Khong - Goodbye, Vitamin

Author photo Andria Lo

RACHEL KHONG grew up in Southern California, and holds degrees from Yale University and the University of Florida. From 201116, she was the managing editor, then executive editor of Lucky Peach magazine. Her fiction and nonfiction have appeared in Joyland, American Short Fiction, the San Francisco Chronicle, California Sunday , Tin House and The Believer . She is the author of All About Eggs: Everything We Know about the Worlds Most Important Food , and Goodbye, Vitamin is her first novel. She lives in San Francisco.

First published in Great Britain by Scribner, an imprint of Simon & Schuster UK Ltd, 2017

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Copyright Rachel Khong 2017

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For my parents

GOODBYE, VITAMIN

December 26

Tonight a man found Dads pants in a tree lit with Christmas lights. The stranger called and said, I have some pants? Belonging to a Howard Young?

Well, shit, I said. I put the phone down to verify that Dad was home and had pants on. He was, and did.

Yesterday, on Moms orders, Id written his name and our number in permanent marker onto the tags of all his clothes.

Apparently what hes done, in protest, is pitched the numbered clothing into trees. Up and down Euclid, his slacks and shirts hang from the branches. The downtown trees have their holiday lights in them, and this man who called had, while driving, noticed the clothes, illuminated.

December 27

In the morning, when I go to fetch them, city workers are removing the lights from the trees and the decorative bows from the lampposts. One man unties a bow and tosses it to his partner on the ground. All the great bright gold bows are piled in the bed of an enormous pickup truck parked in the plaza.

In that same plaza, a frustrated man is saying to his dog, Why are you being this way? A baby in a stroller is wearing sunglasses.

Dad, all my hard work, I say, later at home. Ive collected a pair of pants, two shirts, a few knotted-up ties.

Now thats unnecessary, Dad says, angrily, when I return them.

I got here on Christmas Eve. Im home for the holidays , like youre supposed to be. Its the first time in a long time. Under ordinary circumstancesthe circumstances that had become ordinaryI would have gone to Joels. His mother would have popped popcorn for garlands and his father would have baked a stollen. His twin brother would have hit on me. In the bathroom, there would have been a new, grocery-brand toothbrush with a gift label on it, my name in his mothers handwriting: RUTH .

This year, with nowhere to gono Joel and no CharlestonI made the drive down. Its been three or four Christmases away. From San Francisco, where I live, it would have been an easy six hours south. Up to you, Joel would say, but I always chose Charleston. Merry Christmas, wed tell my parents over speakerphone.

Except for Linus being gone, everything was the same. Mom had decorated her biggest potted ficus in tinsel and lights, and with the ornaments wed made as kidspainted macaroni framing our school pictures, ancient peanuts Id painted into snowmen with apathetic faces. Shed hung our stockings over the fireplace, even Linuss. When I asked if I could shell a snowmanto see what the twenty-year-old peanut inside looked likeMom said, sternly, Dont you dare.

Christmas morning, Dad pulled out a small, worn, red notebook. He explained hes kept it since I was very little. Inside there are letters to me. Hed been waiting for the proper time to share them, but it had slipped his mindwouldnt you knowuntil now. He showed me a page from this notebook:

Today you asked me where metal comes from. You asked me what flavor are germs. You were distressed because your pair of gloves had gone missing. When I asked you for a description, you said: they are sort of shaped like my hands.

Then he closed the notebook, very suddenly, and said, as though angry, Thats enough.

December 29

Now Mom is asking if I could stay awhile, to keep an extra eye on things.

By things she means Dad, whose mind is not what it used to be.

It comes as a surprise. Things arent so badDad doesnt seem any differenton top of which, my mother hates to ask for anything.

Just the year, Mom repeats, when I cant manage to answer. Think about it.

On my way to the bathroom, I catch my mother shouting, No, no, no! Youre expensive! to a vitamin shes dropped. Gingko, I think.

The first things started approximately last year: Dad forgetting his wallet, forgetting faces, forgetting to turn the faucet off. Then it was bumping into things and feeling tired even after full nights of sleep. That hed been a drinker, Dr. Lung said, didnt help.

There is, presently, no single test or scan that can diagnose dementia with complete accuracy. Its only after the person is dead that you can cut his or her brain open and look for telltale plaques and tangles. For now, its process of elimination. What we have are tests that rule out other possible causes of memory loss. In diagnosing Alzheimers, doctors can only tell you everything that it isnt.

What my father doesnt have: hyperthyroidism, a kidney or liver disorder, an infection, a nutritional deficiency. Deficiencies of vitamin B-12 and folic acid can cause memory loss and are treatable.