“Great, now name for me as many words as you can in a minute that begin with the letter s.”

“Sarah, something, stupid, sound. Survive, sick. Sex. Serious. Something. Oops, I said that. Said. Scared.”

“Now name as many words as you can that begin with the letter f.”

“Forget. Forever. Fun. Fight, flight, fit. Fuck.” She laughed, surprised at herself. “Sorry about that one.”

Sorry begins with s.

“That’s okay, I get that one a lot.”

Alice wondered how many words she would’ve been able to rattle off a year ago. She wondered how many words per minute were considered normal.

“Now, name as many vegetables as you can.”

“Asparagus, broccoli, cauliflower. Leeks, onion. Pepper. Pepper, I don’t know, I can’t think of any more.”

“Last one, name as many animals with four legs as you can.”

“Dogs, cats, lions, tigers, bears. Zebras, giraffes. Gazelle.”

“Now read this sentence aloud for me.”

Sarah Something handed her a sheet of paper.

“On Tuesday, July second, in Santa Ana, California, a wildfire shut down John Wayne Airport, stranding thirty travelers, including six children and two firemen,” Alice read.

It was an NYU story, a test of declarative memory performance.

“Now, tell me as many details as you can about the story you just read.”

“On Tuesday, July second, in Santa Ana, California, a fire stranded thirty people in an airport, including six children and two firemen.”

“Great. Now, I’m going to show you a series of pictures on cards, and you’re going to just tell me the names of them.”

The Boston Naming Exam.

“Briefcase, pinwheel, telescope, igloo, hourglass, rhinoceros.” A four-legged animal. “Racquet. Oh, wait, I know what it is, it’s a ladder for plants, a lattice? No. A trellis! Accordion, pretzel, rattle. Oh, wait, again. We have one in our yard at the Cape. It’s between the trees, you lie on it. It’s not a hangar. It’s a, halyard? No. Oh god, it begins with h, but I can’t get it.”

Sarah Something made a notation on her score sheet. Alice wanted to argue that her omission could just as easily have been a normal case of blocking as a symptom of Alzheimer’s. Even perfectly healthy college students typically experienced one to two tips of the tongue per week.

“That’s okay, let’s keep going.”

Alice named the rest of the pictures without further difficulties, but she still couldn’t activate the neuron that encoded the missing name of the napping net. Theirs hung between the two spruce trees in their yard in Chatham. Alice remembered many late afternoon naps there with John, the pleasure of the breezy shade, the intersection of his chest and shoulder her pillow, the familiar scent of their fabric softener on his cotton shirt combined with the summer smells of his sunburned and ocean-salty skin intoxicating her every inhalation. She could remember all of that, but not the name of the damn h-thing they lay on.

She sailed through the WAIS-R Picture Arrangement test, Raven’s Colored Progressive Matrices, the Luria Mental Rotation test, the Stroop test, and copying and remembering geometric figures. She checked her watch. She’d been in that little room for just over an hour.

“Okay, Alice, now I’d like you to think back to that short story you read earlier. What can you tell me about it?”

She swallowed her panic, and it lodged, heavy and hulking, right above her diaphragm, making it uncomfortable to breathe. Either her pathways to the details of the story were impassable or she lacked the electrochemical strength to knock loudly enough on the neurons housing them to be heard. Outside of this closet, she could look up lost information in her BlackBerry. She could reread her emails and write herself reminders on Post-it notes. She could rely on the default respect her Harvard position embodied. Outside of this little room, she could hide her impassable pathways and wimpy neural signals. And although she knew that these tests were designed to unveil what she couldn’t access, she was caught unsuspecting and embarrassed.

“I don’t really remember much.”

There it was, her Alzheimer’s, stripped and naked under the fluorescent lighting, on display for Sarah Something to scrutinize and judge.

“That’s okay, tell me what you do remember, anything at all.”

“Well, it was about an airport, I think.”

“Did the story take place on a Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, or Wednesday?”

“I don’t remember.”

“Just take a guess then.”

“Monday.”

“Was there a hurricane, a flood, a wildfire, or an avalanche?”

“A wildfire.”

“Did the story take place in April, May, June, or July?”

“July.”

“Which airport was shut down: John Wayne, Dulles, or LAX?”

“LAX.”

“How many travelers were stranded: thirty, forty, fifty, or sixty?”

“I don’t know, sixty.”

“How many children were stranded: two, four, six, or eight?”

“Eight.”

“Who else became stranded: two firemen, two policemen, two businessmen, or two teachers?”

“Two firemen.”

“Great, you’re all done here. I’ll walk you over to Dr. Davis.”

Great? Was it possible that she remembered the story but didn’t know she knew it?

SHE WALKED INTO DR. DAVIS’S office surprised to see John already there, sitting in the seat that had remained conspicuously empty on her previous two visits. They were all there now. Alice, John, and Dr. Davis. She couldn’t believe that this was really happening, that this was her life, that she was a sick woman at her neurologist’s appointment with her husband. She almost felt like a character in a play, this woman with Alzheimer’s disease. The husband held his script in his lap. Only it wasn’t a script, it was the Activities of Daily Living questionnaire. (Interior of Doctor’s Office. The woman’s neurologist sits across from the woman’s husband. Enter the woman.)

“Alice, have a seat. I’ve just had a few minutes here with John.”

John spun his wedding band and jiggled his right leg. Their chairs touched, so he was causing hers to vibrate. What had they been talking about? She wanted to talk to John in private before they began, to find out what had happened and to get their stories straight. And she wanted to ask him to stop shaking her.

“How are you?” asked Dr. Davis.

“I’m good.”

He smiled at her. It was a kind smile, and it dulled the edges of her apprehension.

“Okay, how about your memory? Are there any additional concerns or changes since the last time you were here?”

“Well, I’d say I’m having a harder time keeping track of my schedule. I have to refer to my BlackBerry and to-do lists all day long. And I hate talking on the phone now. If I can’t see the person I’m talking to, I have a really hard time understanding the entire conversation. I usually lose track of what the person is saying while I’m chasing down words in my head.”

“How about disorientation, any more episodes of feeling lost or confused?”

“No. Well, sometimes I get confused as to what time of day it is, even looking at my watch, but I eventually figure it out. I did go to my office once thinking it was morning and didn’t realize until I got back home that it was the middle of the night.”

“You did?” asked John. “When was this?”

“I don’t know, last month, I think.”

“Where was I?”

“Asleep.”

“Why am I just finding out about this now, Ali?”

“I don’t know, I forgot to tell you?”

She smiled, but it didn’t seem to change him. If anything, the edges of his apprehension got a little sharper.

“This type of confusion and night wandering is very common, and it’s likely to happen again. You might want to consider attaching a jingle bell to the front door or something that would wake John up if it opened in the middle of the night. And you should probably register with the Alzheimer’s Association’s Safe Return program. I think it’s something like forty dollars, and you wear an ID bracelet with a personal code on it.”