“Don’t,” he said.
My father stopped.
“I’ve had three doctors look at my head this year, Richard,” Grandpa said. He didn’t shout. He didn’t need to. “Three. Not your golf buddy. Real doctors. They all say the same thing. I’m sharper than you are. Which, frankly, isn’t a high bar.”
Someone in the back laughed, then quickly stopped.
“Dr. Haskell,” Grandpa went on, “spent twenty minutes with me twelve years ago, when I’d just had a stroke and woke up from a nap. That’s what you used. Twenty minutes. And then you put me in a building three hours away and told my granddaughter I didn’t remember her name.”
He turned his head and looked at my mother.
“A hundred and forty-one letters, Maggie,” he said. And his voice cracked, just a little, for the first time. “I wrote her a hundred and forty-one letters. Where are they?”
