Eric said nothing to Alex about it as he waited for the results. The neurologist called him in to discuss their findings a week later, and in the elevator on the way to the doctor’s office, he got confused again. He rode the elevator alone for nearly ten minutes, up and down, unable to remember where he was going and why he was there, and then it came back to him again, and he pressed the button for the right floor, and arrived at the doctor’s office looking shaken. He told him he had just had another episode. The doctor looked serious as Eric sat across his desk. It was occurring once a week now, and sometimes more frequently than that, only for a few minutes, but long enough for him to realize that something frightening was going on in his brain.
“Do I have a brain tumor, Doctor?” he asked, desperate to know the truth and if it was something that could be fixed. Maybe it was stress. Things had not been going well at work, business was down, and he was afraid they would blame him. They had lost several important bids recently, for no reason he could explain. He had made the presentations, and they hadn’t gone well.
“No, you don’t have a brain tumor,” the doctor answered his question. “But I’m afraid I don’t have good news. We took images of your brain, and there are some abnormalities.”
“Did I have a stroke and not know it?” The doctor shook his head.
“From the exams we did on you, there are indications that you have early-onset Alzheimer’s or dementia. There are medications we can give you to slow it down, but we can’t stop it and the damage can’t be reversed. It’s difficult to say how severe it will get or how long it will take to incapacitate you, but it’s a progressive disease.”
“My father had dementia at a young age, in his early sixties. But I’m sixty-four years old, and I’m a widower with a thirteen-year-old child. Are you telling me I’m becoming senile? Who’s going to take care of her?” Eric asked as tears filled his eyes.
“It’s something you need to think about, Mr. Winslow,” the doctor said gently. “I’m sorry for this bad news. Things may remain as they are for a while, even quite some time, but if our assessment is correct, ultimately we can’t reverse the disease.” He gave Eric a prescription for the medication and told him he wanted to see him in a month, unless things got markedly worse before that. Eric left the doctor’s office feeling as though a bomb had hit him. He had been planning to go back to work, it was only two-fifteen, but he was so upset that he called in sick and went home instead. Elena was in the kitchen when he got there, and for several minutes he didn’t know who she was and couldn’t remember her name.
“You okay, Mr. Winslow?” she asked him, worried about him, and he said he was fine, but had a touch of the flu, and went to his room to lie down. His mind was racing as he lay there, and he had no idea what to do about Alex. He had no family to leave her to, no one to take care of her. He had provided for her responsibly with his savings and a life insurance policy, but she couldn’t be on her own for the next five years. He made an appointment with his lawyer for the next day.
When Alex came home from school, Elena told her that her father had the flu. She thought he was sleeping, but he was lying on his bed in tears, with his door locked so Alex wouldn’t see him cry.
—
When Eric went to see Bill Buchanan, his lawyer, the next day, he explained the situation to him, and Bill was devastated to hear it. They weren’t close, but had known each other professionally for thirty years. They went over his financial arrangements for Alex, and she would have enough money to live carefully for several years and get an education, but the big question was where she would live if something happened to him. Earlier he had designated Bill as her trustee, but the arrangements he had made were more of a cautionary formality, and he had expected to live another twenty or thirty years, if he was lucky. Even if he lived that long now, it would be without full cognizance or all his faculties. And he might need his savings for his own care, and how would he care for her? It was a frightening situation, and they discussed alternate options for Alex, but none of them were what Eric wanted for her.
The lawyer suggested boarding school, and she could go home with friends for the holidays, if something happened to him. She couldn’t continue to live in their house alone with a housekeeper with no relative or parental supervision as a teenager, but Eric knew she would hate being locked away in a boarding school, and he didn’t want to do that to her. And she couldn’t spend every school holiday with strangers. She was more accustomed to the company of adults, with him, than to kids her own age. But there was no one he could rely on to take care of her. They had no family other than each other. Even Carmen was dead. And Eric didn’t want to tell Alex what was happening to him. It was too frightening for him to face, let alone for her at her age.
The lawyer couldn’t think of any solution for her, other than boarding school. She attended the best private school in Boston, and would be going to high school the following year. She was an outstanding student, and deserved the kind of education Eric was able to provide for her. But she needed more than a school. If Eric died or were incapacitated, she needed a responsible caretaker.
“There may be no place to put her other than boarding school,” the lawyer said sensibly. And he was even more concerned about Eric once dementia took over his brain, which was no longer an “if” but a “when.” He hoped it wouldn’t be soon. Bill Buchanan had agreed to become Alex’s trustee, so he could help make decisions for her, as well as be executor of Eric’s estate, but neither of them had come up with a satisfactory place for her to live once he was gone.
The medication seemed to slow the episodes down a little, but he was aware of them, even for a few instants, almost every day. It was getting harder and harder to work at the office, and two months after his diagnosis, the CEO called him in and told him he was no longer on top of his game. Eric assured him he would get things back in control, he said he’d had a slump recently, but the CEO reminded him that he would reach retirement age in a year, and felt he was ready for it now.
“Why not enjoy the good life?” He tried to make it sound like a positive experience, but he made it clear they wanted him to leave. It felt like the beginning of the end.
They gave him a wonderful retirement party and a bronze plaque a few weeks later, but after he stopped working, Eric found himself at home all day with nothing to do. He went on long walks, and at times forgot where he lived. It would come back to him while he was walking, but late one afternoon, he couldn’t remember his address or his name. A kind young woman saw how lost he looked, and drove him around the neighborhood searching for his home. He remembered then, and he was surprised to realize how far he’d walked. Alex was already at home when he got in, after thanking the young woman for getting him safely back to his address.