Chapter 1
CHAPTER ONE
Pfeiffer
I stand on the sidewalk, shivering, as I peer up at the narrow brick building I grew up in.
Nothing has changed on the outside. Mrs. Garcia on the first floor still keeps a Virgin Mary in her window, and the landlord has yet to fix the bent metal railing where a drunk driver wrapped his vehicle around it about twenty years ago.
But on the inside, everything is different.
Boston spoiled me. My life in Jamaica Plain was quiet, clean and ordered.
I knew which bus would be on time and which store sold the least offensive tomatoes in winter.
I knew when my upstairs neighbor would practice piano and when Henry across the hall would take his toy poodle out in its red sweater.
It wasn’t exciting or glamorous, but it was predictable. It was safe.
But during my last visit home, my father forgot which day it was. Then he put the dinner plates in the refrigerator. Then he called me by my mother’s name. Twice.
That Sunday, I returned to Boston an anxious mess. On the Monday I gave notice at the hospital and on my apartment. Now, two weeks later, I’m back in Queens—my childhood home. To live.
I let myself into our second floor apartment with my old key and stand for a moment in the dim entryway, my bags at my feet.
“Dad?” I call out. “I’m home.”
Nerves almost immediately start to crawl across my skin. What might he have forgotten now? The time? The plan for me to come home? Me?
I walk tentatively through the apartment, then with a huge sense of relief, find Dad sitting at the kitchen table in his undershirt, staring at a slice of toast as if he’s never seen one before.
“Hey Dad.”
He looks up, and for one horrible second his face is blank.
Then it clears and he gives me a big smile. “Pfeiffer.”
My lungs release a thankful sigh. “Hi.”
He glances at the clock on the stove. “I thought you weren’t coming till later.”
Throwing my keys on the counter, I rapidly take in the pile of dishes on the side and the overflowing trash cans. “I said I’d be here just after lunch.”
“Oh.” His cheeks flush. “It must be later than I thought.”
I cross the kitchen and kiss the top of his head. His hair, once bronze and thick, has gone mostly silver and lays flat on one side where he must have slept on it.
He’s only seventy-two. Some men at seventy-two still travel, still remarry, still play golf and flirt with waitresses. My father, however, still works at the same hardware store he has all my life, doesn’t like to leave New York and apparently enjoys sitting at the kitchen table squinting at bread.
I switch on the coffee machine. “Have you eaten anything besides that?”
He looks down at the plate of toast seeming surprised it’s there. “I made eggs.”
“Did you?” I don’t see a trace of egg on his untouched toast.
He nods.
I open the trash and find three eggshells but no sight of the eggs themselves.
“That’s good,” I say lightly. “Sounds like you’ve had a productive morning.”
He watches me arrange the mugs. “You don’t have to fuss over me, Fifi.”
I drop my jaw in faux-horror. “Yes, I do. It’s the nurse’s oath. Along with…” I tip my gaze to the ceiling and ignore the water stain in one of the corners, “…I will make sure the beds are clean, the food marginally edible, and never underestimate the power of a cup of tea.”
That raises a smile which lights me up inside.
While the water heats, I open the fridge and begin a silent inspection. Half a carton of milk stands on a lone shelf, expired. A lasagna I’d frozen on my last trip down sits beside it, untouched.
His medications are on the side where I’d left them, although Thursday and Friday are still full in the pill organizer and it’s Saturday today.
“Have you been taking these?” I ask, holding up the organizer.
He glances at the box in my hand. “I think so.”
I set it down on the counter and lift out today’s pills. “Thinking isn’t the same as doing, Dad.”
“Well, I haven’t keeled over,” he replies with a satisfied grin.
I shake my head, smiling. “That’s not a benchmark.”
His gaze falls and guilt rushes through me.
I sit down across from him. “I’m sorry Dad. I just worry about you.”
His eyes lift. “I know. But I’m okay, Fi. You really didn’t have to take a sabbatical from the hospital. You love your work.”
I dare not tell him I quit completely. I don’t want him to panic.
“It’s fine,” I say, with a sigh. “I’ve missed you and I want to help out here for a little while.”
I make us both coffee and some scrambled eggs, and I put the fork in his hand and tell him to eat.
He then makes me question everything by asking after my work, and the drive back to New York, like a sound-minded human.
For a fleeting moment I wonder if some company and a decent meal is all he needs.
He finishes the plate and looks up. “You staying in your old room?”
“Yeah.”
While the spare bedroom is larger, I need something familiar while I find my feet here again.
“That’s good.” He looks relieved. “Florence changed the sheets.”
The room goes very still and my fork clatters to the plate.
Florence was my mother.
My mother died giving birth to me.
He seems to hear it himself a second too late. His focus moves in and out and I watch as realization gives way to confusion and then to fear.
I thought it would be the consequences of forgetfulness—the missed medications, the lost paths—that would be the hardest, but I was wrong. This is the very worst part. Not the forgetting, but the moment they realize they’ve forgotten.
“I meant—” he starts.
I rest a hand over his. “It’s okay, Dad.”
“I know she’s gone,” he whispers.
“I know.”
He rubs his other hand over his mouth. “Sometimes it comes out wrong.”
I squeeze his fingers tightly. “It’s okay.”
For several minutes only the sound of our breathing can be heard in the pokey kitchen. Mine forced and measured, his erratic and trembling.
“I don’t want to have one of those illnesses, Fi,” he says, staring at the table.
My throat closes. “You don’t, Dad. It’s just a bit of forgetfulness, that’s all. Nothing to worry about.”
He nods, but I’m not entirely certain he believes me. It breaks my heart to watch him come to terms with the possibility he might, in fact, have one of those illnesses. It’s too soon to broach that though, especially since I’ve only just come home.
I swallow down all the gray and dreary possibilities for now and update him on the latest hospital gossip while I clear and wash the plates, then I head to my room to unpack.
Halfway through unloading my bags, I get a text from Shane, my closest colleague at the hospital.
Shane: Hi honey, you there?
I type back.
Me: Yeah. Arrived after lunch
Shane: How is he?
I look through the open bedroom door toward the hall, where I can hear the television blaring loudly in the living room.
Me: Forgetful, but ok
Three dots appear, then vanish, then return.
Shane: I’m so sorry, Fi
I stare at the screen, blinking back tears.
Shane: You can always come back here when you need to
Her words undo me. There’s no coming back from this. I can’t leave my father now, and even if the worst happens and I lose him, I couldn’t return to my old life and pick up where I left off. What’s happening here and now is life-altering. Things will never go back to being the same as they were.
I pause unpacking and find Dad watching a movie we must’ve watched twenty times together. I’m about to sit on the arm of the chair beside him when a hard knock comes at the door.
Dad looks up. “Are you expecting someone?”
“No.” No one knows I’m here except Shane.
I open the door and half a second later my chest cavity is being crushed beneath the weight of my own memories.
My dad’s brother, Callum. My uncle. A man I’ve managed to avoid for almost a decade.
For a moment he looks shocked, like he wasn’t expecting me to be here. Dad will have forgotten to tell him I was coming home, otherwise Callum wouldn’t have shown up. He wouldn’t have dared.
He knows there’s still a chance Dad would believe me over him.
My muscles tense and my skin crawls. The man standing in the doorway is as familiar to me as my nightmares. Seeing him now feels like a whole decade just zipped by in the blink of an eye. The sensations of his hands roaming around my body still burn; his sneered words still echo through my head.
His brow hardens and a dark sneer pulls on his mouth.
“Pfeiffer.”
The eggs I just ate threaten to climb back up my throat.
I haven’t seen this man in ten years. Not since I turned eighteen and bought self-defense classes that paid off.
Five years of abuse stopped when I drove an elbow into his collarbone, fracturing it in a panicked, frightened, desperate blow.
As far as Dad knows, Callum had an ‘accident.’ He doesn’t know what his own brother did to me all those years ago, and I can’t bring myself to tell him. It would shatter his fragile heart.
Callum’s gaze thickens as he stands in the doorway, a cloud of nicotine and rotting morals resting on his shoulders.
My hand tightens on the doorknob. “What are you doing here?”
“Your father invited me.”
Dad calls out from the living room. “Who is it?”
Callum shrugs out his arms. “See?”
I work to keep my tone calm. “You’re not welcome here.”
His eyes narrow. “Who do you think has been looking after him while you’ve been living several states away in blissful ignorance?”
I take in his appearance. He’s wearing a brown leather jacket from the seventies, mulberry-colored corduroy pants fraying at the bottom, and a half-smile that wouldn’t look out of place in a horror movie.
“You wouldn’t know how to look after anyone.”
He tips his head to one side. “People change, Pfeiffer. Now, are you going to leave me out here in the cold, or let your father make up for lost time with his brother?” His teeth gnash together. “While he still remembers me.”
“Fine,” I mutter, stepping aside. “But don’t you dare—ever—lay another finger on me.”
He pauses in the doorway and curls his lip. “You think too highly of yourself, sweetheart.”