Question E

[Jonetta]

Frank Hayes, Zack’s father, supposedly had dementia and was often found running around the Treaty Room. When did you, if ever, become suspicious that he might be faking? What was the biggest clue?

[Sharon]

I didn't catch on at all. I thought that his friend, I think it was Senator Armstrong, was using his dementia to get information.

[Lauren]

Like Sharon, I also didn't catch on and suspected Paul Harding was taking advantage of his mental deterioration to get dirt on Zack.

The friend was Paul Harding, Joy's father. Senator Armstrong is Lara's father.

[Sharon]

Lauren wrote: "Like Sharon, I also didn't catch on and suspected Paul Harding was taking advantage of his mental deterioration to get dirt on Zack.

The friend was Paul Harding, Joy's father. Senator Armstrong i..."

You are right. I didn't check the character list.

[Lauren]

Sharon wrote: "You are right. I didn't check the character list."

So many characters to keep track of. It's easy to become confused :)

[Jonetta]

I got suspicious before the reveal when he kept showing up in the Treaty Room. If he truly had dementia, he would not have shown up at the same place consistently. I could see if it was his own home but he’d never lived in the White House so nothing should have been familiar. The last time when Liz had to go retrieve him did it for me.

[Lauren]

That is a good point, Jonetta.

[Sharon]

Didn't Zack bring him to the WH after the election? That would be 3 years that he was living there.

Frank reminded me of my aunt. She would wander around my cousin's house all the time. She seemed to gravitate to the basement for no reason. I thought he ended up in the Treaty Room because that was an area that he could get to before anyone saw him.

[Jonetta]

But he came there supposedly with dementia. He’d not ever been able to become tied to that residence.

I’ve had many family members suffer from dementia or Alzheimer’s. Frank’s behavior was unreasonable, in my opinion. That Treaty Room connected him to nothing. And him being able to consistently find it was unbelievable.

[Sharon]

That's true. I didn't consider a lack of ties.

The only family member that I know with any type of dementia is my aunt. When I read that he was wandering around, I thought of her.

[Jonetta]

They tend to fixate or continuously revisit a specific period of time. Every time we moved one of my afflicted relatives, they rarely connected with a place in the new location. They repeatedly saw the people from that time or asked for one or more. And, they sounded pretty lucid.

My mother and I had a lengthy conversation with one of her friends who didn’t recognize her in the present when we came upon her working in her garden. I had no idea she didn’t know us until my Mom casually mentioned their time together in high school in a different state (which I never knew!). The conversation took an amazing turn and these two were back in high school from 60 years earlier. You’d never have known there was a problem but I’d known this woman all my life and she hadn’t a clue who I was.

I suspect your aunt had a basement in her home and was trying to find a connection.

[Sharon]

Yes she did. She had a reading and craft/sewing room in her basement. When we were kids, she would sit with us there for hours teaching us to sew, knit, and crochet.

[Jonetta]

I’d imagine those were strong memories.

[Karen ♐]

I was never suspicious. I just assumed he was wandering around and for some unknown reason ended up in that room.

[Anita]

I agree with Jonetta, Frank's dementia was awful convenient. I always had a suspicion it was fake. He got out of answering any questions and when he was found wandering into Zack's personal office, he was just escorted back to his room.

[Lynn]

Yes, I agree that the dementia was too convenient. Always was in question.