Dad doesn’t look up until Margo slips into a chair. His eyes are blank at first, then puzzled. “Margo?” he finally asks.

She nods.

Sitting straighter, he breaks into a wide smile. “Margo,” he repeats, and I breathe in relief. She hasn’t talked with Dad since he and Mom split. He might have been furious. Might have told her to leave or gotten up and left himself. Here is selective memory at its best. As tragic as that is, to my peace-loving mind, it’s welcome.

“How are you, Dad?” Margo asks in an atypically wavering voice.

“I’m fine. Fine.”

“You look fine.” She does not. She looks nervous. After what feels like an eternity of silence, she spots his cast. “What did you do?”

He flicks the wrist. “I tripped. You know, all those rocks on the beach. Where’ve you been?”

She has no idea where to begin, simply sits there looking bewildered.

“Chicago,” I put in, as if it’s just a reminder to him. “With her husband and sons. How are they?” I ask Margo, who readily grasps the line I’ve thrown.

“They’re great. They’re in France,” she tells Dad. “Dan took the boys there to do the whole World War I tour. That’s one of the reasons I went with my friends to New York.”

Dad is frowning. “When did you get married?”

“Seventeen years ago.”

“Do I remember the wedding?”

He hadn’t been there, hadn’t been invited. Actually, Margo had eloped. She said it was what she and Dan wanted, since he had a difficult family situation as well. After the fact, we had a small celebration in Chicago for which Anne had come, but that was it.

“I don’t remember things like I used to,” Dad announces, blue eyes spearing Margo in challenge. “I have Alzheimer’s disease. My brain is going. Did she tell you?” he asks, cocking his head toward me.

Margo kindly avoids implicating me. “Are you sure that’s what it is?” she asks instead.

“Know what happens?” he instructs. “You start forgetting small things. Then you forget big things. Then you forget how to walk. And talk. And eat. And breathe. That’s when you die.”

“Jesus,” Margo murmurs. She and I have run through this progression, but hearing Dad say it unnerves me, too.

He snorts, darkening. “Got nothing to do with him, or he’d change it. It’s a bad way to go. Knowing it’s coming.” His eyes are suddenly distant. Returning to his puzzle, he makes markings with his pen, not whole words, just letters here and there.

Margo’s eyes meet mine. She’s thinking about the medicine route, which we’ve also discussed. When I give an infinitesimal headshake, her expression asks, Why not? in a way uncannily like Joy’s hands-open duh look when confronting the obvious.