John handed her the tub of white butter. She spread a thick layer onto one of the bagel halves and stared at it. She knew exactly how it would taste, and that she liked it, but she couldn’t bring herself to bite into it until she could tell herself its name. Lydia watched her mother studying her bagel.

“Cream cheese, Mom.”

“Right. Cream cheese. Thank you, Lydia.”

The phone rang, and John went inside the house to answer it. The first thought that jumped to the front of Alice’s mind was that it was her mother, calling to let them know she was going to be late getting there. The thought, seemingly realistic and colored with immediacy, appeared as reasonable as expecting John to return to the patio table within the next few minutes. Alice corrected the impetuous thought, scolded it, and put it away. Her mother and sister had died when she was a freshman in college. It was maddening to have to keep reminding herself of this.

Alone with her daughter, at least for the moment, she took the opportunity to get a word in.

“Lydia, what about going to school for a degree in theater?”

“Mom, didn’t you understand a word of what I was just saying? I don’t need a degree.”

“I heard every word of what you said, and I understood it all. I was thinking more big picture. I’m sure there are aspects of your craft that you haven’t yet explored, things you could still learn, maybe even directing? The point is, a degree opens more doors should you ever need them.”

“And what doors are those?”

“Well, for one, the degree would give you the credibility to teach if you ever wanted to.”

“Mom, I want to be an actor, not a teacher. That’s you, not me.”

“I know that, Lydia, you’ve made that abundantly clear. I’m not necessarily thinking of a teacher at a university or college anyway, although you could. I was thinking that you could someday run workshops just like the ones you’ve been taking and love so much.”

“Mom, I’m sorry, but I’m not going to spend any energy on thinking about what I might do if I’m not good enough to make it as an actor. I don’t need to doubt myself like that.”

“I’m not doubting that you can have a career as an actor. But what if you decide to have a family someday, and you’d like to slow down a bit but still stay in the business? Teaching workshops, even from your home, might be a nice flexibility to have. Plus, it’s not always what you know, but who you know. The networking possibilities you’d have with classmates, professors, alumnae, I’m sure there’s an inner circle you simply don’t have access to without a degree or a body of work already proven in the business.”

Alice paused, waiting for Lydia’s “yeah, but,” but she didn’t say anything.

“Just consider it. Life only gets busier. It’s a harder thing to fit in as you get older. Maybe talk to some of the people in your ensemble and get their perspectives on what’s involved in continuing an acting career into your thirties and forties and older. Okay?”

“Okay.”

Okay. That was the closest they’d ever come to agreement on the subject. Alice tried to think of something else to talk about but couldn’t. For so long now, they had talked only about this. The silence between them grew.

“Mom, what does it feel like?”

“What does what feel like?”

“Having Alzheimer’s. Can you feel that you have it right now?”

“Well, I know I’m not confused or repeating myself right now, but just a few minutes ago, I couldn’t find ‘cream cheese,’ and I was having a hard time participating in the conversation with you and your dad. I know it’s only a matter of time before those types of things happen again, and the times between when it happens are getting shorter. And the things that are happening are getting bigger. So even when I feel completely normal, I know I’m not. It’s not over, it’s just a rest. I don’t trust myself.”

As soon as she finished, she worried she’d admitted too much. She didn’t want to scare her daughter. But Lydia didn’t flinch and stayed interested, and Alice relaxed.

“So you know when it’s happening?”

“Most of the time.”

“Like what was happening when you couldn’t think of the name for cream cheese?”

“I know what I’m looking for, my brain just can’t get to it. It’s like if you decided you wanted that glass of water, only your hand won’t pick it up. You ask it nicely, you threaten it, but it just won’t budge. You might finally get it to move, but then you grab the saltshaker instead, or you knock the glass and spill the water all over the table. Or by the time you get your hand to hold the glass and bring it to your lips, the itch in your throat has cleared, and you don’t need a drink anymore. The moment of need has passed.”

“That sounds like torture, Mom.”

“It is.”

“I’m so sorry you have this.”

“Thanks.”

Lydia reached out across the dishes and glasses and years of distance and held her mother’s hand. Alice squeezed it and smiled. Finally, they’d found something else they could talk about.

ALICE WOKE UP ON THE couch. She’d been napping a lot lately, sometimes twice a day. While her attention and energy benefited greatly from the extra rest, reentry into the day was jarring. She looked at the clock on the wall. Four fifteen. She couldn’t remember what time she’d dozed off. She remembered eating lunch. A sandwich, some kind of sandwich, with John. That was probably around noon. The corner of something hard pressed into her hip. The book she’d been reading. She must’ve fallen asleep while reading.

Four twenty. Lydia’s rehearsal ran until seven. She sat up and listened. She could hear the seagulls squawking at Hardings and imagined their scavenger hunt, a mad race to find and devour every last crumb left behind by those careless, sunburned humans. She stood up and set out on her own hunt, less frenzied than the gulls’, for John. She checked their bedroom and study. She looked out into the driveway. No car. Just about to curse him for not leaving a note, she found it under a magnet on the refrigerator door.

Ali—Went for a drive, be back soon, John

She sat back down on the couch and picked up her book, Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austen, but didn’t open it. She didn’t really want to be reading it now. She’d been about halfway through Moby-Dick and lost it. She and John had turned the house upside down without success. They’d even looked in every peculiar spot that only a demented person would place a book—the refrigerator and freezer, the pantry, their dresser drawers, the linen closet, the fireplace. But neither of them could find it. She’d probably left it at the beach. She hoped she’d left it at the beach. That was at least something she would’ve done before Alzheimer’s.

John had offered to pick her up another copy. Maybe he’d gone to the bookstore. She hoped he had. If she waited much longer, she’d forget what she’d already read and have to start over. All that work. Just the thought of it made her tired again. In the meantime, she’d started Jane Austen, whom she’d always liked. But this one wasn’t holding her attention.

She wandered upstairs to Lydia’s bedroom. Of her three children, she knew Lydia the least. On the top of her dresser, turquoise and silver rings, a leather necklace, and a colorfully beaded one spilled over an open cardboard box. Next to the box sat a pile of hair clips and a tray for burning incense. Lydia was a bit of a hippie.

Her clothes lay all over the floor, some folded, most not. There couldn’t have been much of anything actually in her dresser drawers. She’d left her bed unmade. Lydia was a bit of a slob.

Books of poetry and plays lined the shelves of her bookcase—’Night Mother, Dinner with Friends, Proof, A Delicate Balance, Spoon River Anthology, Agnes of God, Angels in America, Oleanna. Lydia was an actress.

She picked up several of the plays and flipped through them. They were each only about eighty to ninety pages, and each of those pages was only sparsely filled with text. Maybe it’d be easier and more satisfying to read plays. And I could talk about them with Lydia. She held on to Proof.