Page 88 of When Lemons Give You Life

“Did he forgive her?”

I sigh. “Eventually. They were never quite the same, but they’d meet every month or so for a meal or a movie. I didn’t like it, but I dealt with it. Beau was the most forgiving person on the planet. He begged me to forgive her too, but I couldn’t. It wasn’t as though it was just that one event; there was too much baggage.”

“And now you can’t?”

“Can’t what?”

“Forgive. Because that would mean fessing up, right?”

A weight presses on my chest. “It doesn’t matter. I’d already decided our relationship was a write-off on the day I got ‘diagnosed.’”

He stands, pacing the room. “I’ve been wanting to ask . . . how exactly did you fake something so big?”

“I created it, step by step. Just like a recipe.”

55

Griff (age 63)

March 2024

Déjà vu hits as we enter the building. Not the warm, good kind, like the smell of baked cinnamon or the echo of laughter in an old kitchen: the cold kind that settles in your bones.

Dr. Lorne smiles as we take our seats. There’s little solace in the fact that there will be no prostate exam today.

Lisa talks like I’m not even there. Is this what Beau felt like on the day of his sentencing?

The doctor pulls out the Mini-Mental State Exam. I could fail it in my sleep; I have all the information I need. My habit of writing down and keeping everything, which once annoyed Beau, will now help him more than he’ll ever know. I held on to the pamphlets from his first visit, the notes I had taken, names and results of tests. I know an abnormal brain scan is not needed for a diagnosis, that it’s based on behavior, on signs and symptoms. I googled case studies, and I watched YouTube videos of people with early-onset Alzheimer’s and their families.

This isn’t the first time I’ve had to put on an act. I’d played a straight man for the entirety of my teen years. I’ve become Beau’s understudy; I’ve learned his lines, movements and expressions. After a month of research, I’m ready to take the stage. But I can’t do it all at once—that would surely arouse suspicion. I figure that three or four months is the shortest credible time if I have an even more rapidly progressing variety of dementia than Beau has. Faster than that, and the doctor might suspect I’ve had a stroke.

I wrote out my plan like a recipe in my notebook: Three cups of forgetfulness, one tablespoon of walkabouts, a hundred grams of putting things in the wrong place, three teaspoons of not remembering the name of something. I go light on the yelling—that had stood out like lipstick on a goat with Beau but would be mere lip balm on me. I’ve hidden the notebook in the most impenetrable fortress known to Lisa: in a box of instruction manuals, behind the cleaning supplies.

My sister’s face barely moves when the diagnosis is given. Not because she isn’t sad, but because I think she’s known for some time; I’ve tried to make sure of that.

“I’m so sorry, Lisa,” says Dr. Lorne. “It’s incredibly rare and unlucky for both of them to have this diagnosis, especially this particular type. But the tests don’t lie.”

Only I do.

Guilt shows up often, but love always overpowers it. I can think only of Beau. Now, I wait.

One Friday, from Beau’s room, I overhear Lisa tell Allison she wants to admit me. I pull him tight into my arms.

“Would you look at the two of them,” Dayna says, appearing in the doorway beside my sister, her palm pressed to her chest. “Perhaps it’s a small mercy that they both have it—it’s an awful thing for partners to witness.”

I inhale slowly. I’ve just bought myself a front-row seat, but I wouldn’t have it any other way. Because from here, I can reach his hand.

“It’s pretty special what they have, isn’t it?” the nurse continues.

Lisa nods. “Yes, they’d do anything for each other.”

She has no idea how true that is.

There’s no waiting list, and I move in a few days later.

We have what we wanted. A room. A life of sorts. It isn’t perfect. But now we are together, and that counts for everything.

Beau wakes like the world has rearranged itself overnight. His watery eyes spring open, blinking rapidly, unfocused yet full of fear. “Hello? Griff? Are you here? Where am I?”