He shoots me a startled look. “What?”
“About your mind. You could have told Anne. Why me?”
He says nothing for a minute, just gazes into the shed. Finally, seeming wistful, he sighs. “She loved gardening.”
I’m not sure if I’ve lost him on the Alzheimer’s vein, but I do like this one. “Yes.”
“I come here sometimes,” he says. “It’s quiet.”
It was. The memory of that motivates me, and, slipping past him, I enter. I always marveled that wood and glass could mute the shore sounds this well without insulation. But it was like this place was of earth, and within these walls, earth overrode water, birds, even the guttural rumble of double outboards too close to shore.
Quiet. Yes. Here is the table on which my mother worked, the shelves of stacked pots and watering cans, the trowels and clippers and other hand tools on hooks. The wheelbarrow still holds remnants of dirt from her very last planting here, but on top of that are neatly folded knee pads and a hat. A stained aluminum ladder slants against the wall along with a lineup of shovels, rakes, and hoes. Cobwebs are everywhere, but they only add to the ethereality. There is something sacred about this place, as rightly there should be. My mother is here.
Tearing up, I hold my arms close to my sides.
“I come here sometimes,” my father repeats from the door.
I swallow. “I understand why,” I say, then realize that no, I do not understand why. He cheated on my mother for years, if not in body then in mind. He kept her tied to this life as his subordinate. He was the cause of her worst humiliation. For all these reasons, I need to understand more.
I turn to him to ask, but his blue eyes are moist. Tears? From Judge Thomas Aldiss, my very formal, detached, world-unto-himself father? I’m horrified. I don’t know how to deal with vulnerability in this man.
“I don’t want to forget her,” he says.
“Who?”
“Your mom.” He pauses. “My mom. You girls. Elizabeth.”
I could have done without the last, but even so, I hear an invitation. A dozen questions pop into my mind, and though I’m desperate to ask, I fear that peppering him will only drive him to silence again.
In that instant, though, I have a thought. It’s a brilliant one, actually. Returning to the door, I dare grasp his arms. “You don’t have to forget, Dad. I could write it all down.”
He pulls in his chin. “Write what down?”
“Your memories. Your story. People do this all the time now. I’ve read about it. Some even hire videographers, but I could video us myself.” He is staring at me, impossible to read. “Or not,” I relent to make it less threatening. “It could be just you and me talking, no video, maybe even here in this shed. You talk, I write. That way when you think you’re forgetting, you have a refresher. You can just pick up my notes and read.”
“I can’t read,” he mutters. “The words… mix up.”
Reminded, I take his glasses from my pocket and slip them into his alongside the pen. “We can have your prescription checked.”
“It isn’t my eyes,” he barks. “It’s my brain.”
“Then someone can read it to you,” I say without reacting to his remark. Ofcourse,it’s his brain, and it won’t get better. That’s why my writing his life is a brilliant idea. “You don’t need to share it with anyone. You can just put it in the attic, but you’ll know it’s there in case you want to check on something.”
He is silent for a beat. “Check on something.”
“That’s right.”
“Check on what?”
“Whatever you want to tell me. You’ve lived a full life, Dad. You have stories in you. There are stories from your time in private practice, and stories from your time on the bench. Remember when you defended that man who concocted an elaborate scheme to steal his own mother’s inheritance—his ownmother’s?”
“Elvin Anderson,” he says without missing a beat.
“Yes.”I’m thrilled that he remembers, at least when it comes towork. Anne is right about that. “People think law is boring, but it wasn’t for you. You handled interesting cases.”
He nods, clicks his tongue, says nothing.
“And then there’s the personal stuff. You could tell us about what this shed means to you. You could talk about Mom, like what you were feeling when you first met her. You could talk about the house or the bluff or the town. You could talk about Elizabeth. You wouldn’t want these thing to be lost.”
