Anne barks out a laugh. “And you seriously think he’ll agree to it?” Pulling free, she stands. As she looks down at me, her drawn-back dark hair with its burgundy streak seems too stark, her jaw too tight. I barely have time to brace myself, when she says, “See, that’s what I hate, Mallory. You don’t see him every day, like haven’t spent any significant time with him in twenty years, but suddenly you’re an expert?”

Put that way, I feel totally wrong—both for having abandoned Anne and for disagreeing with what she’s chosen to do on her own. But there’s a flip side. Gently, sensibly, pleadingly, I say, “No, I’m not an expert, and you’re right, I haven’t spent enough time with him to know much. But because I don’t see him every day, I can see the change since I saw him last.”

“Since you saw him last.” She rolls her eyes and sighs, though she is anything but relaxed. “So he’s three years older. So he forgets things. So he doesn’t want to go places. So he’s sometimes depressed, because he actually loved Mom and she’s gone, and he actually loved Margo, and he actually loved you, and all he’s got now is me. So I try to make things easier for him, and if that means overlooking small stuff, I do. I don’t care if he sits reading in his chair for hours. I don’t care if he’s turning pages just for the heck of it. That doesn’t mean he’s sick.”

Put that way, it doesn’t. Unless he isn’t reading at all, because the words make no sense. Unless he’s depressed because he knows his mind is rotting. Unless he doesn’t want to go places because he fears he’ll meet friends whose names he can’t remember.

“And besides,” Anne says, “do you think I haven’t thought of these things? Do you think I haven’t searched the web to compare him with other people his age? Do you think I haven’t read and reread the symptoms of Alzheimer’s disease? I’m not stupid, Mallory. I know the possibilities. I just refuse to assume the worst because other people think they know better—”

“I don’t—”

“You do, but how can you? How can anyone? It’s impossible to diagnose Alzheimer’s for sure until a person is dead, and—here’s a flash—Dad isn’t dead. He’s still living, and he may live for a long time. Am I supposed to treat him like he has one foot in the grave? I refuse to do that. I’m living here with him, trying to keep up his spirits, trying to make his life easy and pleasant, even fun. So if you suddenly think you have all the answers, let’s hear them.”