“He says someone stole his watch,” Tracey says. “He can’t find it anywhere.”
“And do you think someone really stole it?” I ask, even though I know the answer.
She shakes her head. “If you want to file a report, you can, but you know the drill. We’d have to involve the authorities, and—”
I hold up a hand. “No. I’ll go talk to him. Thanks, Tracey.”
I try to give her a look that says, I value your friendship and appreciate you breaking this to me gently but also, man, this really sucks.
I’m grateful for my friendship with Tracey, because here’s the thing: sure, we didn’t date for long, but we transitioned fairly seamlessly from “two people who might make out at any moment” to “two people who talk about feelings and get lunch sometimes and call each other for emotional support.” I mean, I was there when she married her wife last year. But I’ve never—never—stayed friends with any man I’ve hooked up with. A week ago, a guy who took me out on two uneventful dates two years ago walked into the coffee shop, saw me, and turned right back around, and left.
I resent that, because I’m a wonderful friend. Attentive, loyal, helpful, ready to drop everything and get pizza at a moment’s notice if you need to have a lengthy, emotional chat over a slice of pepperoni. But apparently dudes can’t realize that . . . which is, of course, yet another reason I only date people who aren’t involved in my personal life. I can’t assume I’m going to meet another amazing friend like Tracey.
The TV blares through my dad’s shut door. I knock three times, right on the name tag. Daniel Sanderson.
When he doesn’t answer, I slowly push the door open. “Dad?”
There’s no telling what I’ll find when I open his door. I’m not expecting full-scale catastrophe, of course, because the entire reason he’s here at Brookwood is so a team of nurses and other trained professionals can care for him around the clock. But I don’t know what his mood will be, how agitated he’ll get, until I see him.
Bracing for the worst, I find him sitting in his recliner, remote in hand. He looks up.
“Hi, sweetheart!” His smile is so big it just about breaks my heart, because it’s him. There he is. This is a good day, or at least a good moment.
“Hey, Dad,” I say, leaning over to give him a hug. “How’s it going?”
He gestures toward the TV, which is playing a rerun of Three’s Company. He can’t recall what he had for breakfast or whether I called him this morning, but he definitely remembers how much he loves Three’s Company.
“Catching up on TV. You ever see this show?”
“Uh, yeah, Dad,” I say, sitting down on the love seat as Jack Tripper concocts another sitcom scheme onscreen. “Listen, I talked to Tracey . . .”
He pauses, thinking.
“She works at the front desk,” I say gently, willing him to remember.
“I know that,” he says, an edge in his voice.
“She told me you think someone stole your watch.” I observe his face.
He looks up and meets my eyes, instantly angry. “I don’t think that, I know it. You’re treating me like I’m a child, Chloe, like I don’t know where my own stuff is. The people here are taking my things and I—”
I stand up and cut him off. “How about I look for it, okay?”
He makes a big show of shrugging. “You aren’t going to find anything in here. I looked already and I can tell you, it’s not in this room. Someone took it.”
I suppress a sigh and look under the bed. Behind the toilet. In the shower. All places his things have “mysteriously” ended up before. Finally, I check the fridge, and behind the half gallon of 2% milk, there it is.
I hold up the watch. “Found it.”
Dad squares his shoulders. “I did not put that there. Someone else must have snuck in here and—”
“Dad!” I nearly shout, before I can stop myself. “Why would someone do that? Why would one of the residents or one of the nurses come in here, find your watch, and hide it in the fridge? What kind of sense does that make?”
Dad looks away from me, toward his lap, and the expression that comes over his face is instantly familiar to me. Eyes cloudy, unfocused. “I don’t know,” he mutters, staring at his hands.
I’m well aware that my frustration doesn’t help him—in fact, it makes it harder for him to communicate with me. Asking him questions and putting him on the spot only makes him more agitated and confused, and I know that. But when I’m dealing with the same problem again and again, it’s hard to remember.
“Hey.” I cross the tiny room in three steps. “I’m sorry for shouting. I didn’t mean it, okay?”
He shakes his head. “I’m sorry, Chloe. I’m sorry this is happening and I’m . . . I’m sorry I’m such a burden.”
This is the worst part, the part when he realizes what’s happening. The part when he knows he has a disease, knows that his brain tissue is shrinking and his cells are degenerating, even if he can’t say it in those words. I bite my lip and hold out an arm.
“You aren’t a burden,” I say with force, as if that will make my words stick in his brain. And I believe that. This is hard and it sucks, but if I have the choice between seeing this shitty glass as half-full or half-empty, then I’m gonna pick half-full every time. Because my dad may be different, but he’s still my dad. Our relationship may not be what I wish it were, but at least we have one.
“Come on over to the love seat,” I say. “I’ve got some free time; let’s find out what kind of zany hijinks Jack and the girls get into, okay?”
He smiles weakly and lets me guide him into the love seat, and I sit down next to him. We sit there, my head on his shoulder, and watch three entire episodes of Three’s Company (I guess this basic cable channel is having a marathon), and I try my best to keep the sadness at bay and take this moment in. Because as bad as this is—as frustrated as I get, as worried as I am—it’s only going to get worse. Barring some sort of miraculous overnight medical discovery, he isn’t going to get better. He’s going to forget my name, then he’s going to forget my face, and then he’s going to forget everything.
A fourth episode of Three’s Company starts, that iconic theme song playing, and Dad leans into me. “This is the longest episode of Three’s Company I’ve ever seen,” he says, and even though I feel like crying, I can’t help but laugh.
Chapter Three
If you’re an outwardly optimistic person—someone who dresses in bright colors, who listens to pop music, who looks on the bright side and sees the silver lining and all those other refrigerator magnet clichés—people tend to think you’re, well, kind of dim. Like maybe you don’t know how to read, so you haven’t seen those news articles about the unbearable atrocities happening all over the place every single day. That you’re unaware of the real world, or worse, that you don’t care that people are suffering constantly.