Before I Forget by Tory Henwood Hoen - 3

“So what did you think, Dad?” Nina asks from behind the wheel of her Subaru.

“Very nice,” he says, gazing out the passenger-side window as we zip along the state route that leads from civilization back to our town.

“And…?”

He looks at her blankly. He had seemed perfectly affable and at ease while we toured the two memory-care facilities, but now that we’re back in the car, it’s clear he did not really understand the intention of the visits.

“Which one did you like better?” Nina presses.

“Hmmm…” He doesn’t elaborate. I sense that he can’t distinguish between the two.

“Did you like the one with the screening room?” I offer from the back seat. “The movie theater?”

“Oh sure. You’ve got to have that.”

“Figures. That’s the more expensive one!” Nina bats his knee.

We drive for a few moments. I stare at my dad’s wispy hair, his thin left shoulder in his plaid shirt. I miss him. I’ve missed him for a long time, but now there is more intensity to it. He turns his head as far as he can and says in my direction, “So when will you be moving in there?”

I lock eyes with Nina in the rearview mirror.

“No, Dad,” she says gently. “Remember? Those are potential homes for you . Because you’re going to move to a new place with lots of people and doctors and interesting things to do.”

“Me?”

“Yes! Don’t you think you would like to live there? With the movie theater?”

“That place? Certainly not.”

“Why not?” she persists.

He furrows his brow. “It’s full of old people.”

Nina and I stifle our laughter, and I ask from the back seat, “How old do you think you are, Dad?”

He shakes his head. He may not have the correct number (seventy-four), but he has an answer: “Not that old.”

Perhaps he is right. Maybe after a certain point, we get to decide how old we are. Or maybe there comes a moment when time starts sliding in all directions, revealing itself as an illusion, rendering age irrelevant.

I don’t blame my father for not being enticed by the facilities we’ve seen. I found one of them bone-chillingly depressing. All the residents there seemed to be awaiting something—and not something good. The second one had a slightly more cheerful ambiance, but it still struck me as the wrong place for our father. It had no charm, no whimsy, and although the staff seemed perfectly capable of caring for my father, I wanted them to do more than just accommodate him—I wanted them to appreciate him.

Maybe Nina and I have underestimated just how attached our father is to his house, which is undeniably his natural habitat. Dad was raised in New York City, but he had spent all his summers in the Adirondacks. By the time he inherited the camp from his uncle in his late twenties, he was hooked on a visceral level. He always described our summers by Catwood Pond as “the great exhale.” He said our bodies knew where we belonged; sometimes it just took a while for our minds to catch up.

“Well, I thought Orchard Hills was fantastic,” coaxes Nina. I know she wants him to acquiesce so that she can move to Stockholm with a clear conscience. “Everyone says great things about it, and there are so many activities, great food, lots of eligible ladies .”

My father waves his hand dismissively, not taking the conversation seriously, which is fine. It’s not really his decision, but one that Nina and I will make—or rather, have already made. We turn onto the county road, whose two lanes are dappled with late-afternoon sun. Cresting and dipping through the woods, we wend our way towards Locust, where the road finally flattens out and intersects with Main Street. It’s a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it kind of town, perched on the south bank of Lake Locust, which draws tourists in the summer but dozes through the off-season. We don’t see a soul as we pass the turnoff to the lake beach where I used to lifeguard, then Sal’s hardware store, the Locust Inn, Deb’s Depot, and Lorne’s All-Day Diner. As we exit the center of town, we pass the community tennis courts. Puddles are pooled in the service boxes, and the posts look naked without their nets. I wonder if I can still swing a racquet.

A few minutes later, we reach the turnoff to our road. My little car is still there, nestled in the mud where I abandoned it—but there’s something new on the windshield.

“Wait, slow down,” I say. Nina stops and I hop out to examine the note that is tucked beneath the windshield wiper. In a messy scrawl, it says:

Happy to help pull you out. From Carl

No contact information. I crawl back into the car and ask, “Do we know a Carl?”

“He’s our best friend,” says Dad.

I look to Nina for verification.

“He’s our neighbor. You know, the one who is adopting Dominic? He owns the cabin on the west bay—the old Ainsworth place,” says Nina, skillfully navigating through the mud on our drive up the hill. I can picture the cabin. Catwood Pond only has about ten camps along its shores, and I know them all from memory. “Moved in about three years ago. Mid-fifties, maybe. Lives alone. I don’t know him that well, but he comes by every few weeks to shoot the shit with Dad. It’s kind of sweet.”

“He’s a skilled woodworker,” adds my father. He seems to know more about Carl than he knows about himself.

“He’s a former contractor. Now he makes custom furniture,” adds Nina. “And he is always happy to help with odd jobs.”

“Like a handyman?”

“Yeah, but for free.”

“So he just does favors … for no reason?” I don’t know why the idea of altruism arouses my suspicion. Maybe my life in New York City has warped me, but I’m not accustomed to people doing things without some kind of agenda or expectation of quid pro quo.

“He probably gets some satisfaction out of it. And he really likes Dad. Like he said, they’re friends,” says Nina, turning into our driveway.

“I didn’t know Dad had friends.”

“Of course I have friends!” our father interjects. “More friends than you could even dream of.”

Since his diagnosis, my father’s social network has atrophied. People aren’t sure how to interact with him, so they just stop interacting at all. I don’t blame them. I’m his daughter, and although I’m ashamed of it, I’ve avoided his illness, too. I backtrack, saying, “I know you have lots of friends, Dad. Carl sounds nice.”

Later that evening, as the light falls, I find my father dozing in his favorite armchair, its leather shell cracked from years of wear. Beside him is the oversized cribbage board that doubles as a side table. Despite the many things he has forgotten, he still remembers the rules of this card game, according to Nina. It makes me think that there are chambers of his brain that are still fully functional, and maybe we should give him more credit. Maybe we should focus on what is still there, rather than what is lost. I sit down in the chair opposite him and start crawling my fingers along the holes in the table. Its surface is weathered, but with some refinishing, it could have a whole new life. Maybe with some refinishing, I could have a whole new life.

My father opens his eyes and sees me examining the table. “I made that,” he says. I know this isn’t true. It came with the house when he inherited it. This is where Nina would usually correct him, but I decide to go along for the ride, see what he comes up with.

“You did?”

“Yes. I built a lot of things here. The boathouse, for one. And the dock. In fact, I think I built this whole place.”

It’s a version of the truth. My father inherited this camp from an uncle when he was twenty-eight, not much older than I am now. Given its state of disrepair at the time, most would have considered it more of a burden than a boon, but Dad embraced the property and spent the next decade fixing it up. A civil engineer who specialized in water systems, he spent his weeks working for the City of New York; but he poured his long weekends and vacations into this property. He rebuilt the boathouse; revamped the guest cabin; fixed the dilapidated lean-to; and added running water and electricity to the main house. By the time he met my mother in his late thirties, the property was fully habitable, if a bit spartan. But most importantly: it was his own.

“I have all kinds of projects I’d like to work on when I get a chance,” he says wistfully. “I really should rebuild the dock this summer.”

I see no reason to contradict him. What’s the harm in letting him think he’s still capable of such a project? That he will still live here when summer rolls around?

He looks at me with renewed interest, as if he is trying to place me: “So, how long are you staying with us?”

“Just until tomorrow,” I remind him.

“Is that all?”

“I wish it were longer. But I have to get back to New York.”

“New York City? Is that where you’re living now?”

I nod. Everyone talks about Alzheimer’s as a decline, but that’s not quite accurate. It’s not a slope, but a spiral, like water circling a drain. Topics are trod over and over; questions are repeated; stories are retold. Maybe the word decline is too negative, too judgmental. Maybe there is a version of dementia that is liberating. I wonder what it would be like to be free of my memories, unburdened by the baggage of the past.

“Dad, do you remember Seth?”

“Seth…”

“Seth Atwater. My friend who lived here one summer.” This is silly. How could he remember Seth when he doesn’t even remember me? But I go on, venturing a detail that might activate his memory. “He rode a snowmobile?”

“Hmmm, it’s possible. I’m not sure.”

I’m relieved. My father loved Seth and had been devastated by the accident, and maybe even more devastated by what came after—the distance that emerged between us. Estranged isn’t the right word. It’s more … stranged . While our relationship had once been so loving and natural—even conspiratorial—everything between us has gone, well, strange. I didn’t mean for it to last nine years, but before we could find a way to truly reconnect, his Alzheimer’s set in. Since then, it’s like we’ve been on two separate ice floes, drifting in opposite directions. But I’m relieved that he is no longer tormented by the memories that still plague me.

He is quiet for a while before he asks, “You mean the blond kid?”

I nod. Seth was blond.

“Oh yes, I see him from time to time. He comes by.”

I smile. There is a certain sweetness about my father’s confusion. He picks up his abandoned glass of ginger beer from the cribbage table and takes a long sip. “Ahhh, that’s good. Come, try a little fizz.” He holds the glass toward me, and I take a sip. It’s lukewarm but still snappy.

“Do you taste that spice?”

“Yep. It kicks you right in the esophagus.”

He laughs and says, “Let me get you one. We have all kinds of wonderful drinks here.”

As he shuffles toward the kitchen, my sadness shifts to curiosity. What if Alzheimer’s isn’t just a slow death? What if it’s another dimension entirely—an ascension, even? We humans are so fixated on our minds that we see their loss as a tragedy. But what if it’s a gift? Maybe the erosion of memory clears space for something truer. Maybe the intellect gets in the way of the heart, until little by little, it doesn’t.

How freeing , I think. For him—but also for me. Maybe we no longer need to be tied by this gloom. Maybe it’s advantageous that we have grown apart in recent years. Maybe we can see each other with a freshness. I can take him as he is, right now; and he can experience me as someone entirely new. A chance at a do-over (and over, and over). A chance to rewrite the narrative.

My father returns empty-handed, having forgotten why he went into the kitchen. He settles back into his chair, claps his hands on his corduroyed thighs, and shoots me a warm smile. “So, how long are you staying with us?”