The Burning Side(52)

I walk to the lone bed in the back and fluff a pillow as though for my mother, or wife, or children. They feel close enough to reach out and touch, and also like they don’t exist at all.

In this bizarre new aloneness, I test my insularity. As night falls and coyotes yowl in the distance, I pace the single-wide and sing Ryan Adams at the top of my lungs. I hit each consonant of each explicit word, and a memory spears me: a time when Sadie asked if hate is a bad word. She whispered it.

But Sadie isn’t here. No one is.

I banish thoughts of Lexington Avenue. Of Billy and Deb coming in from the back deck. My children with their bath-wet hair as Sadie retrieves Bear Bear from a twist of blankets.

I grab my phone and respond to Kim. NOT YET.

She sends back a GIF of U2 singing “I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For.”

I press the “haha” reaction, laughless. SEE YOU AT IN-SERVICE.

YEAH, SEE YOU.

A minute later, she adds, SOMEONE WISE ONCE SAID, “TO SEARCH IS TO LIVE.”

It’s a line from Seventh City, when Andre comes to the end of himself in the middle of his quest. He gets an infection, thinks it’s all over for him, but even then he does not regret his trek. To search is to live, my own words come back to bite me. Andre and I are thrown into stark relief: he wanted to discover, but I do not. He doesn’t regret his journey, but I would undo mine if I could. Because I embrace every history except my own. So I heart the text, loveless.

A bullfrog bellows outside, and a drop of rain plunks the roof overhead. Then another and another. There’s a nauseating familiarity as I think of my first home with its leaks and mildew.

I open Google as thunder cracks. My hero’s journey will not take me through the wilds of Cambodia, but through the wilds of the internet. Ready as I’ll ever be, I thumb in the words of my exploring: my parents’ names.





DEB


July 26, 2022

THE SINGLE STICKY NOTE BILLY has written for himself says: I (Billy) have Alzheimer’s. Occasionally when he sees it, he juts out his chin defiantly and says, “Deb, April, Josie, Cameron, Leo, Sadie, Otto.” Then he shrugs proudly as though he really stuck it to that Alzheimer’s.

Sadie says Grandpa B takes “little vacations.” His bouts of confusion read to her as play. And when he confuses the grandchildren for the children, he sometimes references details from decades ago. Does it count as forgetting when he simply recalls a different form?

Memory loss doesn’t seem to be the most accurate description of this part of the disease. It’s more like memory overload—he has so many that he can’t fit them into the correct slots of his mental Rolodex anymore. It’s a disassembly of days, his life levitating at his fingertips, here yet out of order. The study guide for his Dental Admission Test. Going to the movies with his college sweetheart, Patsy. The blistering heat of climbing sand dunes with his mother. Cameron’s broken toe. It’s a seasonless requiem where he can tell us what he wore decades ago but not what he was doing an hour ago.

Today I’m decorating the house for Otto’s first birthday party, and Billy has asked twice what the special occasion is. Otto has no earthly idea what we’re doing, only that there are shiny streamers he would like to put in his mouth. Gifts cover the hearth, wrapped in glossy blues and silver. Confetti cupcakes are cooling on the counter, awaiting frosting. A banner hangs like a smile in the kitchen doorway. Slices of citrus float inside pitchers of water. When I went so far as to rent a yard sign, April said, “Otto won’t even remember this.”

I told her that wasn’t the point, and I got my camera ready.

Everyone arrives in a flurry. Brenda Miller from across the street brings a stuffed pony with a bow on it. Dusty, who took over Billy’s practice, brings a “My First Flossies” kit. Cameron and Rachel arrive with some board books after a morning of wedding cake tasting. And finally Leo walks in, looking a little worse for wear.

I’ve sternly reminded Josie that huffing and grumbling about their divorce won’t make them stay married, that today is about her nephew.

Otto is napping upstairs, so in the meantime everyone admires baby photos and Billy’s thriving fiddle-leaf fig. Not to mention Sadie’s newly mastered backbend and Josie’s latest ink. April and I frost cupcakes, and by the time Leo brings Otto downstairs, it takes everyone a second to remember why we’ve gathered. Then there’s a chorus of bubbly voices saying, “Good morning, sleepyhead!” “Happy birthday!” “Who’s a big boy?!” Otto rubs his eyes and reaches for his grandfather, who knows exactly who he is.

Later, after an hour of cake and presents and saying goodbye to guests, Otto becomes infatuated with Billy’s keys, while his pile of gifts sits untouched beside him like an ofrenda. We are cleaning the kitchen when Josie, empty pitcher in hand, asks her siblings, “So, are y’all getting tested?”

I cough.

Rachel and Leo look at each other.

Cameron frowns. “Tested?”

Rachel leans toward him and whispers, “Alzheimer’s.”

Billy and the grandchildren are in the living room, out of earshot.

I pull the bag from the trash can and tie it off. “Early-onset doesn’t happen this early,” I say.

Looking down at a cupcake, April says gently, “She means genetic.”