I sounded like the audio version of a layperson’s textbook on Alzheimer’s. My voice was disembodied from my insides. I kept going.
“If I do carry one of the mutations, then there is a very strong probability that I too will develop early-onset Alzheimer’s. And while a test that would determine whether or not I carry the gene exists, I am not sure that I want to find out.”
My voice was steady and calm, imparting important information, information that I had learned long ago and that the bartender needed to know. Did he, though? Did he really need to know this information? Too late, Clara. Keep going.
“I’m telling you this, so, like, you know,” I said, and he laughed.
“That sounded so unlike you,” he said. “Like, you know, you don’t usually use ‘like’ like that.”
“But did you hear what I said?”
“Yes.”
“Okay, but do you understand what it means?” My voice did not sound disembodied from me anymore. It was not steady or calm. He kept washing the table—we were on table six by now—but he glanced up at me.
“I do.”
“Tell me, then. Tell me what it means.”
“It means that there’s a fifty-fifty chance that you will get Alzheimer’s disease, and if you do, you will likely get it much earlier than most Alzheimer’s patients, who get it in old age.”
He stood up and stretched, the sponge dripping soapy water down his arm, and nodded at the towel I was holding. “Do you need a fresh towel?”
“Is that all you have to say?”
“About the towel?” He was smiling again. “Yeah.”
“Chris.”
“Clara.”
Why had they told me to talk to him? Why had I gotten in the car and driven up here? Why was I standing here crushing a damp towel to death between my hands? None of this mattered to him. The bartender didn’t lie awake at night doing the fifty-fifty gene mutation math the way I did. You’re an idiot, Clara. You’re a fool.
“I’m going to go,” I said.
“No you’re not. Sit down.”
He dropped his sponge in the bucket, pulled the crushed towel from my hands and dropped that in the bucket too. He pulled out a chair and waited until I sat. Then he sat too.
“I’m sorry I laughed,” he said. He wasn’t smiling anymore. “But I already knew everything you just told me. I’ve already thought about it.”
“About what, though? You’ve already thought about what?”
“About if you have the PSEN1 gene, or one of the others. Don’t look so surprised. I’m as good at Google as you are. And I already know how I feel, which is that I could walk out of this bar and get hit by a bus and die instantly.”
“Oh, for God’s sake! Why does everyone always say that! Why is getting hit by a bus always the example!” I said. The exclamation marks emboldened themselves, growing larger with each sentence, along with the words themselves. “Also! You are not going to walk out of this bar and get hit by a bus, Chris! There are no buses here!”
“Point taken. Here’s a better example. I could walk into Foley Lumber tomorrow and be wandering around the plywood display and a sheet of plywood could come tumbling off the stack and hit me on the head and break my neck so that I die instantly.”
“Plywood? Please.”
“Plywood’s heavier than you think, Clara.”
“You’re willfully missing the point.”
“I’m not missing any point.” He reached across the table and put his hands over mine. “Clara. I’m signed on for the duration. Whatever the odds are.”
“The odds are fifty-fifty, Chris.”
“And I accept them.”
“Well, that makes one of us.”
I did not accept the bus odds, I did not accept the plywood odds, I did not accept the Sunshine cancer odds, I did not accept the PSEN1 odds. None of these were odds I accepted. But I was stuck with them anyway.
We all were.
* * *
A letter addressed to Tamar from a Frank Dutton at the Dairylea plant up in Plattsburgh came to the cabin on Turnip Hill. The yellow forwarding address label was affixed to it at an angle, the way they usually were, as if whoever slapped it on there did it in a hurry. Maybe it was a machine. A rebel machine. A machine constantly sent to detention. I slid my finger under the flap and opened it up.
Dear Tamar, We miss you up here and hope you’re doing well these days. Things aren’t the same without you. Wish you’d reconsider! Any chance lol? If not just wanted you to know that your sneakers and Dairylea jacket are in the locker—want me to send them to you? If so let me know. Hope you’re well, oh I already said that didn’t I? Well you know me, can’t keep my head on straight. Your friend, Frank
I didn’t remember a Frank Dutton or the mention of a Frank Dutton, but that was no surprise. Tamar never talked about work and I had never pictured her as having friends at Dairylea. Annabelle appeared in my head, rolling her eyes, her voice its usual impatient tone: Of course your mother had friends at Dairylea, Clara. She worked there for almost thirty years, Utica, Watertown, Plattsburgh, all over for God’s sake. Pick up the phone and call this Frank person, whoever the hell he is.
I picked up my phone and called the number scribbled at the bottom of this Frank person’s note, whoever the hell he was, politely not pointing out to Annabelle, even in my head, that Annabelle clearly didn’t know who this Frank person was either, and wasn’t she the one who called herself my mother’s best friend?
“Frank Dutton.”
“Hi, Frank. This is Clara Winter. I’m Tamar’s daughter.”
“You don’t say!” His voice transformed from business to warmth and welcome, words full of exclamation marks. “Tamar’s daughter! How is that mother of yours!”
“Doing okay,” I said, which was what I said every time someone asked me that question. “Hanging in there.”
“Where’s she living now? With you? Or with the boyfriend?”
The boyfriend? The boyfriend. The boyfriend? I pulled the phone away from my ear, then pressed it close again. The boyfriend. The boyfriend. The boyfriend the boyfriend the boyfriend the boyfriend the boyfriend, scrolling along the bottom of my brain. Out the window the sky was turning itself to navy; the light was gone by four-thirty these days. The boyfriend.
“What’s his name again?” Frank said. “I always called him Woodsman, for that Woodsmen’s Field Days cap he always wore, but I’ll be damned if I can remember his real name.”
When you weren’t looking for answers, not thinking about answers, answers appeared. Like now. There was only one man who wore a Woodsmen’s Field Days cap, and to my knowledge he had never taken it off.