As we were pulling into the Brooklyn Bridge station, on our way to his fifth appointment, a 6 train had already pulled into the station across the platform. A good sign, I decided-my father hated waiting on the platforms lately, as they were too hot or smelly or loud. Lately, I’d been looking everywhere for good signs. I enlisted the documentary voice again: On the fifth appointment, Richard Davis is showing marked improvement. He has moved off the couch and back to his old bed, and he has started eating with vigor, amazed because food suddenly has taste again. Dr North said this was very, very encouraging, very positive progress.
After we found seats on the train, my father glanced at me sideways, like a fish. ‘Why don’t you have a boyfriend?’
‘Dad!’ I exclaimed, instantly embarrassed.
‘What? You’re pretty enough.’
I immediately thought about Philip. Which was silly-that was four years ago. There had been crushes here and there, but I’d never had a real boyfriend. No one felt right. I always gravitated to Philip, the fleeting kiss in his backyard. I liked to think that some of Philip’s skin cells fused with mine; that, even for a moment, a little bit of his DNA was mine and a little bit of mine was his. But it was embarrassing. It reminded me of the Missed Connections ads on the back page of the Village Voice, a boy longing for the girl who smiled at him on the crosstown L train, a girl eagerly wanting to reunite with the boy who stood in line in front of her at the bank, certain that they’d shared a special moment.
‘I can’t remember the names of the layers of skin,’ my father suddenly said.
‘What?’ It was hard to switch gears, especially from Philip.
He held his palm outstretched. ‘Wait. So. It’s the stratum corneum, then the stratum lucidum, the stratum granulosum.’ He lowered one finger with each layer. ‘But then what?’
Even I knew this. The stratus spinosum. Then the stratum basale. Then the dermis. I waited a few seconds, but he still couldn’t think of it. Doctors said memory loss was a common side-effect, the documentary voice intoned. The patient forgot words, details, what day it was, what had happened the day before. Sometimes, Summer would come upon him and he’d just look so lost, a stranger in his own skin. She made a list of the words he forgot: orange, handkerchief, Broadway, placemat.
I’d begun to be able to sense when he was struggling with his lost memory, trying to hide what he had forgotten. Yesterday, there had been smoke coming out of the window of an apartment building across the street. ‘It looks like it might become a fire,’ my dad said, turning to me. ‘Do you think we should call that number?’
‘What number?’ I asked.
He snapped his fingers, trying to tease it out. ‘You know. That emergency number.’
‘…You mean 911?’
‘Yes. Thank you.’
He always acted like it was something on the tip of his tongue, simple things everyone forgot. But I knew it bothered him. Each time, a flare of worry passed across his face.
‘So what do you think your mother would think of all this, if she were still here?’ he asked, the subway jerking forward.
I sat up straighter. ‘Why are you asking that?’
He looked away. ‘No reason. It just makes me wonder. I don’t know what she’d say.’ He chuckled. ‘She’d probably just throw me into an institution.’
‘That’s not funny.’
‘I didn’t say it was funny.’
‘You shouldn’t think about her,’ I said angrily.
He shrugged. ‘I don’t know, maybe this treatment is working. I don’t feel so bad about her. I don’t mind thinking about her. What would I say if I could talk to her right now? I would probably tell her about you. Not about me.’
I faced him. My father in his pressed chinos, his scraggly, tawny hair, that crazy beard. ‘You wouldn’t tell her anything about…this?’
‘That’s a big bomb to drop on someone, Summer, don’t you think? If I had cancer, do you think that would be the first thing I’d tell someone on the phone? How are you? Well, I have cancer, how are you?’
I narrowed my eyes, angry at his sarcasm. ‘You wouldn’t be able to keep it a secret. I know you.’
Surprise flashed across his face. I clamped down hard on my tongue. ‘I’m sorry,’ I muttered, even though I knew it was true.
He crossed his arms over his chest and did the thing he always did when he was upset: pulled at the loose skin on his elbows, stretching it out. ‘This is my fantasy, Summer. Don’t go and ruin it.’
My fantasy. He was fantasizing about her.
Only, we could get real answers. The acting class was only a few days away. Our mother might open her arms, overjoyed to see us. Or she might take one look at my father, horrified, and cancel the class entirely.