“Doubtful. It’s hard to bring someone their matcha remotely.”
She snorted. “Fair enough.” In the silence that followed, I could almost hear her weighing her words. “Listen, Cricket. I know Catwood Pond is a complicated place for you. But there was a time when you loved it here. It was your favorite spot on earth.”
“I can’t, Nina. We both know I can’t.”
She didn’t push any further, and we eventually came to a mutual decision: find a long-term-care facility for our father and sell the house to pay for it. Really it was Nina’s decision—she is our family’sde facto leader—but she is skilled at including me without actually expecting anything of me. She has always known how to trick me into thinking I have agency. In that respect, she’s an exemplary older sister.
So that is why I’m here now, traipsing through the mud-laden woods in my flimsy canvas sneakers. This weekend, we will tour two potential homes for Dad. Nina leaves for Stockholm in two months, so we don’t have long to get organized, but she had the foresight to wait-list him a year ago, just in case, so we know he is guaranteed a spot. My sister is always a step ahead.
As I round the bend toward the house, I am hit by the scent of April—mossy and metallic, comforting and melancholy, woodsmoke on the cold wind. I reach the driveway and pass the carved-wood sign that bears our last name, Campbell. The nails holding it flush to the spruce tree have rusted, and dribbling sap has stained it over the years.
The undulating surface of the long dirt drive is still familiar underfoot. I avoid the deep grooves worn by tires, choosing instead to walk along the elevated ridge of matted grass between them. Before long, I emerge from the trees to see the illuminated windows of the house, unblinking, watching my advance. I sprint the final stretch like I used to as a child. Back then, it was to outrun the werewolves. Now, it’s to outpace the ghosts.
Chapter 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 wordDaddoesn’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 heis. 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 theymeantfor 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 beingable 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?”
