The Things We Keep(14)

Getting married, I’ll admit, was my idea, and at first, it wasn’t very well received.

“You want to get married?”

I may as well have suggested we bungee jump without a cord. And I understood Aiden’s surprise. I wasn’t a “white dress” kind of girl—this was out of left field. Yet there I was, close to thirty, and it had been on my mind.

“Well,” I said. “Not if this is your reaction.”

It wasn’t that I’d expected Aiden to drop to one knee and pull out a huge rock and get all choked up. God, if he had, I’d probably have said no. But I had started thinking that if we were going to do it, now would be a good time. Mom had been a year younger than me when she got married. By my age, she was pregnant.

“Okay, just forget it,” I said.

“Now, hang on a sec, let a man catch up.” Aiden’s frown morphed into a grin, and he pointed at it. “What if this is my reaction?”

He was sweet, Aiden, and if I’m honest with myself, easily led. He was happy to go along with my plan. But in the end, marriage wasn’t enough.

“I want a baby.”

They say something happens to a woman when she reaches thirty-five and her fertility starts to ebb. Even the coldest, least maternal women start to feel the twinge. Maybe that’s what it was? Kids weren’t exactly something I’d always wanted, but all of a sudden, I started noticing pregnant women. I started looking in strollers and smiling at grubby faces.

Unfortunately, when it came to having a baby, Aiden was less easily led. “Let’s wait a few months,” he said. But a few months became a year. The clock was ticking, and not just the biological clock. I was forgetting things by then. There was no firm diagnosis, but the writing was on the wall.

“Jesus Christ, Anna!” it became, after a while. “Will you let up about a f*cking baby? Am I nothing more than a sperm donor to you?”

I wanted to be outraged. To ask how he could even ask me that. But by that stage, we both knew it was an accurate description for what he was. We rarely talked about anything meaningful anymore. The motorcycle trips were a thing of the past. We’d put our old camping equipment out on the sidewalk on garbage day. I may as well have put my ovaries there, too.

So I agreed with Aiden that a baby was a bad idea. And a few weeks later, when I was officially diagnosed with Alzheimer’s, I left.

*

It’s visitors’ day at Rosalind House, and we’re in the garden again—a practical decision, as with Jack and Helen and all the boys here, we couldn’t all fit in my room. Apart from the sun, which is shining right in my eyes, I like it out here. It’s Sunday, and most of the residents have visitors. Southern Lady sits opposite a woman who bears such an uncanny resemblance to her—from the floral dress to the puff of yellow hair—that she has to be her sister. Really Old Lady has a visitor, a young man in gray sweatpants who, age-wise, is most likely a great-grandson, or even a great-great. Young Guy is flanked by an older woman who is either a mother or a grandmother and a younger woman, about my age. And Eric swans around the lot of us, like a King visiting his villagers.

“Can I have a ride in your wheelchair, please? I mean, if you’re not using it.”

My nephew Hank beams at Really Old Lady. Clearly he’s very proud of himself for saying please. He’s definitely not expecting the pinch on the arm that he gets from Helen. “Ow, Mom! What?”

Really Old Lady fiddles with her hearing aid. “What did you say, young man?”

“Nothing,” Helen says hurriedly. “Nothing at all.” She takes Hank by the arm and drags him away, toward the far end of the lawn, where Ethan and Brayden are playing.

Jack leans back on his garden chair and stretches his arms out. “So? How’s it been?”

I blink into the sun, wishing it would go behind the tree. “Not bad. Actually, it’s been better than I expected.”

“Seriously?”

“The fact that you look so surprised doesn’t bode well for you, considering you were the one who tossed me in here like a piece of rotten fruit.”

Jack laughs. “As I recall, you tossed yourself in. I just found the place.” He looks so happy, I’m worried he might cry. “Hey, I think this place is great. I’m only surprised because I didn’t expect you to … adjust to it … so soon.”

We both drop our eyes. By “so soon,” he means before I started to really lose it. Before I forgot that he, or any of them, existed.

“Eric says you’ve started to get into the swing of things,” he tries again. “That you’ve come out of your room a few times—”

“More than a few,” I tell him. “I’ve even made some friends. That lady over there”—I nod at Southern Lady, who is surrounded by a cluster of little children and teenagers— “and him.” I point at Young Guy, whose eyes lift at that exact moment to meet mine. Quickly I point to another couple of residents that I’ve never seen before in my life. “Her and him, too.” Since I don’t remember anyone’s names, I might as well include them all.

“Good!” Jack’s enthusiasm is tragic. It reminds me of the way he used to cheer when Ethan finally went on the potty. “That’s … great.”

“Yep. There are lots of things to do. There’s a bus that we can take to town, as long as we have a … a person that goes with us … and there’s bingo on Friday nights.”