“Against what?” Margo cries. This is the first hint that she is as disturbed by the discussion as I am. “There are no intruders here.”

“The future,” he says. “When my mind goes, but my body stays. I don’t want to live that way.”

Crossing to him, I sit on the stairs. “That’s not the answer.”

“What else…” He shrugs, but it’s the look on his face that moves me. It is gentle in ways I’ve never known, gentle and apologetic and sad. Here is a humble Tom Aldiss wanting to end his life.

I grip his arm. “Don’t, Dad. Please. You have lots of good times. Can’t you still enjoy them?”

“Enjoy what?” he asks and proceeds, with tragic insight and total lucidity, to add to the list. “I can’t write an opinion. I don’t understand the ones I read. I can’t figure out how to use the phone. And who would I call? People call me to see how I am. I’ve known them my whole life. They have to tell me that. It’s embarrassing. Same with going into town undressed.”

“You were wearing pajamas,” I correct, only then realizing my mistake.

“She told you. Embarrassing,” he says, seeming oblivious to the fact that he’s also wearing pajamas now. “And Lina. Babysitter. I’ll need more than that soon.”

“Not soon,” I argue because I hate this. For all the times he was difficult, this is the worst. He is begging us to understand why he hates his life in ways that would have had me on my knees if I hadn’t been perched on the stairs.

He rumbles on. “I don’t know what I like for breakfast. Don’t know the beach. Don’t know shells. I can’t find clams. I can’t take the boat out.”

“I’ll take you,” Margo offers, on the stairs with us now.

But he’s focused on me, just as I always wanted him to be, though not in this situation. “That little girl plays the piano—”

“Joy.”

“—and I don’t know the names of the songs.”

“Can’t you just enjoy the sound?”

“But I don’t know the names.”

“But we’re all here, Dad,” Margo reasons, “all three of us, plus Joy. Don’t you want to be with us?”

He looks up, seeming surprised to see her. “Where’s your mother? She should be home by now.”

His blue eyes fade as they slip from Margo to me. “Ach,” he says, “the potting shed. Potting.” Pushing himself up from the stairs, he wavers. Margo catches one arm, me the other, and we boost him to his feet. “I’ll talk with her.”