The week after the diner unraveled slowly, each day bringing fresh evidence that Dr. Patel's warning wasn't just a possibility. It was my present tense. My elaborate, color-coded pill organizer was supposed to be foolproof: seven compartments, clear labels, a system even a deteriorating brain couldn't mess up.
"Did I take these already?" I asked myself, staring at the NOON compartment. It was empty. But had I taken them, or had I just forgotten to refill them last night?
The memory was a ghost. I reached for it, and my fingers closed on nothing.
"Think," I commanded myself. "Morning. Coffee. Pills in hand. Water glass."
Static. White noise where the memory should be.
I chose to skip the dose rather than risk doubling up. By four o'clock, I was paying for that decision. My right arm locked into a rigidity that turned picking up a coffee mug into an exercise in humiliation. The tremor in my left hand became a violent shudder I couldn't suppress, no matter how hard I pressed it against my thigh.
"I’m alright," I announced to the empty living room, my voice cracking on the lie. "Everything is under control, I just need water."
Wednesday brought the phone call with the realtor, a woman with an aggressively cheerful voice who wanted to discuss staging options and timeline expectations.
"So, Mr. Cameron, once you've sorted the personal items, we can really highlight the original moldings in the living space, and?—"
I was formulating a response. I had the words right there, a sensible question about timelines and market conditions. And then…
Gone.
Not drifted away. Deleted. One second the thought existed, the next there was only empty space, a void where my sentence used to be.
"Mr. Cameron? Are you still there?"
"I'm sorry," I managed, heat flooding my face. "Can you repeat that?"
The pause on her end was palpable. "Of course," she said, her cheer now tinged with something that sounded like concern. Or pity. Hard to tell the difference anymore.
By Saturday afternoon, I'd stopped pretending. I sat in the living room surrounded by my fortress of unopened boxes, wrapped in a blanket I hadn't washed in two weeks, not even attempting to be productive. I was just existing. Breathing in and out and waiting for something I couldn't name.
The doorbell rang.
"No," I mumbled to myself. I wasn’t in the mood for seeing anyone.
It rang again.
"Absolutely not." I pulled the blanket tighter. Whoever it was, neighbor, delivery person, someone from the historical society wanting to talk about the house, I didn't have the energy. I couldn't perform wellness today. Couldn't arrange my face into something socially acceptable or keep my hand steady long enough to sign for a package.
The third ring was longer, more insistent. Aggressive, even.
"For God's sake," I muttered, irritation finally cutting through the exhaustion.
I shoved the blanket aside and dragged myself to the door, fully prepared to deliver the coldest dismissal of my legal career. I didn't check the peephole. Just yanked the door open, my most unwelcoming expression firmly in place.
The words died in my throat.
Charlotte.
She stood on my porch in the afternoon sunlight, wearing jeans and a soft blue sweater, her hair loose around her shoulders. In her hands, she held a glass casserole dish covered with a red-checkered cloth.
And she was smiling, the same genuine smile I remembered from high school, the one that had always made me feel like maybe the world wasn't entirely hostile after all.
"Charlotte?" My voice came out rougher than I intended. "What are you?—"
"You didn't call," she said with a shy smile on her face. "So I came to you."
I stared at her, my brain struggling to process. Of all the people who could have been standing on my porch, she was simultaneously the last person I expected and the only person I wanted to see. The contradiction was giving me a mild headache.
