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| A is for Albert. |
I say, “What about where he was, with Maggie and Carl and them?” I still don’t believe he is going to go; he’s not going anywhere, regardless. But Roz shakes her head. “No,” she says, meaning he can’t go there.
“It’s no different,” I say about whether I am on them or not. “He wouldn’t know if I hadn’t told him. He wouldn’t know the difference.”
“But he does know, however he knows it,” she says. (This is not what I thought she’d say. I thought she’d say something about how everyone can tell the difference. But she is too kind to say that.)
Here’s why I don’t want to do it: I just don’t. Besides, they don’t help. I can’t tell the difference.
“He’s 96 years old,” Roz says.
“So?” I say. She looks at me. I say, “He’s been 96 for as long as I can remember.” She looks at me. “Maybe he’s only 86,” I say. “Or maybe he’s 106. Who knows?” Still looking at me. “I’m going upstairs,” I say.
“You can’t flush medicine down the toilet,” she says after me. “You have to take it to the box in the Sheriff’s Office.”
“I know that,” I say because I’ve done it before. It doesn’t matter that I’d forgotten for the moment; I know it.
When I get upstairs, Uncle Albert wants to know if I can help him go down:
He holds onto the banister with his right hand, and I go a half-step ahead and he holds onto my shoulder with his left. That’s going down. Going back up, he holds onto the banister with his left hand, and I go a half-step behind, and he holds onto my hand with his right elbow.
This time he is coming down to watch the Premier League matches. Neither of us knows until I turn the TV on that they have been postponed because the Queen died and all the clubs are mourning.
He met the Queen once, he says, Uncle Albert. They were born the same day, they discovered, Uncle Albert says. “The same year?” Roz asks.
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