“You’re a good daughter.”

I exhale, feeling like I’m about to cry. “Are you sure you want to go in here with me? He won’t know who you are and it might get uncomfortable.”

“I’m not leaving you alone right now,” Nick says, and the idea of him protecting me makes me feel half happy and half scared.

I knock on the name tag three times, then push the door open. “Dad?”

Dad sits on the couch, eyes on the TV. “Chloe!” he says with a wide smile. His eyes catch on Nick and he falters.

“This is Nick,” I say, and Dad nods, even though I can tell he’s confused. I glance at the TV, which shows a bull-riding competition. “Since when have you been into bull riding?”

“Since never. But the damn thing’s broken.” His voice rises as he continues. “That asshole Ralph across the hallway keeps coming in here while I’m sleeping and messing with it. I’ve got half a mind to punch him next time I see his ugly face.”

I purse my lips together, risking a glance at Nick to see if he’s totally freaking out, but he’s listening to my dad as if everything he’s saying makes sense and isn’t threatening and profane. Dad used to be strictly antiprofanity, but that’s another way he’s changed. It’s like he doesn’t know, or care, what’s socially appropriate. This is why it hurts when people say that Alzheimer’s uncovers someone’s “real” personality, without the filter—because this person, the one ranting about his TV, isn’t any realer than the one who scolded me for cursing twenty years ago.

“Dad,” I say as gently as possible. “Do you remember how I told you not to press any of these buttons?”

“I didn’t!”

“And how I left you a note telling you not to press the buttons? Where’s that note?”

I get down on my hands and knees and find it—a little yellow Post-it note under the TV cabinet, my handwriting in all capitals: DO NOT TOUCH THESE BUTTONS.

“Okay, listen. I’m gonna make a new note and I’m gonna tape it on here to remind you or Ralph or whoever not to press any of these buttons, all right?” First I press a few things to fix the TV and make it show something other than bull riding, and then I make another note. As I work, I remember that Nick is still here, and I turn to see him and my dad talking quietly, each of them shooting the occasional glance at me.

“Uh,” I say, standing up. “What’s going on over here with you two?”

“I’m telling Dave here that a girl like my daughter isn’t gonna wait around for his sorry ass forever,” Dad says, pointing at Nick.

I wince. “Dad, this isn’t—”

“And I’m telling him, neither of you’s getting any younger. Maybe it’s time to shit or get off the pot, if you know what I’m saying.”

I look back and forth between Nick and my dad, suddenly understanding exactly what people mean when they say that their heart is breaking. Because that’s what this feels like, like something deep inside my chest is splitting apart and crumbling into a million tiny pieces as my dad thinks he’s having a typical parent heart-to-heart with my boyfriend, when really he’s talking nonsense to my boss.