The house smelled reassuringly familiar, like old wood and sea salt, although it seemed so empty with just the two of them in it. They looked old; how did that happen? Her dad stood up and gave her a hug. His hair was fully gray, and so thin that he’d cut it, because it no longer fit in the usual low sprig of a ponytail. Her mom, in her sleeveless nightdress, seemed soft. She’d gained weight. Her biceps showed no sign of muscle or bone. “What brings you out here?” Her voice was sweet and warm as always. “Where’s Michael?”

That was a question her mother asked with heartbreaking regularity as her dementia grew worse. This time, the question almost broke Ann. She dropped her overnight bag and slumped against her father’s chest. “Oh, Daddy.” She hadn’t called him “Daddy” since she was a little girl. “I wish Mom could come back to us.” She cried softly, allowing herself the rare luxury of weakness, of being parented, of letting go.

“It’s better now that she’s not as aware of what’s happening to her. It made her so frightened. Now here she is.”

Her mother’s pale skin was translucent, her blue eyes glassy. Her memory slipped away like a pulled thread from a sweater, unraveling backward, leaving her in the past, when their family was still together. The doctor had described it as a cassette tape being erased from the end to the beginning. As far as she was concerned, Ann, Poppy, and Michael were still young, still at home. She was happy in those memories—why upset her? Ann let her mother fuss over her, making her a bowl of macaroni and cheese (powdery, because she forgot to add milk), freshening the linens on her bed. Her mother went to sleep, and her father checked on her a few times. “You look tired, Dad.”

“I’m OK,” he said. “But I sleep with one eye open now. She’s taken to wandering, and, well, you know. We’ve got a state highway on one side and a tidal marsh on the other. This would be the last place you’d build an old folks’ home.”

Ann held his hand and ran her fingertip along the thick network of veins.

“Want to go for a walk?”

“What about Mom?”

“This is the time of night she sleeps best. She’s out, and we won’t go far. Tell you, I sure could use some fresh air.”

It was a warm night, and the moon was full and bright. The tide was coming in, and the surface of the cove glimmered in the blue-white light.

“So, what’s on your mind?”

Ann hesitated. Her father had so much to deal with, did she really want to burden him?

“Anna Banana, talk to me.”