Jack’s been through this before—we both have—and I know he considers himself an expert. I have to keep reminding him that he’s an attorney, not a neurologist. Anyway, the situations are different. Mom was in denial about her disease. She fought to hang on to her independence right up to the point when she burned down the family home. But I have no plans to fight the inevitable. It’s why I’ve checked myself into residential care.
The upside of this place, if I’m choosing to be positive, is that not everyone is nuts. Jack and I looked at a few of those dementia-specific units, and they were like Zombie City, full of crazies and folks doing the seven-mile stare. This place, at least, is also for the general aging community—the ones who need their meals cooked and laundry done—kind of a hotel for the elderly (the wealthy elderly, judging by the zeros on the check Jack wrote this morning).
Still, I’m not exactly thrilled to be here. It was bad enough when Jack sent me to “day care.” Seriously, that’s what it’s called. A day program for people like me. Also for people not like me, because with only 5 percent of Alzheimer’s cases occurring in people under the age of sixty-five, there aren’t a lot of people like me. That’s what makes this situation all the more unusual. I’m not checking into just any residential care facility—no sirree. We’ve traveled all the way to Short Hills, New Jersey, from Philadelphia so I can live in a facility with someone like me. A guy, also with younger-onset dementia, someone Jack heard about through the Dementia Support Network. Since learning about the guy, Jack has been hell-bent on getting me into the very same care facility as him. It’s like he thinks having two young people in a place filled with oldies makes it spring break instead of residential care.
“Would you like to meet Luke, Anna?” Eric asks, and Jack nods enthusiastically. Luke must be the guy. I wonder if he’s going to rappel down from a tree or something. His entrance will have to be pretty impressive if they think it’s going to make a difference to my mood.
“I just want to go to my room,” I say.
Jack and Eric glance at each other, and I feel the wind leave their sails.
“Sure,” Jack says. “Do you want me to take you there?”
“Nope. I’m good.” I stand. I don’t want to look at Jack, but he stands, too, gets right in my face so I can’t look anywhere else. His eyes are full and wet, and I catch a glimpse of the softhearted man he used to be before his brushes with dementia and abandonment hardened him up.
“Anna,” he says, “I know you’re scared.”
“Scared?” I snort, but then my vision starts to blur. I am scared. One thing about being a twin is that you get used to having someone right by your side whenever you want them. But in a moment, Jack’s going to leave. And I’m going to be alone.
“Get lost, would you?” I tell Jack finally. “I have a pedicure booked in half an hour. This place has a health spa, right?”
Jack laughs a little, shooing a drop from his cheek. When we were younger Jack sported a golden tan, but now his skin is vaguely gray, almost as white as my own. I suspect this has something to do with me. “Ethan! Come and say good-bye to Anna.”
Ethan thunders across the lawn to us and tosses himself into my arms. He strangles me in a hug. “Bye, Anna Banana.”
When he pulls away, I take a long hard look at the large white bandage covering his left cheek and try to remember the angry red burns and welts underneath. I need to remember them. They’re the reason I’m here.
*
The first time I knew something was wrong with me, I was at the mall. I was lugging my bags toward the exit when I realized I had no idea where I’d parked my car. The parking lot was seven stories high. In the elevator, I stared at the buttons. None seemed any more likely than the other.
Eventually I made my way to the security booth. The man behind the desk laughed and said it happened all the time. He picked up his walkie-talkie and asked for the license plate number. When I looked blank, he smiled. “Make and model?”
It was such an easy question. But the more I tried to find the answer, the more it blacked out. Like a photograph with a question mark over the face, a criminal with his jacket over his head—something was there, but my brain wouldn’t let me see.
The man’s smile faded. “The color?”
All I could do was shrug. I waited for him to say this happened all the time. He didn’t.
I caught the bus home.
If I’d been tested for the mutated gene, as Jack was, I’d have known for sure it was coming. But finding out you’re going to be struck down in your prime didn’t fit into my life’s plan.