The bathroom didn’t smell right either. Two shiny, white step stools, a brush, and a bucket sat on sheets of newspaper on the floor behind her. She squatted down and breathed in through her serious nose. She pried the lid off the bucket, dipped the brush in, and watched creamy white paint dribble down.
She started with the ones she knew were defective, the one in the bathroom and the one in the bedroom she slept in. She found four more before she was finished and painted them all white.
SHE SAT IN A BIG, white chair, and the man who owned the house sat in the other one. The man who owned the house was reading a book and drinking a drink. The book was thick and the drink was yellowish brown with ice in it.
She picked up an even thicker book than the one the man was reading from the coffee table and thumbed through it. Her eyes paused on diagrams of words and letters connected to other words and letters by arrows, dashes, and little lollipops. She landed on individual words as she browsed through the pages—disinhibition, phosphorylation, genes, acetylcholine, priming, transience, demons, morphemes, phonological.
“I think I’ve read this book before,” said Alice.
The man looked over at the book she held and then at her.
“You’ve done more than that. You wrote it. You and I wrote that book together.”
Hesitant to take him at his word, she closed the book and read the shiny blue cover. From Molecules to Mind by John Howland, Ph.D. and Alice Howland, Ph.D. She looked up at the man in the chair. He’s John. She flipped to the front pages. “Table of Contents. Mood and Emotion, Motivation, Arousal and Attention, Memory, Language.” Language.
She opened the book to somewhere near the end. “An infinite possibility of expression, learned yet instinctive, semanticity, syntax, case grammar, irregular verbs, effortless and automatic, universal.” The words she read seemed to push past the choking weeds and sludge in her mind to a place that was pristine and still intact, hanging on.
“John,” she said.
“Yes.”
He put his book down and sat up straight at the edge of his big, white chair.
“I wrote this book with you,” she said.
“Yes.”
“I remember. I remember you. I remember I used to be very smart.”
“Yes, you were, you were the smartest person I’ve ever known.”
This thick book with the shiny blue cover represented so much of what she used to be. I used to know how the mind handled language, and I could communicate what I knew. I used to be someone who knew a lot. No one asks for my opinion or advice anymore. I miss that. I used to be curious and independent and confident. I miss being sure of things. There’s no peace in being unsure of everything all the time. I miss doing everything easily. I miss being a part of what’s happening. I miss feeling wanted. I miss my life and my family. I loved my life and family.
She wanted to tell him everything she remembered and thought, but she couldn’t send all those memories and thoughts, composed of so many words, phrases, and sentences, past the choking weeds and sludge into audible sound. She boiled it down and put all her effort into what was most essential. The rest would have to remain in the pristine place, hanging on.
“I miss myself.”
“I miss you, too, Ali, so much.”
“I never planned to get like this.”
“I know.”
SEPTEMBER 2005
John sat at the end of a long table and took a large sip from his black coffee. It tasted extremely strong and bitter, but he didn’t care. He didn’t drink it for its taste. He’d drink it faster if he could, but it was scalding hot. He’d need two or three more large cups before he’d become fully alert and functional.
Most of the people who came in bought their caffeine to go and hurried on their way. John didn’t have lab meeting for another hour, and he felt no compelling pressure to get to his office early today. He was content to take his time, eat his cinnamon scone, drink his coffee, and read the New York Times.
He opened to the “Health” section first, as he’d done with every newspaper he’d read for over a year now, a habit that had long ago replaced most of the hope that originally inspired the behavior. He read the first article on the page and cried openly as his coffee cooled.
AMYLIX FAILS TRIAL
According to the results of Synapson’s Phase III study, patients with mild to moderate Alzheimer’s disease who took Amylix during the fifteen-month trial failed to show a significant stabilization of dementia symptoms compared with placebo.
Amylix is a selective amyloid-beta–lowering agent. By binding soluble Abeta 42, this experimental drug’s aim is to stop progression of the disease, and it is unlike the drugs currently available to patients with Alzheimer’s, which can at best only delay the disease’s ultimate course.
The drug was well tolerated and sailed through Phases I and II with much clinical promise and Wall Street expectation. But after a little over a year on the medication, the cognitive functioning of the patients receiving even the highest dose of Amylix failed to show improvement or stabilization as measured by the Alzheimer’s Disease Assessment Scale and scores on Activities of Daily Living, and they declined at a rate that was significant and expected.
EPILOGUE
Alice sat on a bench with the woman and watched the children walking by them. Not really children. They weren’t the kind of small children who lived at home with their mothers. What were they? Medium children.
She studied the faces of the medium children as they walked. Serious, busy. Heavy-headed. Headed on their way somewhere. There were other benches nearby, but none of the medium children stopped to sit. Everyone walked, busy on their way to where they must go.