"Early-onset Alzheimer's," he said. "Diagnosed fourteen months ago. She's still mostly herself. She forgets words. She forgot Elias's middle name once and cried in the parking lot for twenty minutes. She has good days and days that scare her. Her doctor says five years, maybe seven, before the hard version starts. She wanted to put some good years in the bank with him while she still knew who he was."
Aaliyah pressed her forehead to the steering wheel. The leather was cool. The garage smelled of oil and rain carried in on tires.
"And you decided," she said slowly, "that my mother's dying brain was a good enough reason to lie to me for two years."
"I decided that if I told you, you would say no, and she would die unknown to him, and he would grow up with a hole shaped like a grandmother he never got to meet, and I know what that hole feels like because I have been walking around with one since I was fourteen." His voice roughened. "My mother didn't get a second chance, Aaliyah. Yours was sitting in my inbox asking for one. I made a call. It was the wrong call for the marriage. I am not sure it was the wrong call for our son."
"You don't get to decide that alone."
"I know. I'm saying it anyway because you asked for the rest."
She hung up before either of them could make it worse.