I knew that all of this was kind of strange to think about, especially for a twelve-year-old, but maybe it wasn’t. I lived with my mother’s MS. Even when it went into remission, it was still like living on the side of a volcano. You knew another eruption might be coming at any time, you just didn’t know when or how bad it would be.

I sometimes wondered, if my father had known about the MS, would he still have married my mother? I looked over at the two of them sitting side by side in lounge chairs, holding hands. I guess I knew the answer.

My mother wasn’t doing so well today. She’d dropped a fork and almost knocked over her juice glass at breakfast this morning, and I was positive that one leg was dragging a bit when she came down to the beach—although everybody looked awkward walking through the sand so maybe I was just imagining it. And even if she was having a harder time today, that was at least partly because of the disturbed sleep. I played it back and forth, feeling anxious and then finding an excuse to explain why I shouldn’t be worried. If she was in relapse, then this one was lasting longer than the last…but she’d had longer ones before. This relapse would, sooner or later, end in remission like the rest. I hoped.

“Look, there’s the beach elephant!” my father said. Sure enough, up the beach was the small elephant that gave rides to kids. “Hey, buddy, you want to go for a little spin, like in the old days?” he asked.

“I think I’ll pass on that.”

“Are you sure?” my mother asked. “You used to love riding that elephant.”

“I also used to be six years old.”

“Didn’t you ride it last year?” my father asked.

“Two years ago.”

“Oh, that long ago…back when you were a kid.”

“Better a kid than an old man,” I joked.

“Are you going to let your son talk to me that way?” my father asked my mother.

“Why is he always my son when he does something wrong?” she asked in a mock-hurt tone.

“I think that’s obvious.”

“Well, even if you don’t want to ride it, I’d like to go and see the elephant,” my mom said.

She started to get up but seemed to lose her balance and began to tumble backwards. I reached out and offered her a hand to steady her, and my father practically jumped to his feet to help.

“I guess I’m a little unsteady on my feet. How about if my two handsome men escort me over to see the elephant?”

She offered her arms and my father and I took our places on either side of her. Slowly the three of us started across the sand.

“It’s another perfect day in Paradise,” my mother said.

“That it is,” my father agreed.

The weather was what people talked about when they didn’t want to talk about anything else. She wasn’t doing very well today. That wasn’t just my imagination.