A Slender Thread Read Free

this. I’d be talking”—she paused—“and couldn’t come up with a word—something stupid, like I’m going . . . to the post office. I couldn’t say ‘post office.’ Or, Alex . . . Alex would ask me something. I’d open my mouth and nothing would come out. This fall it’s gotten worse.”
    Margot remembered thinking that Lacey had seemed distracted the last time they spoke on the phone. She had pictured her sister stirring something on the stove, glancing at a recipe, all the while listening to Margot’s explanation of her travel plans for this Thanksgiving holiday. Perhaps one of Lacey’s twin daughters, Wink or Toni, had been hurrying past, mouthing something silently to her mother at the same time.
    Yet Margot’s sister had always been able to do many things at once, a veritable multitasker before the term was invented. She was organized, unflappable, while Margot was the scattered one—searching through her closet at the last minute for the black skirt to wear to some art opening with Oliver, only to remember that it was still at the cleaners and that the pants that also went with the silk top she wanted to wear had caught on her heel the last time she had worn them and the hem of one leg was still undone. Oliver would fidget in front of CNN looking annoyed while she rummaged in the kitchen for Scotch tape to do a temporary repair job.
    â€œIs it possible it could be menopause?” Margot asked, her thoughts jumping erratically as she sought some explanation for Lacey’s illness.
    â€œIt’s not. And it’s getting worse.” She puckered her lips and let out a rush of breath.
    Lacey stopped at a light. They’d crossed over Route 95, and were driving into Portsmouth. Margot was still foggy from getting up early to make her flight. Lacey’s news was impossible to grasp, inconceivable.
    â€œLack of sleep, some memory loss, sure, that’s”—Lacey paused—“normal when you’re menopausal. Forgetfulness now and again.” She stopped speaking, as if the telling of this string of ideas was exhausting. “Now it happens every day, several times a day. I thought I had Alzheimer’s.”
    â€œYou’re too young for that,” Margot said quickly, thinking of Alex’s elderly mother, lost to all of them in her muffled world.
    â€œNot necessarily. But it’s not.”
    â€œWhat’s it called again?”
    â€œPrimary Progressive Aphasia.” Lacey said it like a mantra, as if she had practiced the phrase to be able to say it with ease. These were words she had to know—the words that would come to define her life. She reached into the handbag and handed Margot an index card. “It’s hard for me to explain. Read this,” she said. “I can give you more information later.”
    Margot recognized Lacey’s handwriting, though her once large and elegant script looked wobbly on the small card. Perhaps Lacey had still been in shock as she copied out the essential facts that the doctors had told her.
    Primary Progressive Aphasia, a form of frontotemporal dementia, is caused by brain cell degeneration. “Aphasia” refers to deficits in language functions. The patient slowly loses the ability to use language—first the use of speech, and later the ability to understand, read, or write. The onset of this form of dementia occurs in younger individuals, the symptoms possibly presenting as early as forty-five years of age.
    Margot had never heard of this disease. The brutal medical terms were chilling. “Should you be driving?” she asked.
    â€œIt’s fine. Everything in my brain is fine. I understand. I can do everything.” Lacey paused. “Only . . .” Her chin lifted as if in determination. “It’s getting more and more difficult to get the words out.”
    For the next few minutes neither sister spoke while Lacey