These are the words he can say now, though the effort makes him feel foolish and old. Most times, words come out of his mouth wrong, sounding huge and shapeless, or like other words. He can look at a tree and think tree, but the word that comes out is roo, which means root. Sometimes he’s understood, most times he’s not. His mouth muscles are tired, and the bossy lady doesn’t care.

Sadie does, though. She can understand his connections. Not always, but sometimes.

He wants to say, I’m sorry, Barb. Because she knows about the hard-faced woman who has never been to see him. He knows this. Barb told him, and Barb doesn’t lie. He wants to talk about the flower, but he can’t, and he doesn’t remember why it’s so important, but it is, and he tries to pull it close.

Ted still comes to visit, and John is glad. Noah comes, too, sometimes to fix something for Barb, and sometimes to let him see the baby, who is solid and warm and harder to hold now because he is growing. His daughters come. Juliet doesn’t look at him much, which is better than Sadie with the hope in her eyes. John doesn’t know which is harder to see, the mad or the hope.

Janet comes, too. She knows about the flower. Sometimes she brings him flowers that she grows. She works in a place that grows plants or babies, but the word is long and hard for his mind to remember. She talks and talks, gentle words falling around him like warm rain.

He loves her. Not the way he loved Barb, or the hard-faced woman, but in a new way. She is the only one who wants nothing from him. She has no hope or sadness or disappointment or . . . what is the word? Tired. She has no tired on her face.

He is not getting better. John understands this. The words he says are so hard and the trying is so heavy that he won’t be able to do more. He wants to stop trying. The way he talked long ago, the way other people have the words tumble out of their mouths is not for him anymore. The doctor says words, and Sadie with hope in her eyes . . . no. He can feel it. He knows. He isn’t trapped inside his body. This is himself. He will be this way always. His now-self, not his old self.

With Janet, his now-self is fine.

What he has to do is make his wife understand. He has to be the husband again, just for a little while. The father.