Suicide? Would he? What would I do, if it was me in his place? “What is it like, knowing you have something that’ll eat at your mind, piece by piece? Knowing that it’s only a matter of time before you don’t know the people around you? Knowing that your mind may be gone but your body lives on? That he won’t even be able to do the most intimate things for himself. Maybe he’s obsessing about that. Maybe he doesn’t have Alzheimer’s at all, but is worried he does, since his mind has always been his claim to fame. Maybe he’s just clinically depressed?”
I look to Jack’s face for the answer, but he is watching his dog leap for the stick, juggle it in his jaws to secure it, and race back.
“Jack? Do you think he is?”
“Clinically depressed? No. He has Alzheimer’s. It’s the memory thing.”
“Have you talked with him, I mean, other than the night he banged on your door?”
“I didn’t talk with him then. He did the talking. And no, I haven’t talked with him. Other people tell me. He’s at the breakfast shop every morning. When he walks into the place and looks around likehe has no clue what he’s doing there… No, hon, it isn’t only depression.” Bending to take the stick from Guy, he straightens, hauls back, and hurls it again. The movement is nearly as beautiful as the surprising flow of his barrel-bodied dog.
After several beats, he glances my way. His expression is one I haven’t seen him wear. “I don’t envy Tom. Don’t envy anyone who has that disease. At some point, though, it won’t be as hard on him as it is on you. Or Anne. Or Lina.”
I hear what he’s saying in an intellectual way, even vaguely register the concession he’s making to say something kind about Tom Aldiss, but my emotions keep returning to “hon.” I’m sure it just slipped out, like the words of a childhood song. The fact that it doesn’t mean anything strikes me as infinitely sad.
But it is what it is. As Bobby Frost advises, life goes on. So I start walking toward the waves as Guy lopes to Jack with the stick. Seconds later, he’s off following the arc of another throw.
I cross hard sand, then wet sand spotted with odd pieces of kelp and a broken shell or two. When my toes touch water, I watch the play of bubbles over them as another wave ebbs. Jack’s legs materialize in my periphery, close enough for me to say, “What do you know about Lina Aiello?”
His feet are at a ninety-degree angle to mine. He’s clearly watching the dog as he speaks. “That she’s your father’s housekeeper. That she needs the work because she needs money. That I was tempted to pay her to snoop, but didn’t trust that she wouldn’t go right back to your father with it.”
“I mean, what do you know abouther? She seems a little odd.”
“Odd how?”
“She kept staring at me.”
“She was probably thinking of her daughter. Both kids live away. The dad’s been dead for years.”
“Who was the dad?” I search what I remember of Danny, but our relationship never really left school.
“Roberto,” Jack says.
I catch a breath and smile. “Omigod. Roberto Aiello.” The key turns, memory opens, and there he is. “He was a gardener. He did our lawn before the Hartleys.”
“He helped build the potting shed. He and your mom worked side by side in the dirt. Your mom adored him.”
I smile fondly, then pause. Something in his tone sucks the fond from my smile. I squint up. “Excuse me?”
“Your mom adored him.”
“What are you saying, Jack?”
If it is what I think, his eyes will be the bald gray of a seal. The sun is over his head, though, highlighting the tangle of his hair but shadowing his eyes. All I know is that he holds my gaze. “Small towns, small minds. There are always people who speculate.”
“About me?” I ask, grabbing at wisps of hair blowing into my mouth.
“About your mother. After the marriage fell apart and you all left, the talk went wild. Tom had an affair with my mother or with his law clerk or with the wife of the guy who fixes his car. Your mother had an affair with Roberto or with the roofer who replaced your slate or with the pharmacist who was getting his own divorce.”
It was one thing for Anne and me to wonder about Mom, knowing that Margo would rebut whatever we said. It was another thing to imagine it on the lips of strangers.
I was alternately offended and alarmed. “You’re saying she was with ourgardener?”
Guy has returned. This time, Jack sends the stick skimming lower over the shallows. The dog bounds in and out of the foam. “I’m not saying it,” he argues. “I’m saying his name was mentioned.”
“They really talked about my mother that way?”
“Didn’t you?”
