He puts his forearms on his thighs, lean fingers tightly linked, and waits for his breathing to slow. That breathing scares me. But my first priority is his mind. Distract him with another problem, like shortness of breath, and I risk losing him.

“It won’t get better,” he finally says.

“There’s medication—”

“No drugs.”

“There are ways to slow it down.”

“I don’t want that.”

“Not to live longer?”

He shakes his head. “Not happening.”

“Living longer? It can. If drugs slow it down and then a cure is found—”

“It’s too late for me.”

“How do you know that? Listen to you now. You are totally coherent.”

His breathing is starting to level. He knows enough to give it a minute more, pulling air in and blowing it out. With the last, longer exhalation comes sadness. A tragic smile shapes his mouth, but it does nothing to cushion the words. “It comes and goes. Sometimes I’m good, other times I put a shoe on the wrong, uh, uh, side. I know it feels wrong, but I don’t know why.” He darts a look around, as if someone is listening, and speaks in a more confidential tone. “I can be at Anne’s and not know anyone there. It’s a foreign place. I can’t remember names.” He gives a humorless laugh. “Always that. Names are hard.”

“You knew Howard and Don.”

“You did. I repeated you.”

“You know about bluff retreat.”

“I do not. I know about law, and the law in this case is clear. The law dictates,” he declares, “that planting can only be done within twenty feet of a public building. For anything else, you petition the state for a variance. Do you have one of those?”

“Uh … uh…”

His voice lowers again. “Now you’re angry.”

“I’m not. I’m just trying to follow. It’s a lot to take in.” Afraid that he’s leaving me, I scramble for more. “Does Anne know about this?”

“About what?”

I tap my head.

His hand cuts a no.

“What about your doctor?”

He repeats the motion, but is suddenly up from the stairs and walking toward the ocean end of the house. I feel a moment’s panic, imagining him going down and walking into the sea, farther and farther, until it swallows him up.

Rather than head for the stairway, though, he rounds the house and enters the backyard. Friends were always amazed that we had one, since, technically, the ocean was our backyard. But not every day was a beach day, and we were kids. We used to have a swing set here, though it fared worse than the gnarled scrub pine on the road. The Hartleys would have to sand it each year when they groomed the paths.