops and starts, here one day and gone the next, but this is unreal. I don’t know where his mind is, ever. Past. Present. Future.” He rubbed his eyes. “And he repeats himself. Over and over. I have to go through the same conversations until I want to scream.”
“I know it’s hard, but you’re going to have to face facts. If he’s not getting better, you’re going to have to do something about it.”
“No. Uh-uh. Not yet. It’s not that bad.” David shook his head. He didn’t know what bad looked like, but he wasn’t there yet.
Travis sighed. “Whatever you decide, I’m with you. I hope you know that.”
“I know.”
“Let’s see how next week goes, okay? Maybe you can get away for dinner.”
“Okay. And thanks for understanding.”
“Hey, you’re kidding, right? If you can hang with me and all of my cop shit, I certainly can hang in there for you and your father, baby.”
“I love you.”
“Love you too. I’ll call you early next week. Stay strong.”
“You too.” David hung up. He stood, splashed some cold water on his face, and dried it off.
Back to deal with his dad.
Hand on the door, David paused. He shouldn’t feel so put out to have lunch and go to church with his father. He should be grateful he had this time, even if his father wasn’t all there.
He should feel… something other than aggravated. He knew it, but the guilt swallowed him, ate him up from inside, whispered in his mind he was a bad son.
Really, it was all in his mind. A matter of attitude. A matter of counting your blessings, of knowing it could be so much worse.
He knew it. He did. Intellectually, he knew it. It was the emotional part he was having trouble dealing with. Part of him shouted, “I want my life back!” And another part had watched his father deteriorate over the last ten months and had grown tired and worn out.
And it was only going to get worse.
So I hope you’ll give David and Travis a try. Take a chance on them standing strong in their friendship and their love. And to find out, just what happens when you find Mr. Right, but at the wrong time. I know it’s a hard subject, but I do promise a happily ever after, for all of them.
Thanks again to Love Bytes!!
Blurb:
When is it the wrong time to find Mr. Right? For David, that time is now. He’s caring for his homophobic father, who has Alzheimer’s, and his personal life is the last thing he has time to focus on. But when his father wanders off, David is forced to reach out to the police, in the person of Detective Travis Hart. Travis is gay, tired of the club life and twinks he can’t keep up with, and longs for a real relationship with a man who wants the same—maybe someone remarkable like David. In fact, David is exactly who he has been looking for, but Travis isn’t sure he can be the man David needs during this difficult time.
Because as David’s father sinks deeper into the disease that’s robbing him of his memories, David really needs a friend, not a lover. Though Travis is determined to support David in whatever way he can, David’s decision could lead both men into a situation with no possibility of a happy resolution.
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Lynn Lorenz is an award-winning and best-selling author who grew up in New Orleans but currently lives in Texas, where she’s a fan of all things Texan, like Longhorns, big hair, and cowboys in tight jeans. She’s never met a comma she didn’t like, and enjoys editing and brainstorming with other writers. Lynn spends most of her time writing about hot sex with even hotter heroes, plot twists, werewolves, and medieval swashbucklers. She’s currently at work on her latest book, making herself giggle and blush, and avoiding all the housework.
Escape into Her Worlds www.lynnlorenz.com @lynnlorenz on Twitter Lynn Lorenz on Facebook Her books are available at Amazon and publisher’s sites
