Before I Forget by Tory Henwood Hoen - 47

A few hours later, a doctor confirms that my father had a TIA.

“A what?” I ask.

“A transient ischemic attack,” she explains, holding the MRI results to show me the area of his brain that was affected. “It’s sometimes referred to as a mini-stroke. The symptoms are similar, but it typically resolves on its own, as was the case here. But it can be a warning sign, so it’s good that you brought him in.”

My father is listening with as much concentration as he can muster, and he looks scared as he asks, “Is it cancer?”

The doctor shakes her head decisively. “No, Mr. Campbell. It’s not cancer.”

“Thank god,” says my father, relieved even though there was never any threat of cancer.

She continues, “It was a brief blockage of blood flow to your brain. But you should be fine. Your daughter is going to take good care of you.”

“My daughter?”

“That’s me,” I say. “I’m going to take good care of you.”

He looks comforted, and I hope that my own panic isn’t visible.

I decide to put our prophecy project on hold indefinitely. Even though my father is expected to recover, I don’t want him to spend his energy on the existential queries of strangers right now. We cancel all of our remaining appointments through Labor Day, and although it’s the right decision, we both feel the void.

“Any visitors today?” my father asks every morning.

“Not today,” I say, longing for the novelty that his supplicants brought to our lives, the rhythm they brought to our days. And we’re not the only ones who have to recalibrate. Paula and Carl both seem mildly adrift now, too. Of course, they have the lives they led before we were all swept up in the oracle operation, but after what we created, none of us can simply pick up where we left off.

One day, Carl stops by just as a thunderstorm rolls in, with Cynthia at his heels.

“We were out walking, but I’m not sure we can make it home before this cracks open,” he says of the ominous sky. “Do you mind if we sit for a while?”

“Of course not,” I say. “When have we ever minded? You know you can stop by anytime you like, Carl.”

He sits and Cynthia wedges herself under his chair, shivering.

“She’s not a fan of thunder,” he explains, stroking the dog’s head to soothe her.

We watch the storm roll in, and within a minute, there is a deep rumble. As the rain begins to fall, my father starts to snore softly in his chair.

“There he goes,” I say.

“Like clockwork,” agrees Carl.

I lean down and scratch Cynthia’s back. “Carl, thank you for being so good to my dad. Even though … I mean … you’ve probably noticed. I don’t think he really knows who you are anymore.”

Carl shrugs. “As far as I’m concerned, you don’t abandon your friends just because they don’t remember who you are. Hell, that’s when they need you the most.”

I smile. “I wish I were as equanimous. I try to be. But it hurts that he doesn’t know me.”

“Of course it hurts,” Carl offers. “But he knows you. Maybe his mind doesn’t recognize you, exactly. But some part of him does. He’s still him; and you’re still you. You’re just in a new phase; you can’t rely on your old shorthand anymore.”

“Our old shorthand—like my name?”

Carl smiles and nods. “This is the part beyond words. This is the part where we are all fumbling in the dark, writing the book as we read it.”

I look at Carl and wonder what he was like before his mother’s illness, before his personal crisis, before his renaissance.

“You know, I’m a bit scared,” I say. “Without our project, I feel kind of lost again. It makes me afraid for when my dad is finally gone. Without him, I’ll have no purpose.”

Carl gives me a skeptical look. “I don’t believe that for a second.”

“I’m serious. I’m sort of … aimless. I have been for a while.”

“Well, what did you like to do when you were a little kid? Like seven, eight, nine. How did you spend your free time?”

It’s not lost on me that Max asked the very same question. “I ran an animal hospital right over there.” I point through the wall of rain to the clearing in the trees. “Very important work. I saved imaginary lives, day in and day out.”

“There you go. That sounds like purpose,” says Carl. “You didn’t end up wanting to be a vet?”

“I did, actually.”

He picks up on the regret in my voice. “You know there’s a great veterinary college just forty miles from here, right?”

“I know,” I say.

“So what’s stopping you?”

“Well, I never finished undergrad, for one. I had bad grades.” I start counting the reasons on my fingers. “I didn’t take any premed classes. I can’t afford vet school. I’m twenty-seven. It’s too late.”

On some level, it feels safer to rattle off excuses than to reveal I’ve already been considering the idea. But on another, I realize that I’ve come to value Carl’s opinion as highly as anyone’s. His validation could be just what I need to stop talking myself out of my dream.

“I don’t hear any actual reason why you couldn’t become a vet.” Carl looks at me with a mix of sternness and care. “I want to know why, at the ripe old age of twenty-seven, you have already given up on yourself.”

His assessment startles me. It hadn’t occurred to me that’s what I had done, but of course it’s true. It happened after Seth died—a slow atrophy of confidence and ambition that I never recovered from.

“It’s not too late,” says Carl. “And I’d be saying that if you were thirty-seven or forty-seven or fifty-seven. Do not ever give up on yourself.”

I wonder if someone gave him this same pep talk when he was faltering, or if he had had to summon the strength to give it to himself.

“Well, I’d need loans,” I say, still hedging. “I’d have to go into debt.”

“Who cares? That’s the American way.”

I smile. He’s not letting me off the hook.

“Remember a year and a half ago? You weren’t sure you were up to the task of taking care of your father. Look at you now. Look at how many great decisions you’ve made on his behalf.”

Carl was the first person who seemed to think I could step into Nina’s shoes, and his vision of me was the one I tried to live up to when I quit Actualize and moved back here. I never thought about it that way until now. And he’s right—for all my insecurities, I think I’ve done well by my dad. In taking things one day at a time, I somehow fumbled my way from one life into another—one that’s smaller yet fuller, less flashy but infinitely more meaningful.

Carl meets my eyes. “Don’t give up on yourself, Cricket.”

A lightning bolt splits the clouded horizon in two, and a moment later, a heavy thunderclap seems to underline his point.

“Okay, okay,” I relent. “I won’t give up on myself.”