The Counting-Downers (9 page)

“No, that’s okay. Get on home. Jason will be happy to see you.”

Her smile is luminous at the mention of her husband, which confirms that I’m making the right decision of self-imposed isolation. What would it feel like to have someone in your life who brightened your face at the mere mention of his or her name? Unbidden, my thoughts drift to the sunray I held then let slip through my fingers. My mood is lighter just thinking about her. Maybe I can imagine what that would be like after all.

“Okay, if you’re sure? I don’t mind hanging around.”

“No, honestly, it’s fine.
I’m
fine,” I stress at her dubious expression. “I’m exhausted so I think I might try to sneak in a quick nap before he wakes up.” These are the magic words. Not wanting to inconvenience me, she relaxes into her decision as I release her from her guilt.

“Okay, I’ll leave you to it. Call me if you need me. Don’t just say you will, then not do it.
Actually do it
. Any time.” She gives me a stern look, knowing me well. She makes this offer and threat every day; but still I’ve never called her, even when I could use the help. Even when I could use someone to talk to. Someone who recognized me for me.

“Yes, ma’am,” I say with a mock salute.

“Behave.” Her eyes soften in fondness as she walks to the door and puts on her coat. Freya lives about 20 miles away in the nearest town to us, while central San Diego is only about an hour and a half drive away. We’re not far from civilization, but when you literally can’t see the forest for the trees, it sometimes seems like it. “I’ll be back tomorrow at 10 a.m., okay?”

“That’s great.” I open the door and walk her to her car.

She surprises me by turning around at the last minute and giving me a tight hug. She’s short, only coming up to my shoulder, but her embrace is stronger than I would’ve thought possible. “You take care of yourself. You’re doing such a good job. I know he won’t ever say it, so I’ll say it for him, and for me. You’re an incredible young man and I’m so proud of you. Be proud of yourself.”

I’m taken aback by her actions and her words. She doesn’t know it, but they mean everything to me.

I can’t remember the last time someone hugged me. I was always a tactile child, and my mother in particular loved to shower me with affection. One of the things I remember most about her was how she would smother me with kisses and cuddles. Her long blonde hair would tickle the side of my face as she hugged me. And my father would hold me steady and safe as I sat, proud, on his shoulders.

I never doubted I was loved, treasured, and
wanted
.

Even my grandfather, despite being a gruff man of few words, was liberal with embraces and encouragement before he forgot who I was. But when he stopped recognizing me, the praise and physical contact went along with his memory.

I resist the temptation to sink into Freya’s arms and never let go. I blink hard several times, fighting back the tears that are trying to fall in reaction to the unfamiliar event of hearing kind words. As if she knows this, she tightens her hold further. Her words are the reassurance I didn’t even know I was looking for.

At fourteen, I was unprepared for Alzheimer’s. I didn’t even know how to spell it, let alone what it was. And six years later, I still wake up every day not knowing what I’m doing. If I’m helping. Or hurting.

That’s not true. I’m definitely hurting.

To hear a trained professional say I’m doing okay soothes and settles something inside me. It makes me want to believe her, and I haven’t wanted anything for myself for a long time.

Although I could stay like this forever, I know it isn’t possible, so I’m the first to pull away. “Thank you,” I tell her. I don’t know how else to express my gratitude for what just occurred. Those two words just don’t seem like enough.

Her gaze is knowing as she rests her hand on my cheek before leaning on her tiptoes to kiss it. “You’re welcome, dearest boy,” she says before climbing into her Jeep and driving down the winding forest path without another word.

I watch as she disappears, and linger long after. When my legs begin to ache, I realize I can’t stand staring into the nothingness for eternity. I’m hungry and my grandfather will be awake soon so I head back inside to eat whatever Freya has made in solitude and silence.

As I’m eating, I look around our large wooden cabin. Another floor exists above us, but I had to install a large locked gate to prevent my grandfather from having access to it in case he falls down the stairs.

My room used to be upstairs, but I’ve moved downstairs into the room next to my grandfather’s, so I can hear any movements he makes. I’ve become a light sleeper after he left the house one night and started to wander through the woods.

It’s only due to luck or divine intervention that I’d woken up to have a drink of water and saw him out of the kitchen window barefoot in his pajamas. Trying to coax him back into the house when he didn’t even know who I was, or who
he
was for that matter, was an experience I never want to repeat.

The whole house has been childproofed over the years. There are covers over the sockets, locks on all of the windows and doors, and soft closing cabinets to prevent him from hurting himself in a moment of confusion.

My heart never healed after the death of my parents, but what little was left of it has been completely and utterly broken from seeing such a fiercely autonomous and resilient man being reduced to dependence and confusion over childproof-locks. Photos of my parents and my grandfather’s friends used to be on the walls and counters, but I had to take them down after they distressed him when he didn’t recognize anyone in the images.

He’s in the final and worst stages of the disease. He is no longer the man who raised me. The man I admired. My best friend. My everything. My hero.

But whoever he is, I cannot abandon him in his hour of need. Many people would have sent someone in his condition to a nursing home, but I could never do it. This has been his home for almost sixty years. He has loved, lost, and lived within these walls. When he was first diagnosed and still lucid, he made me promise never to make him leave it. He wanted to die here. And he raised me to be honorable, so I’ll live up to my word. If for no other reason than as a tribute to him.

TUCKING MY GRANDFATHER into bed later that night, I lean over and kiss him on the forehead as his wrinkly-lidded eyes close. I look up at the digital clock horizontal above his head with a mixture of sadness and relief. Sadness that he will soon leave me in this world alone. Relief that his suffering will soon be over.

He wouldn’t want to be the person he’s become. I want him to find peace. To be reunited with my grandmother, my parents, and his fallen friends, wherever it is good people go when they die. I’d rather have one more angel than have to look at the ghost of my grandfather every day. 9 months, 4 days, 12 hours, 36 minutes, 21 seconds until the last link to my past leaves me to face a future without him.

Sighing, my gaze falls on my grandfather’s antique gold stopwatch, resting on his nightstand. I lean over and pick it up, my palm sinking under its solid weight.

He’s carried it around with him for as long as I can remember, but he’s become particularly attached to it over the past few weeks. I guess it reminds him of his past, which at the moment he believes to be his present. He carries it everywhere and tells me the story of how he acquired it daily as if it’s for the first time. As if he’s eighteen and just opening a present from his father back in Norway. He’s fascinated with the progression of time and stares at the watch for hours.

I’ve had to take it into town to have the batteries changed twice already. The quick hands are ominous in their spinning, bringing us ever closer to the final goodbye. I press the button to halt time, feeling for a second as if I truly have the power to do that. If only.

“It always comes back to T.I.M.E.”

Placing it back on his nightstand, I tiptoe over to the door, making sure there are no hazards in his path should he wake up in the middle of the night.

“Pappa?” His small, groggy voice breaks through the darkness causing me to freeze my movements.

“Pappa?” he asks again in Norwegian, the only language he speaks these days, “Story? Please?”

Remember when I said I had no pieces of my heart left to break? I was wrong. My chest aches as they shatter, slicing my skin from the inside.

He thinks I’m his father. And that he’s a small boy.

Earlier this evening, he thought I was a younger version of himself and he was one of his teenage friends. Hearing him call me, Jürgen, his name, was like a stab to the stomach. But I carried on the charade. He becomes too upset and confused if you contradict him. Freya and I both learned a long time ago to play along. He often mistakes her for my mother, Astrid.

Sometimes, he thinks I’m a son he never had. My mother was an only child.

Sometimes, he thinks I’m a total stranger. Those days are the worst.

I am no longer Tristan, his grandson. I haven’t been him for a while.

I am whoever he wants me to be. And sometimes I am unwanted.

Taking a moment to compose myself, I will the tears away for the second time that day. Clearing my throat, I glance back at him over my shoulder to see him peek out from under the covers in hopeful excitement. He looks five, instead of seventy-five.

“Sure,” I tell him, making my way back over to the bed and sitting next to him as he burrows closer to me, closing his eyes in contentment.

And through a voice hoarse with unshed tears and unexpressed emotion, I tell him a tale. The story of a brave little boy who travelled on an odyssey across turbulent seas and grew up to be a soldier for his new country.

The man the boy became was courageous and strong. People were in awe of his bravery, so much so that he won several medals. And after he finished in the army, he fell in love with a pretty lumberjack’s daughter and built himself a cabin in the woods so they could live there together.

Even with his new life in the forest, the man continued to be a hero to many. He scared away bears, built people houses with his bare hands, and fought to protect the wildlife that surrounded his home.

The man and his wife had one daughter who grew up to be a beautiful, kind, and loving doctor. She fell in love with a successful businessman who adored her and after several years, the man had a grandson who loved and idolized him as well. He lived happily ever after and died a legend, brave until his very last breath.

My grandfather is quiet for a while, and I think he’s fallen asleep before he slurs something that sounds a lot like, “I want to be just like him when I grow up, Pappa.” His speech is fading these days so it can be hard to decipher his words.

How I manage to hold it together, I have no idea. I lean over and kiss his forehead again before rolling out of bed and tucking him in for a second time. “You will be,” I tell him. “Sleep well, son.”

“Goodnight, Pappa,” he murmurs as I close the door behind him.

Stumbling to my room, I close the door behind me and stagger to the bed, where I just collapse into myself.

I shatter. I splinter. I break. I’m broken.

I sob and sob and sob until my lungs plead for air and my eyes for mercy. I sob until I don’t have a single ounce of energy left. Days and weeks and months and years of repressed emotion pour out of my eyes and into my pillow drenching it and drowning me. I sob into the unsympathetic silence.

When there are no tears left to shed, I force myself to think about anything other than the past two hours. I stare out into the blackness and bleakness through crimson eyes.

My mind replays the events of the day as if watching a silent movie. With all of the sadness and tears, I forgot I
laughed
today. That for half a second, I was carefree and able to act my age.

Today, for a few hours, I was
Tristan
, not someone who was fictional or dead. Someone saw
me
. The real me. The me I’m starting to lose with all of the characters I have to play.

And it felt incredible to be seen.

I try to hold onto that feeling with frantic desperation, but it eludes my grasp like the flash of light you see behind your eyelids as you close your eyes. I’m not sure when I’ll have the chance to experience it again.

My last thought as I fall into a restless slumber is of the ray of sunshine with golden hair and emerald eyes who, for a brief moment, seemed like my salvation.