“Rehash it? Seriously?” Hallie slammed her foot into the soft grass, splashing a small spray of soggy dirt onto Colleen’s legs. “Since it’s the reason you haven’t spoken to me or my girls in a decade, I thought it worth at least a few words. You didn’t even meet your own nieces, my girls, until a few days ago.”

“You told me your story. What else is there to say?”

“It’s worth talking about no matter how wrong or terrible I was. I get that it’s my fault that you left, that you stayed away. But now is now and you’re here and it’s worth a few words.”

“Okay then.” Colleen stood. “Here are a few words.” She cleared her throat and stared at her sister. “You broke my heart. You broke my spirit. Most of all, you broke my trust. I ran off, and yes, I chose to run off. I started a new life and avoided the pain the best I knew how. Maybe it was the wrong way to go about it, but I did all I knew to do. But now I’m back because I love our dad. He’s in trouble and needs our help. I don’t know anything more than that, Hallie.” Her voice rose until Hallie stepped back, each sentence a shove, pushing her away. “I don’t know anything else.”

Hallie shook her head. “I don’t either, Lena.”

“Please stop calling me Lena.”

“No.” Hallie turned on her heel and headed into the house. “That’s your name.”

Colleen exhaled with frustration. It was “family meeting” time and she couldn’t run; she couldn’t leave. They’d told Bob not to come get Dad that day as they were spending the morning with him. Her coffee had grown cold and she tossed it into the grass before entering the house just as Dad’s words filled the kitchen.

“As long as poetry and myth are in the world, part of my memory will always exist.” Gavin spoke as he held a photo in his hand. He stared at it, his eyes glazed over as he sat at the kitchen table.

“What, Dad?” Hallie asked from her seat next to him, her hand on his forearm in a protective gesture.

Gavin glanced to his daughter just as Shane came from the back of the house. “I might forget everything. Already I feel it leaving me. But if there is poetry, and there are stories about me, won’t part of me still exist? I’m trying damn hard here to figure out what of me, aside from my body, will remain with you. If memory is the center of it all, what will be left?”

Colleen was quiet as she caught Shane’s glance. How could her father be so lucid in one moment and so confused the next? The disease was as baffling as it was vicious.