Page 78 of When Lemons Give You Life

“It’s okay, Beau,” I say, but I’m lying through my teeth. I’m terrified.

The questions go on for what feels like an eternity, each one more humiliating than the last.

The GP asks him to draw a clock face. Beau picks up the pencil and draws a circle. Placing the pencil where the twelve ought to be, he pauses, his knuckles white. He sticks out his tongue like he does when he’s really concentrating, like he’s doing our tax. Shit—am I going to have to do our tax now?

“It’s alright, I’ve got this,” he says, returning his pencil to the paper. “Sorry, doc, must be time for my afternoon espresso, I reckon!”

The doctor and I exchange glances.

I stare at the paper and hold back tears. Tiny numbers cluster on one side of the clock.

Beau sits back proudly. “Not bad for someone who failed art, hey?”

“Thanks,” says the GP, his poker face as useless as a wooden frying pan. “Lastly, can you remember those three words I mentioned at the start?”

Beau looks at the door as though it might give him the answer.

Apple, pen, window, apple, pen, window, my mind is screaming, as I pray that I’ve just been endowed with the gift of telepathy.

“Apple . . . uh . . . um . . .” He squeezes his eyes shut, willing the words to come. “Um . . .” The light in his eyes, the one I’ve always relied on, begins to flicker.

I clutch the edge of my chair so hard my fingers ache.

They said an apple a day keeps the doctor away. They lied.

I don’t hear much after that. The doctor hands the forms to me—me, not Beau. That alone says everything.

We pay at reception. This is, without a doubt, the worst thing I’ve ever paid for. I sit Beau in the waiting room with a magazine and make an excuse to duck back into the doctor’s office.

“Sorry, Dr. Lorne, I . . . I have to ask.”

“I’ll be straight with you, buddy. I’m so sorry, but it’s looking like what we feared. There are other things we need to rule out, but given the family history, I’m afraid it’s the most likely. The neurologist will be able to give you more information after an assessment, but based on the timeline you’re describing, it could be a rare, rapidly progressing variety. I’m sorry, Griff. I know this isn’t the news you wanted to hear. It’s the sourest lemon life has to give, mate.”

My throat closes. Suddenly, nothing else matters. Not what I’m going to cook for the Christmas-in-July event. Not which tiles to choose for our bathroom reno. Not my receding hairline. None of it.

I turn the key in the ignition, but I don’t feel safe to drive. Surely, shock and grief are like alcohol; I must be fifty times over the legal limit. Yet somehow, we make it home and my heart continues to beat.

Beau heads upstairs to nap, whistling absently. Still sunshine, even through the gathering storm.

I drop onto the couch, too hollowed out to cry. My eyes land on his giant Sudoku book on the coffee table. I grab it like a drowning man grabs driftwood. How can he still manage this but not answer the doctor’s counting question? I should’ve brought it in as proof that he can still think clearly, that he’s still him.

I open the first page to find ordered numbers in neat squares, but as I flip through, the room spins and comes to a jarring, sickening halt. Each entry is shakier than the last, dissolving into nonsensical squiggles.

I bury my head in my hands and sob uncontrollably, the diagnosis pounding through my skull until it’s the only thing left.

Early-onset Alzheimer’s.

45

Griff

I pass Scotty a photo of Beau and me in our nursing-home room, side by side.

He studies the picture, then looks over to the spare bed, realization dawning. “So Beau had dementia . . . he lived here, in this room too. The faking . . . it was to be with him?”

I nod and for a moment, Scotty is speechless.

“Geez, you must have loved him a lot.”