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Carly is likely trained in identifying distress. She passes me a box of Kleenex—I now notice that this little room has three of them.

She confirms that we are not having a formal service. My dad wouldn’t want that. Merry and I agreed on inviting his buddies to a celebration of life at the local golf club. We will tell everyone to wear Tommy Bahama shirts. There will be cocktails.

Carly asks if my dad has any jewelry I want them to set aside before the cremation. I think of how he lost his wedding band approximately one month after marrying Merry—they never stopped laughing about that.

“No jewelry,” I tell her.

She asks me if he has any metal in his body, as that can cause explosions in the cremation chamber. I tell her about his hip replacement. He had that about five years ago. I hated visiting him in the hospital, seeing him incapacitated. I had no idea then what I’d have to witness later.

“What about clothing? Do you want to save anything he comes in wearing, or would you like us to cremate it with him?”

Lately, my dad is wearing T-shirts with slits cut up the back so they’re more like hospital gowns—easier for Merry and Frank to get on and off.

I picture his favorite shirts—the Joe’s Bar one, the Maui Brewing Company one, the Old Guys Rule one.

Even though they have slits cut up the back, I want to save them.

“I’d love if you set his clothes aside.”

She makes a note.

I hear my dad again: Nikki, don’t make them keep my tighty-whities.

I smile. I would share this with Carly, but I already know that when he dies, he will be wearing a diaper.

After the appointment, I sit in my car, staring out the window, for a half hour.

Thinking of you.

Elijah.

I don’t even have the presence of mind to respond.

When I’ve accrued sufficient staring-at-nothing time, I head to see my dad. I’ve spent the past hour speaking as if he’s already dead, so part of me half expects to arrive at the house and find this to be true, Merry standing out front, eyes red, face drawn.

When I get there, my dad is, in fact, still alive, though noticeably closer to being not alive than he was a week ago. The weight loss is startling, his body disappearing before my very eyes. Where do they go, the cells that make a life?

I sit next to him as he sleeps. Merry sits at the foot of the bed, one hand on his ankle.

“He’s almost always sleeping now,” she says.

“How’s his eating?”

She shrugs. “Not great. We’re sticking to yogurt, oatmeal, soft stuff.”

The muscles he needs to swallow are atrophying like all the other muscles in his body.

Frank comes in from the back deck, where he was taking his dinner break. His face brightens when he sees me, and he says, “Well, howdy ho.”

He gives me his assessment, repeating some of what Merry has already told me.

“His spasticity is worse,” he says. “See how his muscles are all tight, how his knees and elbows are bent like that? It’s common with brain damage.”

When I take my dad’s hand, it is in a clenched fist. I hold the fist. He stirs.

“Hey, Daddy.”

His eyes blink open. It must take a while for me to come into focus, but he eventually says “Hi” in his soft, strained voice.

“I’m going to finish making dinner,” Merry says, standing from the bed, giving his leg a pat.

“And I’ll give you two some privacy,” Frank says.

That leaves just Dad and me.

“You have pretty eyes,” he says, looking at me. He’s always said I have pretty eyes. As I’m about to thank him, he says, “I see four of them.” I’m not sure if he’s serious until he laughs, and then I laugh, grateful for his ability to still joke.

I lie next to him, my head on his bony shoulder. He stares up at the ceiling.

“What do you see?” I ask.

Vision issues, even blindness, are common as CJD progresses. It is truly the worst disease I have ever heard of.

“It’s raining,” he says with a wistful smile.

I don’t question him. I just say, “I love rain.”

“Me too,” he says.

My phone buzzes in my pocket. Elijah, again.

You okay, beautiful?

I put it back in my pocket.

“Dad?”

His eyes don’t flick to me. He just keeps staring at the ceiling, at the rain.

“Daddy? I have to tell you something.”

He continues staring.

“I’m having an affair,” I whisper.

It feels like confession, my dad the all-forgiving priest, a messenger of God on earth.

“Am I a terrible person?”

His mouth opens slightly, but he doesn’t respond. Then, a moment later, he whispers something I can’t quite hear.

“What did you say?” I lean closer, close enough to smell the musty odor that is his breath, the smell of decay.

His eyes finally shift and meet mine.

“Rose?” he says.

Rose was my mother.

Again, I don’t question him. I just say, “Yes?”

“I love you, Rose.”

I wonder if he sees her waiting for him in the rain. I don’t ask. It doesn’t matter.

“I love you, Dad,” I say.

I wait until after dinner to text Elijah.

Hey. Sorry. Been such a strange, hard day.

Him: I’ve been thinking of you. If you’re not up for getting together tomorrow, I understand. I just want to support you however I can

I have received no texts from Kyle, for the record. If I make a thing about this to him, he will say, “I assumed if you wanted to talk, you would text me.” He has informed me before that he is “not a mind reader.”

I definitely want to see you. Need to see you. You are a portal back to myself and all that is good in this bizarre life

I may have had too much wine at dinner.

Him: I can’t wait to hold you

I can’t wait to be held

Amid all the lies, that is a truth. I cannot wait to be held.

That’s what he does the moment I show up at his door—he holds me. He pulls me against his chest, kisses the top of my head, and holds me. I start to cry—not dainty feminine tears but big ugly bawling that I didn’t even know I had in me.

“I’m here,” he says.

That fact, and my gratitude for it, makes me cry harder.

He does something I would normally consider weird—he lifts me off the ground and cradles me in his arms like I’m his child.

He is a large enough man for this to be possible, and it feels right and good.

He carries me to the bedroom, places me on the bed.

The room is dimly lit by candles—it’s a dreary San Francisco day, not much light streaming through the windows.

I am overcome with a sudden desire to sleep—not just a nap, but a multiday coma-like event.

“I don’t know what’s wrong with me,” I tell him once I’ve composed myself.

He lies next to me.

“I do,” he says. “Your dad is dying.”

I stare at the ceiling, then think of my dad staring at the ceiling, seeing rain. This makes me cry all over again.

He traces the shape of my face with his fingertip.

“I’m sorry. I know you had something planned for us, and—”

He shushes me, just like he did when I was blindfolded.

“Hey, I’m not in any rush. You know that, right? We’ve got time for all my plans. Today, I just want to be next to you and hold you.”

All my plans.

What are all his plans?

Can my life accommodate all his plans?

“I’m sure I’ll feel better in a little bit,” I say. “It’s just like ... whiplash. Going from seeing my dad like he is to seeing you ... like you are.”

“I bet.”

“I don’t want to spend our one day together sobbing .”

“We have many more days together,” he says. “I want to be present with the real you, the full you. If that you is sobbing, so be it.”

“Why are you so nice?”

“My mama raised me right.”

“So with all the assholes I’ve encountered, I should really blame their mothers? Seems like that’s going pretty hard on the mothers.”

He laughs, having no idea how much more I could say on this topic.

“Can you tell me something happy?” I ask. “Something about you. Something that has nothing to do with anyone dying.”

“I sure can,” he says. “I found out today that I passed the bar.”

I sit bolt upright. “What? You did?”

He smiles. “I did.”

“Oh my god, that’s amazing, Elijah. Congratulations.”

I hug him, surprising myself with how overjoyed I feel for him. I have become entirely too invested in this whole thing.

“Thank you, thank you,” he says.

“We need champagne! We need to go celebrate!”

He laughs at me the way I laugh at Grace and Liv when they are going bananas about something like an Amazon shipment of new markers.

“Slow down,” he says. “This might not be the best night for celebrating.”

“No, this is the very best night for celebrating. This is the night of the day you found out you passed the bar.”

He looks at me skeptically. “You sure you’re up for it?”

“I am now.”

“It’s really fine if we postpone.”

“I said I’m up for it. Let’s go.”

My knowledge of celebration-worthy restaurants in San Francisco is limited, so I tell Elijah to pick. He picks a fish house on Pier 39, and we manage to get a table with a view of the bay and Golden Gate Bridge. We start with a bottle of champagne and baked oysters.

“This is my treat,” he says, taking his first sip of champagne. “So don’t be pulling out your wallet at the end or something crazy like that.”

“Whatever you say, Esquire.”

He laughs.

We order our entrées—the filet for him, swordfish for me—and then he leans across the table with a serious look on his face.

“Thank you for being here with me,” he says.

“Oh, stop. I’m so glad I could be here with you.”

“I’ve been thinking.”

I take a sip of champagne that I sense I’ll need.

“I want to be more to you,” he says.

“More to me?”

“I mean, don’t get me wrong—I like what we’re doing. I just want it to be known that I really like you. I don’t want to just be your Bay Area hookup or whatever.”

“Oh,” I say, reaching for a piece of bread in the basket, and then using it as one would a stress ball. “That’s kind of a crass way of putting it. I wouldn’t say you’re my Bay Area hookup. That implies I have other area hookups.”

I laugh. This is what I do when I’m nervous, when the gravity of a particular moment overwhelms me. Elijah does not laugh.