I know what Finn was about to do. It is a moment I’ve dreamed about. So why can’t I let it happen?
I am sweating and I am cold and shaking. I’ve known what I wanted for years. And now that it’s here—
Now that it’s here—
I’m not sure I’m ready.
I turn off the water and open the door. Finn is still on the couch, watching the television. His eyes are dry, and they track me as I sit down next to him. “What did I miss?” I ask, looking at the screen.
I can feel his stare on me. I think I hear him say, Okay.
There are topics, I guess, that neither of us is ready to talk about.
I settle myself under Finn’s arm and lean into him again. After a long moment, I feel his words whispered against the crown of my head. “Maybe you should talk to someone. Like … ?a shrink.”
I don’t look at him. “Maybe I should,” I say.
I focus on the television, as Tony Stark’s ashes are set adrift on a lake.
I know that you can’t run a marathon without training. And I can’t get to The Greens if I can barely make it to the end of the hallway. So the next day I gather all my courage and go for a walk. The streets are empty. I move deliberately and slowly to the end of the block, where there is a wine and liquor store around the corner.
To my surprise, it’s open. But then again, what business could be more essential?
When Finn comes home that night, I am nearly bouncing with excitement. “Guess what I did,” I say, as soon as he finishes stripping and showering. From behind me on the couch, I hold up a bottle of red wine. “I walked all the way to the liquor store. And now we get to celebrate.”
To my surprise, Finn doesn’t seem happy. “You what?”
My smile falters. “I didn’t break lockdown,” I tell him. “We’re allowed to go out for food.” I look down at the bottle in my hands. “This counts, right?”
“Diana, you shouldn’t have gone out by yourself,” Finn says. He sits next to me, looking me over like he’s expecting to find a bleeding head wound or a broken bone. “You just got out of the goddamn hospital.”
“I got out of rehab,” I say gently, “and I’m supposed to be challenging myself. Besides, I had to do it sometime. The toilet paper isn’t going to buy itself.”
This is not going the way it is supposed to. Finn should be pleased that I’m getting stronger, that I was brave enough to venture out alone. But at the same time, I realize that when Finn kisses me now, he always presses his lips to my forehead, too, like he’s checking for a temperature. He watches me when I get up to go to the bathroom or into the kitchen, in case I fall.
I nestle closer until he’s holding me. “I’m fine,” I whisper. I wonder when he is going to stop treating me like a patient, rather than a partner.
“Promise me you’ll wait for me if you need to leave the apartment?” he murmurs.
I hold my breath for a moment, because I can’t take that oath. I’m heading to The Greens tomorrow, no matter what. “One day,” I say gently, “you’re going to have to let me go.”
There is a theory of dementia called retrogenesis, meaning that we lose life skills in the reverse of the order in which we gained them. A doctor told me this when my mother was first diagnosed at age fifty-seven with early-onset Alzheimer’s. A person with dementia, he said, starts out like a ten-year-old. She can be trusted to follow directions on a note that you leave behind. Eventually, the patient will suffer mental decline until she’s at the stage of a toddler—she can’t be expected to remember to get dressed or to feed herself. The next skills that are lost are continence, speech. The very first things we master as an infant are the last things we lose: the ability to lift one’s head from a pillow. The ability to smile.
What I remember from that initial visit was asking the doctor how long my mother’s life expectancy would be. Most people with Alzheimer’s survive from three to eleven years, he told me. But some have been known to live for twenty.
And I had thought, at the time: My God. What am I going to do with her for all that time?
All of this was before I lost her/didn’t lose her in a dream.
Although there is a lockdown in the city, I can easily argue why seeing my mother face-to-face is necessary. I know the trains are running, but decide to splurge on an Uber.
I haven’t told Finn I’m going. I haven’t told anyone.
When my ride arrives, the driver looks at me in my sunflower mask and I look at him in his KN95 mask, as if we are assessing each other for risk. He glances at my quad cane and I think about telling him that I actually just got over Covid, but that would be counterproductive.