The Things We Keep(16)

6

I sit in the parlor all afternoon. Southern Lady drifts off to sleep in the seat opposite me, and Young Guy stares out the window. It’s nice, not having to talk, especially today. In the real world, people talk a lot. Conversations move quickly. By the time I’ve caught up enough to ask a question or make a point, everyone has already moved on. But at Rosalind House, things move slower. Everyone takes the time they need to digest what’s been said. If I want to say something, I have time. And if I don’t want to say anything, I don’t.

Ethan and I had a good climb, and I managed to give Jack a hug without causing any suspicion (I think). It wasn’t the good-bye I would have liked, and I don’t think I had them utterly convinced that I was happy. But it will have to do. Because now I have a plan, tonight is the night.

“Visitors’ day wears people out.”

I look up. Young Guy is watching me, stretched out, dwarfing the small armchair he is sitting in. “No kidding,” I say. No one has said much all afternoon.

“You have a good visit?” he asks. He’s wearing a faded denim shirt with the sleeves rolled and jeans that are torn at the knees. It’s a nice look on him, I decide. Scruffy-chic.

“Sure,” I say, though I’m not sure it’s a good idea to be talking to him. At this point, the last thing I need is a distraction. And he—with his dimple and his scruffy-chic thing going on—is definitely a distraction.

“Who were they?” he asks. “Your v-visitors.”

“My brother,” I say. “And his family. Who were yours?”

Good one, Anna. So much for not talking to him.

“My mom.”

I picture the older woman, white-haired and stooped.

“Mom’s old,” he says, answering my unspoken question. Then his face sort of tenses. It’s virtually unnoticeable, just the slightest indication that speaking requires a little effort. “She was … fifty when she adopted me.”

“And … the other woman?”

Once I would have felt too direct asking this. I would have spent time talking around the issue and tried to slip in questions naturally. But I’ve lost patience for that stuff. It’s hard enough retaining new information without having to add in social graces. I can only hope he feels the same.

“Sarah,” he says, pushing his hair behind his ear. “My brother.”

“You have a brother called Sarah?”

He frowns, and immediately I want to take it back, pretend I didn’t notice. Then he shakes his head. “Sister. I meant sister.”

I don’t know much about Young Guy’s specific form of dementia other than what he told me at breakfast the other day, but from his expression, I can tell his slip is dementia-related. Idly, I wonder how many slips I have without noticing. Less idly, I think about how I’d like people to respond when I do.

“My sister was here today, too,” I tell him. “Jack.”

I watch as the joke connects with his brain and a smile wriggles onto his face.

“It looked intense,” I say. “Whatever you were discussing.”

“Just … who is in ch-charge of my affairs when I can no longer hold a pen.” He grimaces, trying to come up with the word. “You know the…”

“Power of attorney?” With an attorney as a brother, “power of attorney” is probably the last expression I’ll keep. After I was diagnosed, he bandied the word around more times than I could count, the one part of my disease that Jack could control.

“Yes!” Young Guy exclaims, and I feel a surprising thrill at being the one to provide him with the word.

“Mom has my p-power of attorney, but she’s getting older. And she wants to g-give it to Sarah.”

“And you don’t?”

“I’m just not sure she’ll respect my wishes.”

“Which are?”

He looks at me. “I want to live.”

“Ah,” I say, as though this makes everything clear. “And your sister wants to kill you?”

He blinks, then laughs loudly.

“It’s okay,” I say. “I’m pretty sure my brother wants to kill me, too.”

Now we both laugh. It’s one of those laughs that starts as a chuckle and winds up in a full-bellied guffaw. I get so lost in it that I startle when he suddenly leans forward in his seat, then falls onto his knees in front of me. My laughter vanishes. He’s so close, I can feel the warmth of his skin on mine.

“Hey, you’ve g-got a…” He reaches for my face, and I forget to breathe. What is he doing? If I leaned forward an inch or two, my lips would touch his. I can’t remember the last time I was this close to someone. Then again, I wouldn’t remember.

“Eye-hair,” he says finally, swiping a hair from my cheek. He balances it on his fingertip for me to see. I get the feeling that “eye-hair” is not the word to describe it, but I am too acutely aware of the proximity of his body to think of the right one. He blows the eye-hair away, then sits back. “Sorry. What did we … what were we s-saying?”

I can’t remember, and I suspect it has nothing to do with the Alzheimer’s. I can still feel his warmth, the burn of his fingertip on my face.

“Uh, was it … your sister?” I ask.