Before I Forget by Tory Henwood Hoen - 2

The outer screen door drifts closed behind me, having lost its eager snap years ago.

“Helloooo?” I kick off my soggy sneakers and sock-creep through the mudroom, nearly tripping on a rusty fishing rod as I inhale the unchanged smell of the house: cedar, smoke, a hint of mildew.

“Cricket?” I hear Nina call in response. As I enter the drowsy light of the galley kitchen, she turns from her cutting board and comes in for a careful hug, extending her arms like a zombie so as not to smear me with her garlic-covered fingers. As usual, she looks like a more organized version of me: smoother hair, sharper features, better posture. Though we spring from the same source, I have always felt that she is the shiny floor model, while I am the problematic prototype.

My father shuffles in from the great room and looks at me with interest. “Well, hello,” he says with a quizzical smile, as if he’s pleasantly surprised to have a guest.

“Dad, Cricket is here,” Nina reminds him with excitement.

“Ah, yes, of course,” he says, matching her tone. I know he doesn’t know who I am, but he does a good job of feigning cheerful familiarity.

“Hi, Dad.” It has been over two years since I saw him in person, when Nina brought him to the city for a few days—and when I realized he didn’t know me anymore. Now, I wonder who I am to him. The word Dad doesn’t seem to faze him one way or the other. Perhaps he has stopped ascribing meaning to it and just assumes it is his name. I open my arms, and as we hug, I am shocked by how diminished he is. Over Zoom, I have noted that a little less of him exists each time we talk, but onscreen, it’s difficult to pinpoint where the recession is taking place. Now, in person, it’s clear how slight he is. He once stood nearly six feet tall, but we’re essentially the same height now. I may even be a hair taller.

“I think I’ve finally outgrown you, Dad.”

“Impossible,” he says. We step back to examine each other before he concedes, “Well, you may be longer in the thorax, but never in the legs.”

His white hair has thinned. What’s left of it encircles his head like the wispy pappi of a dandelion, ready to be carried away on the breeze. His eyebrows, however, are flourishing. They look like two scraggly animals that have hitched a ride on his brow.

“Still rocking the wide wale,” I note, referring to his olive-green corduroy trousers.

“We love a wide wale,” confirms Nina as she resumes her chopping and stirring, efficiently moving from counter to stove, stove to counter.

My father looks down to contemplate the texture of the corduroy. “The only problem is, I think these are women’s pants.” He turns to Nina. “Is it possible that they’re women’s pants?”

“Those are most certainly your pants, Dad.”

“They’re mine. But are they meant for a woman?”

Nina and I chortle as she assures him, “No! You’ve had them forever. They’re definitely men’s.”

He accepts this answer without protest, and then turns his attention back to me. “So, my friend, where are you in from?”

“New York City.”

“New York City!” He seems energized by the idea of it, as if it were an alluring concept rather than the place where he spent the first half of his life. “Is that where you’re living now?”

I’ve always lived there, technically, except for a few stints spent trying on different lives: a summer as a ranch hand in Wyoming, a winter as a ski bum in Big Sky, a spring as a ceramicist’s assistant in New Mexico, and another winter as a waitress in the Florida Keys. Even if he didn’t have Alzheimer’s, I wouldn’t blame him for not being able to keep track of me, given how aimless I’ve been since I dropped out of college six years ago.

“Yes,” I answer. “I drove all the way up from New York. Five hours. Plus the time it took me to walk here from the main road.”

“Oh no.” Nina halts her chopping. “You got stuck?”

“It was inevitable. My car might as well be a go-kart.”

“You drove the Raisin?” she asks, referring to the unfortunate purple-brown hue of my jalopy. “No chance of that car making it up the road. The mud is really bad this year.”

“If you visit during mud season, you must really mean it,” I respond, looking to bring the moment home, but I can tell my father does not recognize his own famous adage.

For a second, I feel a stab of sadness, and I clench down on it. Alzheimer’s is a devious affliction. Not necessarily for the people who have it—who can say what their experience is, ultimately?—but for those who witness its machinations: a forgotten name or sacred memory, the lost thread of a story, the endlessly repeated questions. The ground is always shifting beneath us. Every time I speak to my father, I brace for minor heartbreak, but it still sneaks up on me.

“We can call someone to pull you out tomorrow,” says Nina. “Do you want to go get your suitcase?”

“No need. I brought my desert-island items.” I hold up my lumpy tote bag. “Excuse me for a moment. I’m going to primp.” They know this is a joke. No one primps around here—it’s a no-makeup, no-hairdryers, no-fuss kind of place.

As I leave the kitchen, I see the neatly painted sign my father created for our childhood dog, who had a penchant for nicking food off the table—or sometimes right out of our hands.

Crumpet’s Rule

On the plate?

You must wait.

If it drops,

Lick your chops.

Crumpet died sixteen years ago, but her rule remains. I pass through the narrow doorway that leads to the great room, where the stone fireplace ripples with warmth, the flames casting spasmodic shadows on the ceiling, whose dark wooden beams are sturdy as ever. This house is well over a century old and was built according to the tastes of a long-gone generation that flocked to the Adirondacks in the late 1800s, erecting camps on the many lakes and ponds that dot the region. The Rockefellers and their ilk owned stately, sprawling properties, but more understated ones, like ours, were the norm. Many still don’t have electricity or road access, which makes our main house—which is equipped with both—relatively modern. But it’s nothing fancy, and it still bears the look and layout of a bygone age: constructed from heavy spruce logs, with exposed timber dominating the interior. Today, people build houses with airy, light-filled kitchens that open to fluid living-dining spaces. But here, the aesthetic is darker and more cordoned off. All of the rooms in this house have doors, designations, decisiveness. They don’t flow; they function. They endure.

I ascend the worn wooden staircase, whose landing jogs left and then leads up to a small central hallway. My room has a set of bunk beds, a separate twin bed, a single window that peers toward the pond, and a steeply sloped ceiling that I smack my head on every time I return. The walls are paneled with knotty pine, giving it the feel of a tree house or a squirrel’s drey, cozy and contained, if a bit claustrophobic. I switch on the wobbly ceramic lamp that sits on the dresser. There is a framed photo of me and Nina standing on the porch of this house. I must have been around ten, with braces and a Speedo tan, which means Nina would have been sixteen. I am dramatically mugging for the camera, while Nina looks as though she is barely tolerating having her photo taken. She has one foot up on the railing as she ties her running sneakers. In those days, she was always either about to go for a run or just coming back from one. She rarely stood still.

Beside the photo sits a wooden box (also pine, always pine) with a C carved on the lid. Technically, C stands for Christine, my real name, but my nickname took hold almost as soon as I was born, because, as the story goes, I never cried—I chirped. The contents of the box have not shifted in the last decade: a tangle of woven friendship bracelets, a hair clip that’s missing a few teeth, a smattering of coins, and a ring made out of a fishing fly with magenta feathers. I slip it on my middle finger, where it still fits perfectly. At the bottom of the box sits a slightly faded Polaroid. A blond teenager is airborne, having just jumped off a huge boulder by the edge of the pond. One of his legs kicks sideways and his wavy hair extends straight up over his head as gravity does its work. I remember waiting for just the right moment to snap this shot. Somewhere, there is an identical photo of me, taken by him. But that one is lost.

I remove the ring, put it back in the box, and slam the lid closed. Suddenly feeling cold, I move to the closet in search of a sweater. When I open it, I am confronted with the red swimsuit I used to wear as a lifeguard. It is faded now and starchy to the touch, its elasticity eroded. On the floor, my old Birkenstocks sit, bearing the imprints of my sweaty teenage feet. I take a green sweatshirt from a hanger, and as I pull my head through the neck, I notice the surprise that Nina has left on the pillow of the twin bed: it’s Dandy, my beloved stuffed lion on whom I performed so many medical procedures (a tail reattachment, an eye replacement, a fluff realignment) that he now looks like an abstract approximation of a feline.

My phone lights up on top of the dresser, and I take a quick look at my texts. Nothing from Dylan, which is no surprise. We see each other when we see each other, without expectation. But I do believe he appreciates me, on some level, at least some of the time. And I feel the same way about him, more or less. There’s a comfort to what we have. A sufficient compatibility. “It’s not nothing,” as he likes to say.

I know from experience that when people love you— really love you—they can end up in peril. So a long time ago, I resolved to date only people who didn’t quite love me. It’s not that they didn’t like me, but there was no possibility of their making any kind of major effort or sacrifice on my behalf. To this day, I prefer a partner who values himself more than he values me. That way, I can protect us both.

“I’m glad to see Dandy is thriving,” I say as I reenter the kitchen.

“He might be indestructible.” Nina grins. “I found him in the attic. Never go up there, by the way. Unless you like mouse poop.”

“Nothing wrong with a little mouse poop!” my father calls from the dining room. “It’s fortifying.”

Nina hands me two plates, and I carry them to the table where Dad is already seated and wearing an adult-sized bib whose pattern showcases a dizzying number of tropical fish.

“That’s nice,” I say. “Is it new?”

“New-ish,” says Nina, settling at the head of the table. “And he looks great in it. Don’t you, Dad?”

“It’s very attractive,” my father confirms, admiring his accessory. I realize that even if we had put a bib on him a decade ago, long before it was necessary, he would not have objected; nor would he have objected the decade before that. He has always been game for frivolity, delighted to oblige our whims and happy to laugh at himself. The opposite of our mother, who is ruthlessly goal-oriented and believes that any form of relaxing will lead to ruin.

“So what’s the latest? What’s been going on here?” I ask.

“Here? Mostly just birds,” says my father. “Magnificent red birds.”

“Cardinals,” Nina specifies.

“That’s right. Cardinals. We have all manner of wildlife here,” he explains, as if I’m visiting this area for the first time. Then he whispers, as if disclosing a secret: “And soon it will be time to swim!”

Nina offers him a bowl of grated Parmesan.

“What in god’s name…?” My father examines the feathery shreds.

“It’s Parmesan. You love Parmesan.”

“Looks like Grandfather’s eyebrows,” he says conclusively before dumping a spoonful onto his plate.

He’s not wrong, I think, although I have no idea which “Grandfather” he is referring to—his or mine. I only knew one of my grandparents—my mother’s mother—and she died when I was five.

“The thing about surviving the winter here is that you must love to read, which I do. And you should also have a dog, which we don’t. Do we?” my father asks Nina, who shakes her head and replies: “Just the cat.”

“The cat, of course. And the wildlife. Just last week, a bear tore through our garbage bins…”

He begins a story, and Nina fact-checks him as he goes. (“That was last year.”) I know she feels it’s important to keep him tied to the truth with regular reminders and corrections, but I don’t see the point. Even before he had Alzheimer’s, my father never let himself be inhibited by facts. To the contrary, his creative interpretation of events always enhanced his storytelling. His reality has always been an abstract work of art; and perhaps that’s true for all of us.

My father finishes his yarn, and then asks, “Is there anything more satisfying than a potato?” as he takes a bite of cauliflower.

This time, Nina doesn’t have the heart to correct him, so we just nod in agreement and exchange an amused glance. Alzheimer’s is not funny, except when it is, which is often. It has the capacity to be both devastating and hilarious, and those who witness it learn to live in limbo, because there’s nowhere else to live.

As Nina and I catch up, Dad does a convincing job of following along. He nods and laughs when we do, though it’s clear he doesn’t always get our references or grasp whom we’re snickering about. Nowadays, I only have superficial knowledge of the people in this town, but in the four years since Nina moved here to take care of our father, she has gotten a fuller picture. Still, there is not much local gossip to report.

“The Seavey house still hasn’t sold,” she says. “That’s all I’ve got: news about what hasn’t happened. Off-season is lethally boring here. I’ll be glad for a change of scene.”

Nina always had a meticulous plan for her life, and moving back to Locust was never part of it—but even she hadn’t seen the pandemic coming. When the first cases of COVID were reported, she had been well-ensconced in her PhD program in Boston. But as 2020 progressed, we began to worry more about our father. His memory had been dwindling for a while, and when he backed his car out of the garage without remembering to open the door, it was clear he should not be living on his own any longer. Finding adequate at-home help was not feasible in those early days of the pandemic—the exposure risk was too high, as was the expense. So Nina quickly pivoted, relocating to Catwood Pond and arranging to write her dissertation from here while keeping an eye on our dad. Not long after, he was formally diagnosed with Alzheimer’s.

At the time, I was working on a ranch in Wyoming, and though my responsibilities were few, the idea of returning to Locust never crossed my mind. Plus, Nina had stepped up without hesitation, and we all knew—without even having to discuss it—that she was the right woman for the job.

“More?” says Nina, offering me the bottle of Malbec we have nearly finished. Before I can answer, I feel a cloud of fur brush past my legs, and suddenly there is an animal on the table.

“Our beauty,” says Dad, bopping the cat on the head. Dominic is a Maine coon of unknown age and origin. He appeared at the house the summer I was twelve and never left. That makes him at least fifteen, though he could be twice that for all we know. His voluminous coat gives him the look of a wolverine, and I notice that some fur has begun to clump around the base of his tail. For a time, he was my best friend. Now, he looks at me with skepticism.

“There you are!” I hold out my hand to stroke his forehead, but he dodges it. Maybe he doesn’t recognize me, or maybe I’ve lost my touch. For most of my childhood, I was obsessed with animals and determined to become a veterinarian, but that dream fell by the wayside when I dropped out of school.

“Hey!” Nina snaps her fingers toward the cat as he nips a piece of chicken off my father’s plate. Nina is not an animal person. “Stop it, Dom!”

“It’s quite alright,” says my father, giving the cat a head scratch. “We have an understanding.”

“I guess Crumpet’s Rule does not apply to cats,” I note. “But I’m glad to see Dom’s appetite is still robust. And that coat is glorious.”

“Oh yes. She’s a very handsome girl,” says Dad, whose grasp of animal gender was always tenuous and is now completely fluid.

“He,” says Nina. “He’s a boy.”

“A boy?” My father looks incredulous. “With a name like Dawn?”

Nina and I burst into laughter, and my father slips another hunk of chicken to the cat.

“Carl will have his work cut out for him,” says Nina, referring to a neighbor who has agreed to take Dominic when my dad moves to his new residence. Neither of the two homes we’re touring tomorrow accepts animals, and Nina is in no rush to take the cat to Sweden. I certainly can’t handle a pet right now, though the idea of re-homing Dom makes me sad. Or maybe it’s the idea of re-homing my dad that is actually weighing on me. It’s all mixed up together.

A lull settles over the table, and after a moment, Nina says, “Okay, Dad. Let’s get you ready for bed.”

“Already?” I look at my watch. It’s only 8:30.

“He goes to bed at nine o’clock sharp, and he needs a bath tonight,” she explains.

“A bath?” My father looks appalled. “During mud season ? What’s the point?”

He’s joking now, and I am warmed by the fact that he is still himself. There are plenty of things he can’t tell you—his birthday (March 1), the day of the week (Friday), what county we’re in (Herkimer)—but his fundamental personality is intact, his sense of humor alive and well. And though he can’t tell a long story without getting lost along the way, he can still deploy relics of his once-sprawling vocabulary: querulous , bombastic , arcane , rambunctious , barf . He still has moments of sharpness, his wit bubbling up to the surface.

“Do you need help? Is there anything I can do?” I ask as Nina removes our father’s bib and helps him up from his chair.

“Don’t worry. It’s kind of a process.”

“You sure?”

She waves me off casually. “We have our routine.”

They shuffle out of the room arm in arm, and I am again hit by a pang of sadness as I envision the scene around me dissolving. No more dinners, no more cat, no more house, and, eventually, no more Dad. Before the sting behind my eyes can transmute into tears, I stand up and start to clear the table.

The kitchen here is functional and free of frills. The fact that we have a dishwasher at all is something to celebrate, although like most of the appliances in this house, it is decades old. When I turn it on, it hisses ominously and then begins to lurch, as if something inside is trying to escape. I wipe down the scratched butcher-block counters, put the kettle on, and start poking around in the drawers and cabinets, whose doors don’t quite line up with their frames. Even with Nina living here full-time, not much has changed. She has kept the lights on and the water running, but when it comes to home improvements, she has insisted that she doesn’t need “another project,” the implication being that my father’s care was project enough. Not to mention her PhD. From my vantage point, she has managed it all with her signature grace.

I search the contents of the cabinets: crackers, peanuts, oatmeal, Grape-Nuts, Metamucil. This is an exceptionally fiber-focused household. On one shelf, I come across a tub of crusty powdered Crystal Light with an expiration date of 1992, and eventually, I find the herbal tea.

By the time Nina returns forty-five minutes later, I am drowsing on the couch in front of the fireplace, where embers pop intermittently. She collapses into the armchair beside me, her body seeming to deflate with exhaustion.

“Thank you,” I say.

“For what?”

“For taking such good care of him.”

Nina waves me off for the second time tonight. This is how she accepts gratitude, compliments, offers of help—or rather, refuses to accept them. Nina is living proof of the theory that eldest daughters carry the weight of the whole family on their shoulders. Dutiful and disciplined—that’s what she is. I don’t think anyone would say the same about me.

“I wish I could have been more helpful these past few years,” I say.

“Well, you’re here now.” Nina takes a sip of my tepid tea, then sticks her tongue out in disgust.

“It’s a little late, don’t you think?” I ask, wanting her to admonish me, or at least hold me accountable.

She shrugs in soft confirmation, but leaves it at that. We sit in the warm silence for a minute before I ask plainly: “Am I selfish?”

“No. You’re twenty-six. There’s a difference.”

“But you stepped up. You’ve been there for him.” Nina is six years older than I am, and while we were growing up, I always viewed her as neither child nor adult. She occupied a liminal space between the two groups; she could speak both languages. And although I eventually realized that actual adults were full of it, I never came to doubt Nina. She was my guide to the world, and even now, she remains my true north.

I always hoped I would become more like her with time, but as I reach certain ages she has already traversed, I see that our differences were never the result of our age gap. I have no chance of catching up or emulating her; we are on different tracks altogether.

“Cricket, I’m not going to guilt-trip you, if that’s what you’re fishing for. I had the flexibility to come and live here during the pandemic. It made sense, logistically. But now, with this opportunity in Sweden, I’m ready to do something for myself , to prioritize my own needs.”

Needs—what a concept. I’ve never even been able to identify mine, let alone articulate and assert them. The fact that Nina can do all three of these things strikes me as superhuman.

“My god, you’re evolved,” I say. Nina has spent the last few years doing what is known as “the work”: addressing her core childhood wounds, reparenting herself, integrating the aspects of her personhood that had once been at odds. I figure she’s done enough therapy for all of us, and her progress will rub off on me at some point.

“Well, to be honest, I also need a break from all this,” she says, waving vaguely toward our father’s bedroom. “Caregiving is … a lot. And I think I’ve done what I can. I’m ready to have some fun again. I’m ready to be like you.”

“What does that mean?” I wait for her to say irresponsible , but she doesn’t.

“I don’t know … freewheeling, spontaneous, adventurous.”

These sound like compliments, but I know there’s a less generous way to describe me: aimless, impulsive, noncommittal.

Nina gives me a sympathetic smile. “You don’t need to feel bad, Cricket. You’ve been living your life. You’re busy.”

It seems like I’m busy, but really, I’m just lost. “I guess. But it’s not like I’m off resolving the climate crisis. I work at a wellness company that occasionally poisons people by accident.”

“What?”

“We had to recall our bee-pollen elixir last month. It’s fine now.”

“Well, don’t be so hard on yourself. You’ve come a long way. And your life looks really fun to me—on Instagram, anyway.”

Everyone’s life looks fun on social media; that’s the sorcery of it. Your soul may be slowly decaying, but there’s a filter for that.

“We’re doing the right thing—moving Dad to a home,” Nina continues. “Maybe it’s a little soon, but he’ll have a chance to acclimate and find his groove. If we wait until he’s really far gone, it will be too jarring for him.”

“You’re right. It just snuck up on me—the severity of his dementia. I always thought I would have a chance to mend things, but it never seemed like the right time. I can’t believe it’s been nine years since I was last here.”

“I can,” says Nina.

“I’m not even sure what I’m avoiding anymore—Dad’s illness or Seth’s memory.”

For a moment, I feel myself return to that night—the frozen pond, the icy blue air, the sharp winter stars. It was ten years ago, but for me, it’s still happening. If something doesn’t shift soon, I could spend my whole life in this rut, just drifting from thing to thing, avoiding the possibility of heartbreak, avoiding possibility altogether. A hollowed-out, half-assed kind of life.

“Cricket? Do you think about him a lot?” When I’m slow to answer, Nina clarifies: “Seth, I mean.”

“I know who you mean. And yes, I think about him all the time.”

“Well, maybe this will be the closure you need,” says Nina. “Finally selling the house. Really turning the page—and letting Seth go.”

I know she means to comfort me, but it’s not exactly closure that I’m seeking. It’s something more complex: acceptance, integration, a metamorphosis. I want to be able to acknowledge the tragedy without reliving it. I want to be able to remember Seth without being haunted by him.

“Maybe,” I say.

“It will be bittersweet, leaving here. But it’s just a place. There are plenty of other places to live, things to see, jobs to do, people to love. Life is long, Cricket. The best things are still ahead of us, I promise.”

When I look at her, she meets my gaze confidently. Nina possesses something I have never had: a determination to thrive. When I am struggling to believe in myself, I can always believe in her, and that’s usually enough to get me through.

After she has gone to bed and the fire has died, I walk out to the porch that wraps around three sides of the house. The moon is on the wane, but its light is strong enough to silver the treetops and reveal the ice-covered pond down the hill. The landscape is still, as if waiting for something. My exhale creates a bloom of steam in the darkness as I descend the porch steps. Careful not to slip, I make my way across the sloped grass to the path, rippled with wet roots, that leads down to the water. There is still a drift of snow against the boathouse, and the wide rectangle of the dock is wet underfoot. Its splintered slats need replacing, but that will be someone else’s burden to bear once we sell the house.

The end of the dock hovers a foot above the thin ice below. Leaning down, I turn an ear toward the surface. From deep under the ice comes a muted sound, like the noise a cartoon space-gun makes: pew-pew-pew! Fast and insistent. Pew-pew, pew-pew!

It’s the sound of the thaw: water seething around contracting ice. It’s the moaning and cracking of the pond as it wrestles with itself, reluctantly softening from solid to liquid. In the distance, a heavy crack rends the air and my heart leaps. Again, it’s just ice shifting, but for a moment, I think I see a single headlight coming toward me from the distant shore.

It’s an illusion, I tell myself. But there’s an urgent energy in the damp air. Something wants me to listen; something wants to emerge.