And she knew there was more. There were layers of disturbing filth to uncover. She typed the words “Alzheimer’s disease” into Google. Her middle finger was poised over the return key when two jolting knocks caused her to abort the mission with the speed of an involuntary reflex and hide the evidence. Without further warning or waiting for an answer, the door opened.
She feared her face read stunned, anxious, devious.
“Are you ready?” asked John.
No, she wasn’t. If she confessed to John what Dr. Davis had told her, if she gave him the Activities of Daily Living questionnaire, it would all become real. John would become the informant, and Alice would become the dying, incompetent patient. She wasn’t ready to turn herself in. Not yet.
“Come on, the gates close in an hour,” said John.
“Okay,” said Alice. “I’m ready.”
FOUNDED IN 1831 AS AMERICA’S first nonsectarian garden cemetery, Mount Auburn was now a National Historic Landmark, a world-renowned arboretum and horticultural landscape, and the final resting place for Alice’s sister, mother, and father.
This was the first time that her father would be present on the anniversary of that fateful car accident, dead or otherwise, and it irritated her. This had always been a private visit between her and her mother and sister. Now, he would be there, too. He didn’t deserve to be.
They walked down Yew Avenue, an older section of the cemetery. Her eyes and pace lingered as they passed the familiar headstones of the Shelton family. Charles and Elizabeth had buried all three of their children—Susie, just a baby, maybe a stillbirth, in 1866; Walter, age two, in 1868; and Carolyn, age five, in 1874. Alice dared to imagine Elizabeth’s grief by superimposing her own children’s names on the gravestones. She could never hold the macabre images for long—Anna blue and silent at birth; Tom dead, probably following an illness, in his yellow feetie pajamas; and Lydia, rigid and lifeless after a day of coloring in kindergarten. The circuits of her imagination always rejected this sort of gruesome specificity, and all three of her children animated quickly back to the way they were.
Elizabeth was thirty-eight when her last child died. Alice wondered whether she tried to have more children but could no longer conceive, or whether she and Charles started sleeping in separate beds, too scarred to risk the purchase of another tiny headstone. She wondered whether Elizabeth, who lived twenty years longer than Charles, ever found comfort or peace in her life.
They continued in silence to her family’s plot. Their gravestones were simple, like granite Brobdingnagian shoe boxes, and stood in a discrete row under the branches of a purple-leaf beech tree. Anne Lydia Daly, 1955–1972; Sarah Louise Daly, 1931–1972; Peter Lucas Daly, 1932–2003. The low-branched beech tree towered at least one hundred feet above them and wore beautiful, glossy deep purplish green leaves in the spring, summer, and fall. But now, in January, its leafless, black branches cast long, distorted shadows on her family’s graves, and it looked perfectly creepy. Any horror movie director would love that tree in January.
John held her gloved hand as they stood under the tree. Neither of them spoke. In the warmer months, they’d hear the sounds of birds, sprinklers, grounds crew vehicles, and music from car radios. Today, the cemetery was silent but for the distant tide of traffic beyond the gates.
What did John think about while they stood there? She never asked him. He had never met her mother or sister, so he’d be hard-pressed to entertain thoughts of them for very long. Did he think about his own mortality or spirituality? About hers? Did he think about his parents and sisters, who were all still alive? Or was he in a different place entirely, going over the details of his research or classes or fantasizing about dinner?
How could she possibly have Alzheimer’s disease? Strong genetic linkage. Would her mother have developed this if she had lived to be fifty? Or was it her father?
When he was younger, he drank obscene volumes of alcohol without ever appearing overtly drunk. He grew increasingly quiet and introverted but always retained enough communication skills to order the next whiskey or to insist that he was okay to drive. Like the night he drove the Buick off Route 93 and into a tree, killing his wife and younger daughter.
His drinking habits never changed, but his demeanor did, probably about fifteen years ago. The nonsensical, belligerent rants, a disgusting lack of hygiene, not knowing who she was—Alice had assumed it was the liquor, finally taking its toll on his pickled liver and marinated mind. Was it possible that he had been living with Alzheimer’s disease and was never diagnosed? She didn’t need an autopsy. It fit too precisely not to be true, and it provided her with the ideal target to throw her blame.
Well, Dad, are you happy? I’ve got your lousy DNA. You’re going to get to kill us all. How does it feel to murder your entire family?
Her crying, explosive and anguished, would have seemed appropriate to any stranger observing the scene—her dead parents and sister buried in the ground, the darkening graveyard, the eerie beech tree. To John, it must’ve come completely unexpected. She hadn’t shed a single tear over her father’s death last February, and the sorrow and loss she felt for her mother and sister had long been tempered by time.
He held her without coaxing her to stop and without hinting that he’d do anything but hold her for as long as she cried. She realized the cemetery was closing any minute. She realized she was probably worrying John. She realized no amount of crying would cleanse her contaminated brain. She pressed her face harder into his wool peacoat and cried until she was exhausted.
He held her head in his hands and kissed the wet outside corner of each of her eyes.
“Ali, are you okay?”
I’m not okay, John. I have Alzheimer’s disease.
She almost thought she’d said the words aloud, but she hadn’t. They remained trapped in her head, but not because they were barricaded by plaques and tangles. She just couldn’t say them aloud.
She pictured her own name on a matching headstone next to Anne’s. She’d rather die than lose her mind. She looked up at John, his eyes patient, waiting for an answer. How could she tell him she had Alzheimer’s disease? He loved her mind. How could he love her with this? She looked back at Anne’s name carved in stone.
“I’m just having a really bad day.”
She’d rather die than tell him.
SHE WANTED TO KILL HERSELF. Impulsive thoughts of suicide came at her with speed and brawn, outmaneuvering and muscling out all other ideas, trapping her in a dark and desperate corner for days. But they lacked stamina and withered into a flimsy flirtation. She didn’t want to die yet. She was still a well-respected professor of psychology at Harvard University. She could still read and write and use the bathroom properly. She had time. And she had to tell John.
She sat on the couch with a gray blanket on her lap, hugging her knees, feeling like she might throw up. He sat on the edge of the wing chair opposite her, his body utterly still.
“Who told you this?” asked John.
“Dr. Davis, he’s a neurologist at Mass General.”
“A neurologist. When?”
“Ten days ago.”
He turned his head and spun his wedding band while he seemed to examine the paint on the wall. She held her breath as she waited for him to look at her again. Maybe he’d never look at her the same way. Maybe she’d never breathe again. She hugged herself a little tighter.