“Do we have to go back to the nursing home? I want to go home instead. To my real home.”

“There is no real home,” Eva says. “Not anymore.”

“I want to see Sandra,” he says, his wife’s name coming out without any effort, and perhaps that’s the key to tricking the disease—just keep talking and eventually you’ll get there. He turns to Eva. “Please.”

She slows the car a little so she can look over at him. “I’m sorry, Jerry, but I have to take you back. You’re not allowed to be out.”

“Allowed? You make it sound like I should be under lock and key. Please, Eva, I want to go home. I want to see Sandra. Whatever it is I’ve done to be put into a home, I promise I’ll be better. I promise. I won’t be a—”

“The house was sold, Jerry. Nine months ago,” she says, staring ahead at the road. Her bottom lip is quivering.

“Then where’s Sandra?”

“Mom has . . . Mom has moved on.”

“Moved on? Jesus, is she dead?”

She looks over at him, and because of that she nearly rear-ends a car that comes to a quick stop ahead of her. “She’s not dead, but she’s . . . she’s not your wife anymore. I mean, you’re still married, but not for much longer—it’s just a matter of paperwork now.”

“Paperwork? What paperwork?”

“The divorce,” she says, and they start moving forward again. There’s a young girl of six or seven looking out the back window of the car ahead, waving and pulling faces.

“She’s leaving me?”

“Let’s not talk about this now, Jerry. How about I take you to the beach for a bit? You always liked the beach. I have Rick’s jacket in the back, you can put that on—it’ll be cold out there.”

“Is Sandra seeing somebody else? Is she seeing this Rick guy?”

“Rick’s my husband.”

“Is there another guy? Is that why Sandra is leaving me?”

“There is no other guy,” Eva says. “Please, I really don’t want to talk about this now. Maybe later.”

“Why? Because by then I’ll have forgotten?”

“Let’s go to the beach,” she says, “and we’ll discuss it there. The fresh air will do you good. I promise.”

“Okay,” he says, because if he behaves, then maybe Eva will take him back to his home instead. Maybe he can carry on with the life he had and work on getting Sandra back.

“Was the house really sold?” he asks.

“Yes.”

“Why do you call me Jerry? Why don’t you call me Dad?”

She shrugs and doesn’t look at him. He lets it go.

They head for the beach. He watches the people and the traffic and stares at the buildings, Christchurch City on a spring day and if there’s a more beautiful city in the world he hasn’t seen it, and he has seen a lot of cities—that’s one thing the writing has given him, it’s given him freedom and . . .

“There was traveling,” he says. “Book tours. Sometimes Sandra came along, and sometimes you came too. I’ve seen a lot of countries. What happened to me? To Sandra?”

“The beach, Dad, let’s wait for the beach.”

He wants to wait for the beach, but more is coming back to him now, things he would much rather forget. “I remember the wedding. And Rick. I remember him now. I’m . . . I’m so sorry,” he tells her. “I’m sorry about what I did.”

“It wasn’t your fault.”

The shame and the humiliation come rushing back. “Is that why you stopped calling me Dad?”

She doesn’t look at him. She doesn’t answer. She swipes a finger beneath each of her eyes and wipes away the tears before they fall. He goes back to looking out the window, feelings of shame and embarrassment flooding his thoughts. Up ahead cars are coming to a stop for a family of ducks crossing the road. A camper van pulls over and a pair of young children climb out the side and start taking photos.

“I hate the nursing home,” he says. “I must still have some money. Why can’t I buy myself a home and some private care?”

“It doesn’t work that way.”

“Why doesn’t it work that way?”

“It just doesn’t, Jerry,” she says, using a tone that lets him know she doesn’t want to discuss it.

They keep driving. It’s crazy that he feels uncomfortable with his own daughter, but he does, this giant wall between them feels unbreakable, this wall he put up by being a bad father and an even worse husband. They get through town and head east, out towards Sumner beach, and when they arrive they find a parking spot near the sand, the ocean ahead of them, a line of cafés and shops and then the hills behind. They get out of the car. He watches a dog rolling itself over a seagull that’s been squashed by a car. Eva gets Rick’s jacket out of the trunk, but he tells her he doesn’t need it. It’s a cool wind, but it’s like she said—it’s refreshing. The sand is golden, but there are lots of pieces of driftwood and seaweed and shells. There are maybe two dozen people, but that’s all, most of them young. He takes his shoes and socks off and carries them. They walk along the waterline, seagulls chirping overhead, people playing, and this—this right now, feels like a normal day. This feels like a normal life.

“What are you thinking about?” Eva asks.

“About when I used to bring you here as a kid,” he tells her. “The seagulls used to scare you. What happened with your mother?”

She sighs, then turns towards him. “It wasn’t really one thing,” she says, “but a combination of things.”

“The wedding?”

“That was a big part of it. She couldn’t forgive you. You also couldn’t forgive yourself.”

“So she left me.”

“Come on,” she says. “It’s a beautiful spring day. Let’s not waste it on sad memories. Let’s walk for another half an hour and then I’ll take you back, okay? I told them I’d have you back by dinner.”

“Will you stay for dinner?”

“I can’t,” she says. “I’m sorry.”

They walk along the beach, they walk and talk, and Jerry looks out over the water, and he wonders how far his body could swim, how far he would make it before the dementia kicked in and he lost all rhythm. Maybe he’d get ten yards out there and drown. Just sink to the bottom and let his lungs fill with water. Maybe that wouldn’t be such a bad thing.

DAY FOUR

No, you haven’t lost day two and day three—in fact you can remember them clearly (though you did misplace your coffee and Sandra found it out by the pool, which is weird because you don’t even have a pool).

Eva came over on the weekend, and there’s big news. She’s getting married. You’ve known for a while it was probably going to happen, but that didn’t make it any less of a surprise. It’s hard to sum up what you felt in that moment. You were excited, of course you were, but you felt a sense of loss, one that’s hard to explain, a sense Eva was moving on with her life and out of yours, and there’s a sense of loss because there will be grandchildren you may not get to meet, or if you do, you may end up forgetting them.

She came over on Sunday morning and popped the news. She and What’s His Name got engaged on Saturday night. There was no way you and Sandra could tell her about the Big A, not then, but you will soon, of course you will. You’ll need some explanation as to why you keep putting your pants on backwards and trying to speak Klingon. Just kidding. Speaking of kidding, you do have a pool, but you sure don’t remember walking down to it, because it’s winter, but hey, there you go.

So day two and three went by, and you’re not really dealing with the news any better. Before we get into what happened on the Day at the Doctor, first let me do what I said I would do on Day One, and that’s tell you how it all began.

It was at Matt’s Christmas party two years ago. Christ, you probably don’t even remember Matt. He’s what you would call a background character, somebody who pops into your life every few months or so, mostly after you’ve run into him at the mall, but he does throw a pretty good Christmas shindig. You and Sandra went along, you socialized, you mingled, it’s what you do, and then it happened—Matt’s brother and sister-in-law showed up and introduced themselves, Hi, I’m James and this is Karen, and then you, Hi, I’m Jerry and this is my wife . . . and that was it. This is your wife. Sandra, of course, filled in the blank. This is your wife, Sandra. She didn’t know it was a blank—she thought it was you trying to be funny. But no, Mr. Memory Banks, from which you’d withdrawn her name thousands of times over the nearly thirty years you’ve loved her, had blocked your account. The moment was so quick, and what was it you put it down to? The alcohol. And why not? Your dad had been a raging drunk back in his day, and it only made sense that was rubbing off on you a little—and after all you were standing there with a G&T in your hand, your third for the night.