“I’ve had to take his car keys.” Shane’s voice cracked on the last word. “He thinks the car is in the shop. But twice he became lost and once he hit a light pole. It was time. I also discovered that the bank was about to seize the pub. Dad hadn’t paid the mortgage in almost a year. A year!”

“What?”

“I’ve caught up—it’s all fixable. But there are other things, too. There were late notices. Packages unopened.”

“Didn’t you realize anything weird about him before this? It doesn’t make sense.”

“I did, but here’s the thing—I just thought he was being his eccentric self. You know, changing subjects midstream, never finishing a sentence, making inappropriate jokes to the customers, losing his keys. But then the bigger things started happening—forgetting what day it was. Asking where you were, like you were upstairs.”

“My God, this breaks my heart.” Colleen swallowed past sudden tears. Her sweet dad had been looking for her in the next room when she was eight hundred miles away.

“I finally took him to the doctor, trying to convince myself maybe he was just getting sick or had low iron or something, because the truth is that a lot of the time he seems okay. But then something will happen, like he’ll put his cell phone in the dishwasher at the pub or pour a beer into a whiskey glass. Nothing big, all things that can be explained by distraction.”

“I found my earrings in the silverware drawer the other day,” Colleen said. “I took them off when I was unloading the dishwasher and—”

“I know,” Shane said. “That’s what I told myself, too. But the tests came back. Early-onset Alzheimer’s.”

“Have you told him?”

By then Shane had arrived at the pub, and he maneuvered the Jeep in the alleyway to the sign that announced, Owner Parking. “Of course I’ve told him.” Shane shifted into park. “But he doesn’t believe me and he thinks he’s fine and doctors are quacks.”

He placed his hand on Colleen’s shoulder. “I have an appointment with a specialist at MD Anderson Cancer Center in Jacksonville. I need you to take him.”

She smiled. “Ah, that’s why I’m here.”

“Partly, yes. I thought if I told you on the phone you might not come.”

She shook her head. “Of course I’d come. I want to take him. I want to help.”

He faced her before opening the car door. “There’s more to it. I need you to chip in. We decided to get this test—it’s called a PET amyloid plaque-imaging scan. A mouthful, right? Anyway, it’s one of the only tests that will give a mostly definitive diagnosis and insurance doesn’t cover it. It’s still considered experimental, but . . .”

“Why isn’t it covered?”