Page 62 of Friend Me

Dad shook his hand and straightened to his full height so he was almost at Tyler’s eye level. “Will Rice.” He sounded so normal. But then he said, “I was going to visit Maggie.”

Tyler raised his eyebrows at me. I shook my head. “Come on, Dad,” I said. “Let’s go home.” I walked beside him, gripping his free arm as he leaned on his cane and shuffled out behind Tyler.

I wedged myself into the tiny back seat and marveled at how easily Tyler engaged Dad in conversation as he drove us home. They talked about baseball, and even I could tell that Dad was jumping back and forth between this year’s playoffs and some series from ten or twenty years before, but Tyler followed his leaps without comment. Still, I was glad for the ride to be over when we reached our house.

While I hugged Alma and told her what had happened, Dad went to bed. The lines around his eyes and mouth told me he was exhausted, even if he wouldn’t admit it.

I felt it, too. My knees trembled, and my limbs were heavy. My head was packed with mud, the thoughts struggling through it. The stress that had tightened my spine and kept me going for the past ninety minutes—had it been only that?—left me all at once, and I collapsed, boneless, on the couch.

Tyler stood in the middle of the living room, hands on his hips, making the room look smaller even than it was. “Mind if I make us something to eat? I haven’t had dinner yet, and I imagine you haven’t, either.”

The last thing I wanted to do was haul myself into the kitchen, but it was the least I could do for Tyler, who’d been so strong through my ordeal. “Give me a minute, and I’ll—”

“No,” he cut me off. “Stay there. I’ll find us something. That is, if it’s okay with you?”

I tried to muster the energy to be the hospitable friend I should’ve been. I just—couldn’t. “Fine.” I stretched out on the couch. I’d rest for a few minutes. Then I’d go into the kitchen and help Tyler find something to cook.

A hand on my shoulder nudged me awake. I groaned as I sat up. I hadn’t meant to fall asleep, but those dreamless, worry-free minutes had soothed my jangled nerves. Tyler sank down at the other end of the couch—he left an entire cushion between us—with a plate. He tilted his chin toward another plate in front of me on the coffee table.

“I made us sandwiches. I hope that’s okay.”

“Thank you.” I pulled the plate onto my lap. Tigger hopped up, stretched out along Tyler’s thigh, and stared at me, unblinking. We ate in silence. Until—

“Who’s Maggie?”

I finished chewing and swallowed with difficulty. My mouth had gone dry. “My mother, Margaret.”

“You told me she died. Was your dad going to visit her at the cemetery?”

“No. She was cremated. She’s over there.” I waved my hand at the small round table in the corner of the room with the floral-patterned, ceramic urn on it. Then I took a big bite of my sandwich so I wouldn’t have to say anything else.

Tyler was silent for a minute, but then he continued, “Does he have episodes like this…often?”

I set down my plate and drank from the glass of water Tyler had placed on the table in front of me. I wished it were something alcoholic. “Not this bad.” I drank again and set down the glass. “But last week, it was Dad who let the cat out. He forgot Tigger was staying here.”

I stole a look at Tyler. He set down his sandwich, and his mouth tightened. He rotated toward me, splaying one knee toward the back of the couch.

“My grandpa had Alzheimer’s.”

I froze. Alzheimer’s? I’d thought about it a couple times, but that was only for old people.

He shook his head rapidly and held out his palms to me in an “easy-there” gesture. “I’m not saying your dad has it. Although people can develop it in their forties and fifties.”

His fingers tapped his knee. “It started out small, forgetting appointments or telling the same story over and over. We made fun of him sometimes, and he laughed about it.” Tyler pulled at a frayed thread in the sofa. “But eventually, he got so bad we couldn’t leave him alone. He’d forget to turn off the stove. One time, he left the bathtub running, and it overflowed. Ruined the ceiling of the room below. And a couple of times, he wandered off. Like your dad. Couldn’t explain why he’d done it.” He smoothed down the thread and looked up at me. “After we found him standing in the middle of a busy street, we had to put him in the memory-care unit of a nursing home.”

I crossed my arms, suddenly cold. “I couldn’t do that.” I flicked my gaze to Mom’s urn, surrounded by candles and the flowers I’d picked up at the grocery store. I couldn’t lose him, too. “I’ll—I’ll hire someone. To take care of him while I’m at work.”

“Sure, that’s fine.” Tyler’s voice soothed me like honey in hot tea. “You’re taking good care of him.”

Tears prickled behind my eyes, and I reached for the plates on the coffee table.

“I’ll do it. You’ve had a hard night. Don’t worry about anything.” The blanket from the back of the sofa draped over my shoulders, and the cushion heaved as Tyler stood. While he clattered the dishes, my mind raced.

Why had Dad wandered off?

What was happening to him?

Dad used to take care of both of us. He’d been so sharp, so capable. Now I couldn’t trust him to stay home alone.

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