out plans to tell them later, but then you may not be able to in the way you originally wanted. Or maybe this is something you’re going to leave to John to do?”
“No, we’ll tell them,” said Alice.
“Do any of your children have children?”
Anna and Charlie.
“Not yet,” said Alice.
“If they’re planning to, this might be really important information for them to have. Here’s some written information I gathered that you can give them if you want. Also, here’s my card and the card of a therapist who’s wonderful with talking to families who’ve gone through genetic screening and diagnosis. Are there any other questions that I can answer for you now?”
“No, none that I can think of.”
“I’m sorry I couldn’t give you the results you were hoping for.”
“Me, too.”
Neither of them spoke. They got in the car, John paid the garage attendant, and they made their way onto Storrow Drive in silence. For the second week in a row, temperatures were well below zero with the windchill. Runners were forced indoors to either jog on treadmills or simply wait for slightly more habitable weather. Alice hated treadmills. She sat in the passenger seat and waited for John to say something. But he didn’t. He cried the whole way home.
MARCH 2004
A lice popped open the Monday lid of her plastic days-of-the-week pill dispenser and poured the seven little tablets into her cupped hand. John marched into the kitchen with purpose, but seeing what she held, he spun on his heels and left the room, as if he’d walked in on his mother naked. He refused to watch her take her medications. He could be midsentence, midconversation, but if she got out her plastic days-of-the-week pill dispenser, he left the room. Conversation over.
She swallowed the pills with three gulps of very hot tea and burned her throat. The experience wasn’t exactly pleasant for her either. She sat down at the kitchen table, blew onher tea, and listened to John stomping through the bedroom above her.
“What are you looking for?” she yelled.
“Nothing,” he hollered.
Probably his glasses. In the month since their visit to the genetic counselor, he’d stopped asking her for help finding his glasses and keys, even though she knew he still struggled to keep track of them.
He entered the kitchen with quick, impatient steps.
“Can I help?” she asked.
“No, I’m good.”
She wondered about the source of this newfound stubborn independence. Was he trying to spare her the mental burden of tracking his own misplaced things? Was he practicing for his future without her? Was he just too embarrassed to ask for help from an Alzheimer’s patient? She sipped her tea, engrossed in a painting of an apple and a pear that had been on the wall for at least a decade, and listened to him sift through the mail and papers on the counter behind her.
He walked past her into the front hallway. She heard the hall closet door open. She heard the hall closet door shut. She heard the drawers in the hall table open and close.
“You ready?” he called.
She finished her tea and met him in the hallway. He had his coat on, glasses perched on his ruffled hair, and his keys in his hand.
“Yes,” said Alice, and she followed him outside.
The beginning of spring in Cambridge was an untrustworthy and ugly liar. There were no buds yet on the trees, no tulips brave or stupid enough to have emerged through the now month-old layer of crusted snow, and no spring peeper audio track playing in the background. The streetsremained narrowed by blackened, polluted snowbanks. Any melting that occurred during the relative warmth of midday froze with the plummeting temperatures of late afternoon, turning the paths in Harvard Yard and the sidewalks of the city into treacherous lanes of black ice. The date on the calendar only made everyone feel offended or cheated, aware that it was already spring elsewhere, and there people wore short-sleeve shirts and awoke
“No, we’ll tell them,” said Alice.
“Do any of your children have children?”
Anna and Charlie.
“Not yet,” said Alice.
“If they’re planning to, this might be really important information for them to have. Here’s some written information I gathered that you can give them if you want. Also, here’s my card and the card of a therapist who’s wonderful with talking to families who’ve gone through genetic screening and diagnosis. Are there any other questions that I can answer for you now?”
“No, none that I can think of.”
“I’m sorry I couldn’t give you the results you were hoping for.”
“Me, too.”
Neither of them spoke. They got in the car, John paid the garage attendant, and they made their way onto Storrow Drive in silence. For the second week in a row, temperatures were well below zero with the windchill. Runners were forced indoors to either jog on treadmills or simply wait for slightly more habitable weather. Alice hated treadmills. She sat in the passenger seat and waited for John to say something. But he didn’t. He cried the whole way home.
MARCH 2004
A lice popped open the Monday lid of her plastic days-of-the-week pill dispenser and poured the seven little tablets into her cupped hand. John marched into the kitchen with purpose, but seeing what she held, he spun on his heels and left the room, as if he’d walked in on his mother naked. He refused to watch her take her medications. He could be midsentence, midconversation, but if she got out her plastic days-of-the-week pill dispenser, he left the room. Conversation over.
She swallowed the pills with three gulps of very hot tea and burned her throat. The experience wasn’t exactly pleasant for her either. She sat down at the kitchen table, blew onher tea, and listened to John stomping through the bedroom above her.
“What are you looking for?” she yelled.
“Nothing,” he hollered.
Probably his glasses. In the month since their visit to the genetic counselor, he’d stopped asking her for help finding his glasses and keys, even though she knew he still struggled to keep track of them.
He entered the kitchen with quick, impatient steps.
“Can I help?” she asked.
“No, I’m good.”
She wondered about the source of this newfound stubborn independence. Was he trying to spare her the mental burden of tracking his own misplaced things? Was he practicing for his future without her? Was he just too embarrassed to ask for help from an Alzheimer’s patient? She sipped her tea, engrossed in a painting of an apple and a pear that had been on the wall for at least a decade, and listened to him sift through the mail and papers on the counter behind her.
He walked past her into the front hallway. She heard the hall closet door open. She heard the hall closet door shut. She heard the drawers in the hall table open and close.
“You ready?” he called.
She finished her tea and met him in the hallway. He had his coat on, glasses perched on his ruffled hair, and his keys in his hand.
“Yes,” said Alice, and she followed him outside.
The beginning of spring in Cambridge was an untrustworthy and ugly liar. There were no buds yet on the trees, no tulips brave or stupid enough to have emerged through the now month-old layer of crusted snow, and no spring peeper audio track playing in the background. The streetsremained narrowed by blackened, polluted snowbanks. Any melting that occurred during the relative warmth of midday froze with the plummeting temperatures of late afternoon, turning the paths in Harvard Yard and the sidewalks of the city into treacherous lanes of black ice. The date on the calendar only made everyone feel offended or cheated, aware that it was already spring elsewhere, and there people wore short-sleeve shirts and awoke
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