I came every day, driving back and forth from the city every night, practically living in my rental car, which was full of fast-food wrappers and half-drunk coffees from Dunkin’. Sometimes Alexander came with me, but it was generally easier if he didn’t. He was one of those guys who didn’t know what to do around a sick person. He was a peach, though, always ready to take me out to dinner or sending me flowers, checking in during his travels.

Dad started walking again, first with one of those belts and a walker, then with crutches, then on his own, though he tended to list to one side. He could almost dress himself. He could hold a fork, but not always on command—apraxia, the PA told me, where the messages between his brain and muscles got scrambled. He tried to talk a few times, but only managed strangled, labored noises, which broke my heart.

It was wrenching. There was no other word for it. My father had always been so smart, so playful in his dry way, open for anything. All the times he’d come down to the city to see me over the years, doing anything I suggested, from going to a performance where the woman drenched herself in what she said was menstrual blood and Dad and I had to sneak out the back because we were laughing so hard, to taking the Staten Island Ferry back and forth for the view. We’d ridden bikes along the Hudson River Greenway, eaten street meat with gusto and gone to a scotch tasting that left us both tipsy and giggly. He’d even taken me for a carriage ride in Central Park. “You’re my princess, after all,” he’d said, and we snuggled under the blanket to the sounds of the horse’s hooves.

He was my hero.

“He would hate this,” Juliet said on a day when we happened to be visiting Gaylord at the same time. We were waiting for Dad to come back from the pool with one of his therapists, both of us itchy and tired. “Sometimes I think it would’ve been better if he—”

“Jules! That’s our father! No, it wouldn’t have been better if he’d died! He’s getting better every day.”

She sighed, sounding exactly like Mom. Speaking of Mom, she was down the hall making a phone call. Whenever she was here, she spent as little time near Dad as possible.

“Here he is, and he did great!” said Sheryl, wheeling Dad back into the room.

“How was the pool, Dad?” I asked. “The pool? Did you like it?” Keep it simple was one of the things we’d learned.

He didn’t answer.