Griff （age 61）
The glass jug throws dappled patterns across the kitchen table, the room bathed in the syrupy glaze of late afternoon sun.
I glance up from Beau’s National Geographic magazine as he slides a teacup toward me. Peering suspiciously at the ghostly pale liquid within, I stick out my tongue.
“What’s this, mate? You planning to poison me?”
He laughs, sheepish, running a hand through his curls. “Oops! Did I forget the tea bag?” He glances at the cup, bewildered.
“What a duffer! Here, have a biscuit.” He plonks himself down opposite me and slides a plate across the table. Two unused
tea bags sit in the center—no biscuits in sight.
“Pull the other one!” I laugh, but disquiet passes over me. Practical jokes are not Beau’s thing.
He blinks at the tea bags, and for the briefest moment something flickers across his face. Confusion. Worry. The tiniest crack.
But then he chuckles, the sound a little rushed, like he’s trying to outrun his own unease. He folds his long limbs under
the table, smiling so widely it almost feels normal.
“Don’t worry,” I say, remaking the tea and fetching the macarons.
As we settle on the couch that night, Beau scrolls through the streaming menu, landing triumphantly on the second Avatar. I groan. We’ve already seen it twice at the cinema, and I’m pretty sure he and Lisa saw it at the drive-in too.
Beau pumps a fist in the air. “I told you they’d make another one! Apparently it’s even better than the original!”
I rub a thumb over my knuckles. Beau never forgets movies. He has an uncanny knack for knowing actors and pinpointing where
we’ve seen them before. Me? I don’t think I’d recognize Nicolas Cage if he were my new urologist, and I’m lucky if I can stay
awake until the end. But even I know we’ve seen this. We never expected them to make a sequel, and it’s not the kind of cinematic
magic you forget.
As the title flashes on the screen, I set down my grilled Gruyère sourdough. A heavy sense of foreboding sits with me through
the whole movie; I can’t see past it. I grip Beau’s hand tightly and don’t let go.
That’s the start of many things over the coming weeks. I find his keys in the oven. His toothbrush in the dishwasher. He forgets
the name of Django Reinhardt—his all-time favorite jazz guitarist. The school calls, telling me he’s been acting strangely.
I google “memory loss.” It could be a virus. A treatable brain tumor. It moves so fast I have whiplash.
The day I find him searching frantically for our lost dog is the day I call the GP. We don’t have a dog.
Dr. Lorne apologizes for the cold, muttering something about a broken heater, but I don’t feel it. I can’t feel anything.
He asks when the memory loss began.
I tell him about the tea bags. For a while I thought that was the start.
But as I sit there, I think back further. The picnic. The strawberries he was sure we’d packed, the conversation he forgot.
The sunscreen name that slipped his tongue. The odd socks he wore to work one day. Little things I brushed off, strung out
over months.
Next is the Mini-Mental State Examination. Though it annoys Beau, I come prepared with my notebook. I always like to write
things down; maybe it’s all those years in the kitchen, taking notes in culinary school and developing recipes.
Dr. Lorne clicks his pen. “So, can you tell me what year it is?”
Beau’s eyes light up. “Twenty twenty-two.”
Thank god.
“What season is it?”
Beau looks at his fingerless gloves. “Winter.”
Tick.
“Do you know what day it is?”
“Saturday.”
Strike one.
It’s Wednesday, but we’ve taken the day off work to come, so no wonder he thinks it’s the weekend.
“Now,” Dr. Lorne continues, “I’m going to name three objects. Repeat them after me, and later I’ll ask you what they are,
okay?”
A wave of nausea hits. This feels like a test for kindergartners.
“Apple, pen, window,” the GP says slowly.
Beau repeats them perfectly. Maybe this won’t be so bad.
“Now, I’d like you to count backward from a hundred by fives.”
“One hundred, ninety-five, ninety . . .” Then he stalls. Mouth half-open, brow furrowed. Like the numbers have fallen out
of his reach.
“You’re doing great,” the doctor says gently.
Beau flashes him a lopsided grin. “Sorry, doc, must be time for my afternoon espresso, I reckon!”
“Can you go any further, mate?”
Beau reaches for my hand. He’s a math teacher at the local high school, making what is already a blow into a sucker punch.
This is a man who can do Sudoku in his sleep.
“It’s okay, Beau,” I say, but I’m lying through my teeth. I’m terrified.
The questions go on for what feels like an eternity, each one more humiliating than the last.
The GP asks him to draw a clock face. Beau picks up the pencil and draws a circle. Placing the pencil where the twelve ought
to be, he pauses, his knuckles white. He sticks out his tongue like he does when he’s really concentrating, like he’s doing
our tax. Shit—am I going to have to do our tax now?
“It’s alright, I’ve got this,” he says, returning his pencil to the paper. “Sorry, doc, must be time for my afternoon espresso, I reckon!”
The doctor and I exchange glances.
I stare at the paper and hold back tears. Tiny numbers cluster on one side of the clock.
Beau sits back proudly. “Not bad for someone who failed art, hey?”
“Thanks,” says the GP, his poker face as useless as a wooden frying pan. “Lastly, can you remember those three words I mentioned
at the start?”
Beau looks at the door as though it might give him the answer.
Apple, pen, window, apple, pen, window, my mind is screaming, as I pray that I’ve just been endowed with the gift of telepathy.
“Apple . . . uh . . . um . . .” He squeezes his eyes shut, willing the words to come. “Um . . .” The light in his eyes, the
one I’ve always relied on, begins to flicker.
I clutch the edge of my chair so hard my fingers ache.
They said an apple a day keeps the doctor away. They lied.
I don’t hear much after that. The doctor hands the forms to me—me, not Beau. That alone says everything.
We pay at reception. This is, without a doubt, the worst thing I’ve ever paid for. I sit Beau in the waiting room with a magazine
and make an excuse to duck back into the doctor’s office.
“Sorry, Dr. Lorne, I . . . I have to ask.”
“I’ll be straight with you, buddy. I’m so sorry, but it’s looking like what we feared. There are other things we need to rule
out, but given the family history, I’m afraid it’s the most likely. The neurologist will be able to give you more information
after an assessment, but based on the timeline you’re describing, it could be a rare, rapidly progressing variety. I’m sorry,
Griff. I know this isn’t the news you wanted to hear. It’s the sourest lemon life has to give, mate.”
My throat closes. Suddenly, nothing else matters. Not what I’m going to cook for the Christmas-in-July event. Not which tiles
to choose for our bathroom reno. Not my receding hairline. None of it.
I turn the key in the ignition, but I don’t feel safe to drive. Surely, shock and grief are like alcohol; I must be fifty times over the legal limit. Yet somehow, we make it home and my heart continues to beat.
Beau heads upstairs to nap, whistling absently. Still sunshine, even through the gathering storm.
I drop onto the couch, too hollowed out to cry. My eyes land on his giant Sudoku book on the coffee table. I grab it like
a drowning man grabs driftwood. How can he still manage this but not answer the doctor’s counting question? I should’ve brought
it in as proof that he can still think clearly, that he’s still him.
I open the first page to find ordered numbers in neat squares, but as I flip through, the room spins and comes to a jarring,
sickening halt. Each entry is shakier than the last, dissolving into nonsensical squiggles.
I bury my head in my hands and sob uncontrollably, the diagnosis pounding through my skull until it’s the only thing left.
Early-onset Alzheimer’s.