Chapter 30

The giddy feeling was not something anyone else needed to know about. Raquel Thompson was becoming a problem for me and it wasn’t one I particularly knew what to do about.

CHAPTER 12

RAQUEL

Isat in my truck outside my house, staring at the desert while the doctor gently explained that my father’s brain was beginning to fail him. “Our tests show that he’s in the beginning stages of Alzheimer’s disease. Early onset. It’s good you brought him in, Ms. Thompson. We caught it early.”

My eyelids slammed shut, the other words he was saying just drifting in one ear and out the other.I heard words like “manageable” and “good prognosis considering his age and general health,” but it barely sank in.

This was brutal, hearing a specialist confirm what I’d feared most. When I reopened my eyes, I half-expected something to have changed. My father, my absolute, all-time hero, had Alzheimer’s.

Surely, that meant an event of apocalyptic proportions had to happenright now, but the sky wasn’t falling, a lone bird was still calling from somewhere, and the dry heat was still baking the dust around my house like nothing had changed.

“Your father has been in good health until now, but he’s definitely declining,” the doctor was saying when I tuned back in. “At this point, we usually advise our patients’ families to start long-term planning.”

“Wha—” My voice failed me, just completely giving out on the first word I’d tried to speak since receiving the news. I cleared my throat, but I still sounded unsteady when I finally managed to voice the question. “What does that mean,long-term planning?”

“You need to start thinking about the future, Ms. Thompson,” he said gently. “Things like what is going to happen to his business and how you’ll be handling his finances. This is also a good time to start considering your support system in terms of future care.”

Future care. Good Lord.

I pressed the heel of my hand against my forehead and tried to remember how to breathe. My dad still climbed under trucks every other day, rebuilding carburetors nobody else in the county would even touch, and now I was suddenly supposed to start thinking about how we were going tocarefor him?

“We don’t know how fast the disease will progress,” the doctor said. “It could be years before he needs full-time care, but he could also require it sooner. Everyone is different, but if you’re going to be considering a care facility, for example, now is a good time to start taking tours and finding out about availability. You could also start discussing the eventuality of care with your support system to see if or how you might be able to manage caring for him yourself.”

Holy fucking shit.

I swallowed hard. If he could just tell us exactly when things were going to get bad, at least we could brace for impact, but this?

Uncertainty was a lot harder to fight.How are we supposed to accurately prepare for shoving Dad into ahome?

“Thank you,” I finally muttered. “We’ll look into what needs to be done.”

“Good luck, Raquel,” the doctor said. “My office will call to set up another appointment.”

I nodded despite the fact that he couldn’t see me. Then I hung up and just sat there, gripping the steering wheel so hard that my knuckles were white. But I wasn’t going anywhere. The truck’s engine was already off. Logically, I should’ve just climbed out and gone into my house, but I didn’t.

I couldn’t move, some deluded part of me feeling like it would become real if I got out. Like the truck was now my bubble of delusion and as long as I stayed in it Dad would be fine.

After staring at the house for another full minute, I abruptly started the truck again.Nope. I can’t do it. These feet aren’t hitting the dirt just yet. Not until… just… not yet.

There were suddenly so many things I had to do and consider that I’d never even thought of. My dad was only in his mid-fifties, for God’s sake. He wasn’told,frail, or weak. To me, he was like Superman, but if Superman was smart too, always able to solve any problem and being able to give advice on exactly what to do.

Now I had to somehow process that he was not infallible, immortal, or immune to every disease.I mean, what the hell?

It felt impossible that he could have Alzheimer’s.

Any other person, sure, but Clyde Thompson? No way.

Dad could remember baseball stats from the year I was born and he could recite a poem he’d been taught in elementary school with barely a prompt.

My thoughts trailed off as I drove into town because it was then that I realized that wasn’t true anymore. Or at least, he hadn’t been doing any of that for at least a year. All those things he used to know so well, the price of every item in our inventory and the ideal size tire for every truck, evaded him these days. Often.

On a whim, I pulled into the grocery store parking lot and headed inside to pick up some stuff to take over to his house. Feeding him and making sure he ate well suddenly felt vitally important. Operating entirely on autopilot, I grabbed a cart and started loading up the essentials, like eggs, milk, ground beef, and every fruit and vegetable he actually liked.

I was trying to remember the flavor of soup he liked when Frieda appeared in front of me. She stopped her cart directly next to mine, and for a second, I wondered if she sensed vulnerability like sharks smelled blood, but thankfully, she didn’t ask if I was okay.

“Theo seems to be spending a lot of time over at the auto shop,” she commented, not even pretending to study the shelves around us. “Is there something you’d like to tell me, dear?”