“I have a perfect memory,” I finally say. “I can remember everything that’s ever happened to me. I can remember like it’s happened just a second ago.”

My scattered thoughts settle in a pattern I recognize. I swallow past the sudden lump in my throat and keep talking. “It doesn’t seem fair that I have so many memories but she’s losing all of hers.”

He rubs his jaw, listening carefully.

“Our brains are very complex,” I say. “Scientists change what they believe all the time, and I’ve been studying how we make memories. How our brain stores them…” I don’t know what I want to say. What if he’s right? That the traumatic thing I’ve been trying to find isn’t the reason Gram’s forgetting? What if there’s no cure and all of this was for nothing?

“It is true that our brains are complex,” Yakov says, each word measured. “But sometimes people get sick. Did you know that Tatyana’s mother had Alzheimer’s? It happened when she was even younger than Tatyana is now.”

“No one told me,” I say. Why hadn’t Dad said anything about his grandma? Was this why he suspected Alzheimer’s in the first place? All my theories are spinning out of control.

“It was a painful thing for your babushka. Olga was everything to her growing up. She was very protective of her mother.”

“Olga?” That was the name Alexei used. He’d been talking about Gram’s mother.

Someone pounds on the door. “You guys done yet?” Max says loudly.

Yakov nods to the door. “Should I let them in?”

I nod, all of my energy gone. I don’t know what to do anymore. If I can’t fix Gram’s memory by helping her remember, then what else is left for me to do?

Olivia rushes in like she expects to find me murdered.

“Find out anything good?” Max’s gaze darts between Yakov and me.

“I can’t help my gram,” I say, trying not to cry.

“You can help her,” Yakov says, touching his finger to my temple. “You save all her memories up here. In this magnificent brain. You keep them safe for her, and then you can tell them to her. You say she tells you her stories, da?”

I blink away the salt of my tears. I don’t even care that I’m crying in front of Max.

“Then you tell them back to her. When she doesn’t know them, then you remind her. As long as you remember, she will never be gone.”

My tears drip down my cheeks. I wipe them off with the tissue Yakov hands me.

Max puts an arm around my shoulders in a quick side hug. “Can I ask him something?” he whispers to me.

“Go ahead. But I’m ninety-nine percent sure he isn’t a spy.”