We Are Not Ourselves(117)

After the other guests had said their good-byes and were making their way down the back steps, Ruth and Frank were all that remained. Frank filled a thermos with coffee for the trip back.

“I knew something was wrong,” he said.

“It must have been obvious.”

“I don’t know how to process all this. It’s like it isn’t real.”

“I feel the same way.”

“It scares me,” he said. “I think about it myself sometimes. When I lose my keys, when I forget where I parked my car.”

Frank did look scared. The pallor on his cheeks gave him a vaguely cadaverous look.

“You can talk to him, you know. He’s still your friend. He’s still here.”

“I don’t know how to talk to him about this.”

“Just open your mouth and see what comes out.”

Frank shuffled out the door with his thermos held like a lantern, and Ruth gave her a long hug, and then Eileen was alone in the kitchen. Dishes and glasses were scattered everywhere, and food had to be covered in plastic or scraped into the garbage. She had never before been relieved to see her house left in such a mess. She wouldn’t have to turn the lights off and head upstairs for an hour at least.



The following Saturday, they ate in the languid silence that followed games in which Connell pitched. His exhaustion passed to the two of them through some invisible membrane.

“How did you do?” she asked.

The gleaming newness of the kitchen hadn’t yet faded; it still felt like someone else’s room.

“Fine,” Connell said.

“Fine,” Ed said, amused. “He did more than fine. He struck out—what?” He looked to Connell.

“Thirteen.”

“And not one batter made solid contact,” Ed said.

“I also walked eight guys.”

“His control is an issue, there’s no denying it. He was pitching out of jams the whole game. He threw a ton of pitches.”

As if on cue, Connell rubbed his shoulder.

“But the sky’s the limit. A lefty with this kind of velocity? If he keeps working at it, he’s going to be a force.”

She waited for Ed to transition into the discussion of the disease. She caught his eye; he shook his head to say the plan was off. She tried to indicate displeasure, but he looked down at his soup to avoid her gaze.

“Ed,” she said, coughing. He looked up.

Connell’s eyes were heavy with fatigue. Ed stood up and put his hand on Connell’s head for a second and tousled his locks affectionately. He walked over to the sink and gazed out the window.

“What’s up? You guys fighting again?”

“No,” Ed said, still looking out the window. “Just listen to your mother.”

“You’re getting older now,” she said. “You’re getting to the point where you can hear adult things.” Connell sat up straighter in his seat. “The things adults talk about. What your father and I talk about.”

“Please don’t tell me this is about the birds and the bees. I’m way too old for that.”

She couldn’t hold back a thin, sad smile. She felt a lump in her throat. “We’ve got some bad news,” she said.

The boy’s jocular expression faded. “What is it?”

“It has to do with your father’s health,” she said after a bit.

Ed turned around and walked back toward the table. He sat. “What your mother is trying to say is that I have been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease.”

“Do you know what that is?” she asked.

“Yeah.” He looked back and forth between them. “It’s where you forget things.”

“Yes.”

“Isn’t that what old people get?”

“Sometimes,” she said. “Most of the time. But sometimes it happens to younger people.”

“Are you going to be okay?”

“There’s not a lot of medicine out there,” he said. “I’m on some experimental drugs. We’ll see. But it’s going to get worse.”

“Are you scared?”

This was the first time she’d seen anyone ask Ed how it affected him personally. It had always been questions about the illness. She hadn’t even asked him herself.

Ed straightened up. His eyes got a crinkly, philosophical look in them. “Sometimes I am, sure,” he said. “That’s part of it, no question about it.” He looked at the sugar bowl, the top of which he’d been clacking like a cymbal. “I like my life. I love my life. I don’t want to lose it.”

“Aren’t you too young for this?”

“If you’re asking me, yes,” he said. “If you’re asking the disease, no.”

“How quickly will it get worse?”

“Honey,” she said to him, “don’t pepper your father with questions.”

Ed put up a hand to quiet her.

“It could be quick,” he said. “It could be years. Every case is different.”

Connell seemed to chew on what he’d heard for a little while.

“Is there going to be a time when you don’t know who I am?” he asked.

Ed’s face took on a fierce expression, as though the question had angered him. She thought to intervene, but then he rose from his seat and leaned down to put his arms around the boy.