Page 37 of Woman on the Verge

Thankfully, Liv was shoveling noodles into her face. If she followed in her sister’s footsteps, she wouldn’t start becoming a total pain in the ass about eating until her third birthday.

“No, Grace, you have to eat all your noodles.”

She collapsed, moaning, as if I’d just told her I’d systematically removed the heads of all her dolls, which seemed like it would be incredibly gratifying in that moment.

“How much do I have to eat?” she whined.

“All. Of. The. Noodles.”

“Nooooooo.”

“Grace, seriously. Mommy is really tired. Eat your noodles or no dessert.”

This led to more sobbing. I did my best to ignore it, which has always been Kyle’s advice: “You just have to ignore it.” It was advice we’d both been applying to our marriage.

I turned up the volume on the YouTube video—this one featuring a girl slowly unboxing a dollhouse—and poured myself a glass of wine. I texted Merry, told her I was home safe.

I wish you could have stayed. How am I going to deal with this alone?

I drank my wine like it was juice. I didn’t need this guilt trip from her. We’d talked about this, about how Kyle works, about how I have the girls. It had crossed my mind that I could bring the girls up there withme, stay indefinitely. But I was sure I would end up institutionalized in those circumstances.

You’re not dealing with this alone. I’m here for you, even if I’m not physically there every day. Okay?

She sent a kissy-face emoji, and that was that.

When Merry and I had visited the hospital earlier that day, there were still no answers. My dad seemed content, though confused as ever. Every few minutes, he was surprised to realize he was in the hospital. They were waiting to attempt a lumbar puncture. Apparently, they had attempted the night before and could not get the needle in or something. They were quite sure they would be successful the second time, had called in the Spinal Tap Big Guns.

“That test may give us more information,” the neurologist, a young Chinese woman, said. According to her badge, her name was Charlene Lee. She couldn’t have been more than five feet tall, swimming in her pale-green scrubs.

“What do you think is wrong with him?” Merry asked.

I looked at my dad, who was smiling absently, seemingly unbothered by us talking about him as if he wasn’t there. Merry sat next to him on the hospital bed, held his hand. They’d never been a physically affectionate couple, even in their early days (from what I can remember, at least). It was strange to see Merry cling to him.

“The list of possibilities is long,” Dr. Lee said. “Cognitive decline in a subacute period is very concerning, especially for someone who is fairly young and healthy.”

Only in a hospital setting is a sixty-eight-year-old man considered “fairly young.”

“We’re looking for vitamin deficiencies, infections, toxins, seizures, autoimmune issues, tumors,” she said.

“Tumors?” Merry asked. She seemed alarmed. How had she not considered tumors?

Dr. Lee nodded.

“We’ve sent a paraneoplastic syndrome panel to the Mayo Clinic. Those results take a week.”

Merry said, “A week?”

I said, “A para ... what?”

“Paraneoplastic syndrome. It’s when the antibodies in the body go to fight a tumor somewhere else and mistakenly attack cells in the nervous system. And yes, it’s a very specialized test, so it takes a few days.”

Merry sighed her displeasure.

“What about his fall?” she asked.

It took a moment for the doctor to recall what she was talking about.

“With the golf ball?” Dr. Lee asked.