how to stop your mother from wandering

by Beth Sherman

1) After locking the windows and doors, childproof the doorknobs.

2) Hide your car keys in a better place.

3) Buy her a Smartwatch with GPS tracking. It’ll be great, you enthuse. This watch checks the weather, counts your steps. If you fall, a voice on the other end immediately calls for help.

4) Ignore the accusatory look in her eyes, as if the watch is the problem.

11) Pretend you don’t realize she won’t wear the watch.

17) Don’t leave her home alone. Cancel plans with friends. Cancel your gym membership. Discontinue the Hinge app you signed up for. 

24) Take out a second mortgage to pay for all your new expenses and the lost billable hours at your remote job.

33) When the watch doesn’t work, buy a GPS insole for the shoes she wears most – her pink Arch Fit slip-on Sketchers.

36)Try not to imagine what it’s like to be tracked. A deer flitting through the woods, oblivious to the danger of headlights.

51) Forget that sometimes your mother goes barefoot.

52) Plan activities for the time of day when wandering is most likely to occur. Your mother’s new favorite activity is staring at her hands as if willing them to work.

58) Pick up the phone to complain to your ex that this is all too much for you before remembering he’d never been good in a crisis.

65) Make yourself a dirty martini and drink it in small, even sips while you contemplate if there’s anything in the house you could microwave for dinner.

73) Install an alarm that sounds when the front door opens. Then uninstall it when the unbearable BEEP BEEP BEEP keeps scaring your mother.

77) Don’t ignore the back door.

80) Discourage restless behavior with physical exercise. Could you try to walk to the mailbox, you ask. We might have gotten some interesting flyers.

82) Remember how when you were too young to read, your mother would gather each day’s junk mail and deposit it in your lap, to your delight. Someone had written to you!

86) Go over your mother’s medications with her doctors. Is there a pill that could be added or subtracted to make things better? Impossible Math.

97) Pay attention to when and why she wanders. There’s no detectable pattern. It could be right after breakfast. Or during re-runs of The Price is Right, her favorite game show. When it’s raining. When it’s not.  

103) Prepare a search plan in advance. Neighbors to call. Places she might visit. A recent photo.

104) In the picture, she has a crooked smile. Her eyes shift to the left, away from you, toward something you can’t see.

Photo of Beth Sherman

BIO: Beth Sherman has had more than 150 stories published in literary journals, including Flash Frog, Fictive Dream, Bending Genres and Smokelong Quarterly. Her work is featured in Best Microfiction 2024 and the upcoming Best Small Fictions 2025. She’s also a multiple Pushcart and Best of the Net nominee. She can be reached on social media @bsherm36.