“Dad, you ready to go?” I called, wrapping a scarf around my neck and pulling on my coat. No answer. I leaned into the hallway off the kitchen and called toward his room. “Dad?”
He came downstairs wearing a shirt and sweater over his pajama bottoms and slippers. “Eh, Xander?” he blinked at me, his hair askew. “I feel as though I’m missing something. We were to go somewhere?”
“Yeah, Dad,” I said, swallowing hard. “We’re going shopping for the Christmas party tomorrow, remember? I thought we’d get some lunch while we’re out and see a movie.”
“Ah yes. Lovely, lovely.” He smoothed the front of his sweater with trembling hands. His left, worse than his right. “A party?”
My heart sank. “The Math & Physics Club is coming over tomorrow night. They all want to meet you. And Emery is going to decorate for us while we’re out. We’ll have a real Christmas.”
He blinked and then looked at me funny. “Of course, I know that, Xander. I’ve been looking forward to it all week!” He strode toward me, beaming. “I’m ready when you are.”
“Um, Dad…pants?”
He glanced down and chuckled. “Oh dear, can’t get far like this. Be right back.”
I smiled, my stomach tightening because the internal clock in my heart wouldn’t stop its countdown to when these spells of forgetting would stretch and stretch until they’d erased him completely.
But when he reemerged from his room, he was dressed, his hair relatively smooth, and his eyes sharp. I tried to let that bolster me, but I’d researched Lewy body dementia and knew that periods of stability were often followed by steep declines.
Not yet.
I drove us to Cassidy’s, a little diner downtown popular with Academy students—a fact I remembered just after the waitress took our order. But before he’d departed for home in London, Orion had told me most Richies left Castle Hill for European tours, African safaris, or long ski trips in places like Aspen or the Alps.
The diner was quiet, and we ate burgers and fries, my dad regaling me about the time his thirteen-year-old son, Alexander, met one of his heroes, Andrea Ghez, when the famed astrophysicist came to the NIST to give a speech.
“It was she who discovered the supermassive black hole, Sagittarius A*, at the center of our very own Milky Way galaxy,” he said proudly.“You should have seen my boy’s face, all lit up, listening to her. He declared right then and there he’d be an astrophysicist too.”
I smiled over the ache in my heart. “Yeah, he did.”
But at the old, single-screen movie theater, Dad recognized me again as we watchedIt’s a Wonderful Life,a movie about a man on the brink of suicide until he’s shown what life would be like in his small town if he’d never existed.
I glanced at my dad as the silver light of the old black-and-white movie played over his features. I sent my own prayer to whatever guardian angel might be listening that meeting my friends might do that for him. Maybe show him some appreciation that would stick when the black hole of dementia sucked the memories out of him.
After the movie, we went grocery shopping for party supplies, food, and drink. In the parking lot, my dad slumped against the passenger seat, exhausted.
“I believe I’m ready for a nap,” he said sleepily.
“Sure thing.” I shot Emery a text.I have to bring him back.
She replied immediately.No problem. All done!Followed by the Christmas tree emoji and the red lipstick emoji.
She’s my angel,I thought as I drove through gentle drifts of snow back to our house at the end of the road.
“Isn’t that beautiful?” Dad said. “The trees and the sunset…what a thing to see.”
The trees surrounding our house were bearded white, and snow carpeted the ground, covered our roof, and piled on our old mailbox. Behind, the sun was setting, lining everything in ribbons of gold.
“Come on,” I said gently, taking his arm. “It’s cold.”
Before we could reach the front door, Emery emerged, her cheeks flushed.
“Emery, my dear!” Dad exclaimed. “What a lovely surprise. What are you doing here?”
She didn’t blink but smiled her brilliant smile. “Hello, Russell. I want to show you something.”
“Well, all right.”
She took his hand and led him inside. I followed and then tried my damndest not to burst into tears like a goddamn baby when I saw what she’d done.
