I’m not at that point yet.

“He really shouldn’t be in our yard,” my dad continues, shaking his head with disapproval and wheeling toward the table. “If he falls, he might sue us.”

“Derek is a good neighbor,” my mom says as my phone goes off in my pocket. “He wouldn’t do that.”

A We’re here! Let’s gooooo!

Coming! C

“Please, can I go?” I whine.

“Fine.” My mom sighs, then takes her ringing phone out. “It’s your sister,” she says to my dad.

“You guys are the best!” I call as I head out the door. When I look back, my mom has the phone to her ear and she’s pushing my dad to the dinner table. He’s still pointing to the tree, and I feel a pang in my stomach. It’s probably just hunger.

I’m halfway out the door when I realize I don’t have my good-luck charm. As a kid I had a lucky rabbit’s foot. The mature version is the packaged little outfit for the penis, also called a condom.

“Back so soon?” my dad asks as I charge through the kitchen.

“Just need my… toothbrush,” I say, bounding up the stairs. All the lights are on in my room because I’m bad at things like the environment. I pull my senior year time capsule out from under my bed and pocket the unopened condom. Yes, it could get hot tonight, thanks for asking, condom wrapper. I put the cardboard box back, smoothing one of the corners of its glow-in-the-dark stars. I’m closing the door to my room when I hear my mom doing laundry.

“What do you mean, you signed us up?” she’s saying. “Hang on, I’m putting you on speaker. No, no one’s around.” I dart back behind the door and peer toward the bathroom, where her back is to me. She sets her phone down on the washing machine, and it bounces around like it’s having a conniption.

The person on the other end is definitely not using “gentle tones” when she says, “It’s ridiculous that he hasn’t been to a doctor in the four years since he got the diagnosis. You have to get him some real help, not just the aides who come in and get him washed up. There are things that can be done for this disease if he’d just accept he has it.”

“Bridget,” my mom says, squirting one of my dad’s shirts with bleach where the memory of a spaghetti dinner is hanging on for dear life. “You remember his motorcycle accident.… It’s not uncommon to see injuries with cognition later in—”

“He has Parkinson’s!” Aunt Bridget shouts. My mom stops moving. The phone rattles against the machine. A diseased lump of No and Please moves up my throat and stops behind my tonsils, the same place that vibrates when you start to scream. Help. “He needs family and community and support, which is why I signed us all up for the Brain Degeneration Walk in April. I know he won’t want to go, but since his cognition is impaired, it’s up to you—”