Then out a set of double glass doors that opened automatically as they approached.
Outside, old people with walkers inched like zombies across the concrete patio.
A few trellises held creeping vines, and some large pots presented tall, leafy plumes.
The nurse headed for a man seated on a bench on the far side of the courtyard and said, “Daniel! You have visitors!”
“You don’t say!” He squinted up at them.
So very old.
The skin on his face like shriveled fruit.
His white hair, lifeless and dry.
His eyes, bright but . . . vacant.
Like a baby’s.
“Friends of your family. I’m sure they’ll reintroduce themselves.” The nurse turned and presented them, and Lucas held out a hand to shake. Daniel shook it back.
“I’ll leave you to it.” The nurse walked away.
“Well, go on,” Daniel said. “Pull over a chair.” He turned to Scarlett. “You, my dear, can sit right next to me.”
Scarlett, realizing something about herself.
She didn’t like old people.
Did anyone?
But—
It was just a book.
He was just an old man.
He couldn’t have been the one to do this.
Lucas pulled a wooden chair, stained a redwood hue, closer and sat in front of Daniel.
“Now I feel like I would’ve remembered a good-looking couple like you. Tell me how I know you?”
“Well, I’m Anne and this is Mark,” she said, being sure to catch Lucas’s eye.
Lucas took the paperback out of his bag and held it out. “We’re fans, you see.”
He presented the book to Daniel, who took it, curiously.
This all felt very wrong—him so interested, them so deceitful—but there wasn’t much to be done about it.
“What’s this?” Daniel asked.
She was shouting into that abyss now.
Hands cupped to her mouth:
“Noooooooooooooooooo!”
The sound of it echoing back to her.
“It’s a novel,” she said, hearing an edge of annoyance. “You wrote it.”
“I did?” Now he reached into his front shirt pocket for glasses, put them on, and looked at the book with new interest.
“You did.” Hands turned to fists in her lap.
His lips moved as he read the description. “Sounds hinky,” he said. “Is it any good?”
“It is!” Lucas said.
“Did it make me rich?” Daniel smiled.
“I don’t think so.” Lucas laughed and gave her a pleading look.
His condition:
Alzheimer’s.
Of course.
Scarlett softened her voice when she said, “We were hoping you’d be able to tell us about the book. You know, where you got the idea from, that kind of thing.”
Daniel looked out toward the water, like he was trying very hard to spot an answer—a memory—on the horizon.
Then after a long moment, during which Scarlett followed his gaze, maybe hoping she could find it for him— or at least find a memory of her own—
he turned back to them, reset.
“Well, I like to read. Thanks very much for the recommendation.” He smiled. “Tell me how I know you again? You’re from the lab?”
It was hard to not be disappointed.
crushed.
“No,” Scarlett said. “What are the folks at the lab like?”
Maybe the lab was where they’d been.
Maybe the lab was a clue.
“Oh, they’re fine. They’re, you know, trying to help me remember.” Daniel looked sad then, like he had actually remembered something. Maybe just how much he’d forgotten.
Then he shrugged and said, “I figure if I forgot stuff it’s because I didn’t need to remember it. That’s what I think. I remember the important stuff.”
“What’s the important stuff ?” Scarlett asked.
“You mean you don’t know?” he asked in a whisper.
/
/
/
/
Scarlett shook her head.
Really wanting to know.
Manatees.
I love you.
Not Lucas to her.
Luke.
Luke and Scar.
Needing to know.
Like, wanted to take him by the shoulders and shake him.
What is the important stuff ?
Daniel said only, “Well, you’re young. But when it happens, you’ll know it.” He turned to her, and the wind puffed his hair up, then let it fall again. “There will be stuff you can’t forget no matter if you tried.”
Still screaming into the abyss:
“Will you read that book?” Lucas asked. “And we’ll come back in a few days to talk about it. Maybe you can write down any thoughts you have about it?”
“You must mean this for the book club.” He went to give it back. “I’m not in the—”
“Please,” Scarlett said. “Read it? For me?”
He thumbed the pages. “I’ll give it a whirl.”
On the way out, she set out to find a restroom, peeking around doorways on a long hall.
A woman in one of the rooms saw her in the doorway and said “Oh, hello! Would you like to see my drawings?”
She wore a red blouse and pearls and ivory slacks and looked like maybe she was a visiting artist who did art therapy with patients.
Behind her hung a painting of a girl in a brown field, crawling up a hill toward an old house and a barn.
The girl’s positioning seemed . . . off.
Had she just been hobbled?