The Things We Keep(57)

“They’re adults! It’s none of our business what they do!”

“Whose business is it if Anna gets pregnant? Hmm? Theirs? Maybe they could raise the baby together in this place? You’re right, this is a fantastic idea—”

Jack’s face is red and his voice is loud. The sister’s face closes over. I shrink back into my sitting thing, away from them.

“St-st-st … Stop it!”

I blink up at Young Guy, who’s standing now. Jack and the sister are wide-eyed, blinking but silent. It’s lovely, the silence. I’m grateful to Young Guy—I want to say thank you, but the words drift away from me before I can catch them and use them.

“Anna?” A helper-lady jogs into the parlor, frowning. She doesn’t usually jog. Or frown, for that matter. She squats beside me. “You have a visitor.”

I hear, but it doesn’t make sense. Don’t I already have visitors? “I’m sorry.”

Jack’s eyes are focused beyond me, and for this reason, I turn around. There’s a tall man behind my chair, dressed smartly in black pants and a white shirt. A thick brown coat is tucked under one arm. The man is, all at once, familiar and unfamiliar.

Behind me, I hear Jack clearing his throat. “Dad,” he says. “You’re here.”





28

Anna

Dad isn’t an attractive man. He has height, but the skinny kind, rounded at the shoulders so he curves forward like a wilting flower. His eyes are pale blue and his gray-orange fuzz is combed to hide a bald spot. All this information is apparent to anyone in the room, though. The things that I should know about Dad—the day of his birth, his baseball team, whether his stoop is old or new—are not there. Or perhaps they are, but deep down, hazy, as though he were a character from a novel I read a few years ago rather than the man who gave me life. He looks at me closely, perhaps for signs of my dementing. I wonder if he’s finding any.

“Anna,” he says, “I can’t believe it.”

At the sound of his voice, my brain releases a select few, seemingly unimportant memories. The way he used to eat ice cream with a fork. The way he used to drink his … morning caffeine drink … so hot, it should have taken the skin right off his mouth.

“What are you doing here?” I ask.

“What do you think?” he says. “I came to see you.”

Jack walks out from behind me, reminding me that he is here too. “Dad,” Jack says, “I’m not sure this is a good idea.”

Another memory is niggling at me, but just out of my reach like an itch I can’t scratch. It’s as if my brain has pulled a curtain over the memories area. And not even the VIPs are getting in.

“Dad,” Jack tries again, “how ’bout we go outside?” Jack catches Dad’s elbow, not waiting for an answer.

I look at Dad, at the jacket under his arm with its wide, diagonal hip-pockets.

“Chocolate cigars!” I cry.

Dad stops. “You remember those, huh?”

I am practically jubilant at unearthing this memory. Chocolate cigars. They were always in Dad’s pocket when I was a kid. “Take a load off,” he’d say to Jack and me, handing us one each and igniting it with his thumb-lighter. “Have a cigar.” I have to fight a smile and remind myself that the man with the chocolate cigars in his pockets is the same man who up and left his wife when she got sick. The same man who left me.

“I don’t have any today, I’m afraid,” he says. “But if you’ll see me again, I’ll bring some next time.”

“Dad!” Jack says. “You can’t just show up here and—”

“It’s okay,” I say. “I’ll talk to him.”

Jack looks uncertain. “Are you sure?”

I nod. “Let’s go to my room, Dad.”

It feels strange saying the word “Dad.” I haven’t called anyone that since I was a teenager. As I start down the hall, I pray that I can find my way, and for once (hey, the gods aren’t usually that kind to me) I’m shown some mercy. Inside, we sit.

“So … you have it, then?” Dad says. “Alzheimer’s?”

“Yes.”

“Why didn’t you tell me? I would have supported you.”

“Thanks,” I say evenly, “but I don’t believe you.”

He nods. “I deserve that. And anything else you have to dole out. I’ve already missed so much. Now, even if it’s insults, I don’t want to miss another second.”

I stare at him, all self-assured. I can’t believe he has the nerve to show up here like this, after all this time. Did he think that I would just open my arms and let him back in my life? And why would he want to be back in it, anyway? If he ran away from a wife with Alzheimer’s, what did he want with me? “What are you doing here, Dad?”

“I let your mother push me away when she got sick,” he says after a moment. “I’ve always regretted it. And I’ve no intention of letting history repeat itself.”

I stare at him.

“I’m not making excuses,” he says, “just trying to explain. Your mother was a proud woman. She didn’t want me to watch her decline. I never intended to leave you and Jack, but—”