“Oh.” It wasn’t the answer I’d hoped for. I didn’t want to be responsible for the fate of humankind. I could barely be respon-sible for myself. We sat in silence, each roaming our own thoughts until the bell rang and the walkways flooded with chatty students on their way to classes. The one good thing to come from being attacked was that Principal DeShields transferred me from gym to study hall. Diego escorted me to my new class without asking, and I didn’t tell him how grateful I was.
Before I went inside, Diego tugged my sleeve and said, “So, I know it’s still a couple of weeks away, but my sister’s having a Thanksgiving barbecue. It’s absolutely going to be lame, but it’d be cool if you dropped by.”
The suddenness of Diego’s invitation confounded my ability to speak. After what I’d told him, I was sure he’d want to distance himself from me. “We usually do family dinner.”
“I figured, but you could come before . . . or after.”
“Why me?”
Diego cocked his head, looked at me with his green-brown eyes before he said, “Because I can be myself around you, even if I don’t know who I am yet.”
“Oh.”
Diego broke into a welcome grin. “Anyway, you’ve got to try Viv’s potato salad before we all die.”
“It’s that good?”
“No,” he said, “it’s terrible. But you can’t believe how bad it is until you taste it.”
I laughed in spite of myself. “I’ll think about it.”
“Good enough for me.”
4 November 2015
I leapt out of bed at 5:16 a.m., awakened by Chopin’s Sonata no. 2. I knew what time it was because I stubbed my toe on my desk, knocking over my alarm clock, which fell onto the cord of my lamp and dragged it to the floor, breaking the bulb into a hundred invisible pieces that I was sure I would step on later. By the time I steadied myself and made certain my toe wasn’t broken, I had so much adrenaline pumping through my veins that it was like I’d snorted a cup of coffee grounds.
Bleary-eyed and ready for war, I stumbled into the living room, but I wasn’t the first to arrive.
Nana sat at the piano, which she hadn’t played since her memory began to fade. Her bony back straight, her fingers swept the keys delicately, then hard, alternately caressing and torturing music from them. Mom stood behind her, arms rigid at her sides. I was about to ask what the hell was going on, but Mom held her finger to her lips before I could interrupt. A moment later Charlie and Zooey joined us. The little parasite bulged in Zooey’s belly, and she rested her hands on it. Mom didn’t need to tell them to remain quiet.
As my anger faded, Nana’s song consumed me. I’d grown up listening to Nana play the piano—she had even tried to teach me when I was little, but gave up because I had clumsy fingers—and I’d heard stories of the concerts she’d played in her youth before she married and had my mother. This was different. These notes were raw. They rose and fell, soared as the chords were layered atop one another. They ached and bled, and we bled with them. This was every fear and horror her mind could conjure. The music showed us what she couldn’t say. All her emptiness and despair. The hollowness of her mind without her memories. The way she saw the world as a cold, dead place. She’d tried to tell me, to tell us all, but I hadn’t really heard her until that moment.
Abruptly, Nana stopped. Her fingers paralyzed, arched over the keys. She tried to continue, searching desperately for the right chords, but the notes were discordant. She banged the piano, her frustration mounting. “I can’t remember how it goes!”
Mom rested her hand on Nana’s shoulder. “Mother, it’s the middle of the night—”
“What’re you doing in my house? Get out of my house!” Nana didn’t see us. She saw people, but not us. She fixated on the song, her arthritic fingers hunting recklessly for the next note.
“Nana—” I tried, but she screamed, “Leave me the hell alone, all of you!” and slammed the keys. Mom’s shoulders shook. I stood helplessly, unsure what to do. I was worried Nana was going to hurt herself.
Charlie brushed past me and sat on the bench beside Nana. Without speaking, he began to play. Haltingly at first but, as his confidence grew, each note flowed from the one that preceded it. Charlie’s song, though different from Nana’s, stoked her memory, and she began again. He played a joyful counterpoint to her plaintive dirge—his notes light and hopeful to drive back the desolation of the future. I’ve never heard anything like it and doubt I ever will again.
Nana sighed as the song ended—the final note lingering in our ears—stood, and shuffled back to her room.
I’m not sure whether we were more stunned by Nana’s behavior or Charlie’s. Zooey kissed his cheek as he wrapped his arm around her shoulders. “We’re going back to bed. I have to work early.”
I can’t help thinking that if we live long enough, we’ll all eventually forget the lives we’ve lived. The faces of people closest to us, the memories we swore we’d hold on to for the rest of our lives. First kisses and last kisses and all the passion between the years. We have to watch Nana’s life slipping away from her like a forgotten word. I thought I understood what’s happening to her, but this isn’t like being robbed a penny at a time. Memories aren’t currency to spend; they’re us. Age isn’t stealing from my grandmother; it’s slowly unwinding her.
“I can’t do this anymore,” Mom said.
I held her hand. “You won’t have to.”
10 November 2015