Still Alice

Dan rushed in, his hair disheveled, his shirt untucked, wearing glasses instead of contact lenses. He paused for a moment, then went straight for the open seat next to Alice and declared it his by plopping his notebook down on the table.

“I was up all night writing. Gotta get some food, be right back.”

Leslie’s talk ran the full hour. It took an excessive amount of energy, but Alice followed her to the end. After Leslie advanced past the last slide and the screen went blank, she opened up the floor to discussion. Alice went first.

“Yes, Dr. Howland,” said Leslie.

“I think you’re missing a control group that measures the actual distractibility of your distracters. You could argue that some, for whatever reason, simply aren’t noticed, and their mere presence isn’t distracting. You could test the ability of the subjects to simultaneously notice and attend to the distracter, or you could run a series where you swap out the distracter for the target.”

Many at the table nodded. Dan uh-huhed through a mouthful of calzone. Leslie grabbed her pen even before Alice finished her thought and took vigorous notes.

“Yes. Leslie, go back to the experimental design slide for a moment,” said Eric.

Alice looked around the room. Everyone’s eyes were glued to the screen. They listened intently as Eric elaborated on Alice’s comment. Many continued nodding. She felt victorious and a little smug. The fact that she had Alzheimer’s didn’t mean that she was no longer capable of thinking analytically. The fact that she had Alzheimer’s didn’t mean that she didn’t deserve to sit in that room among them. The fact that she had Alzheimer’s didn’t mean that she no longer deserved to be heard.

The questions and answers and follow-up questions and answers continued for several minutes. Alice finished her calzone and her salad. Dan got up and came back with seconds. Leslie stumbled through an answer to an antagonistic question asked by Marty’s new postdoc. Her experimental design slide was projected on the screen. Alice read it and raised her hand.

“Yes, Dr. Howland?” asked Leslie.

“I think you’re missing a control group that measures the actual effectiveness of your distracters. It’s possible that some of them simply aren’t noticed. You could test their distractibility simultaneously, or you might swap out the distracter for the target.”

It was a valid point. It was, in fact, the proper way to do the experiment, and her paper wouldn’t be publishable without that possibility satisfied. Alice was sure of it. Yet no one else seemed to see it. She looked at everyone not looking at her. Their body language suggested embarrassment and dread. She reread the data on the screen. That experiment needed an additional control. The fact that she had Alzheimer’s didn’t mean that she couldn’t think analytically. The fact that she had Alzheimer’s didn’t mean that she didn’t know what she was talking about.

“Ah, okay, thanks,” said Leslie.

But she didn’t take any notes, and she didn’t look Alice in the eye, and she didn’t seem at all grateful.

SHE HAD NO CLASSES TO teach, no grants to write, no new research to conduct, no conferences to attend, and no invited lectures to give. Ever again. She felt like the biggest part of her self, the part she’d praised and polished regularly on its mighty pedestal, had died. And the other smaller, less admired parts of her self wailed with self-pitying grief, wondering how they would matter at all without it.

She looked out her enormous office window and watched the joggers as they traced the winding edges of the Charles.

“Will you have time for a run today?” she asked.

“Maybe,” said John.

He looked out the window, too, as he drank his coffee. She wondered what he saw, if his eyes were drawn to the same joggers or if he saw something entirely different.

“I wish we’d spent more time together,” she said.

“What do you mean? We just spent the whole summer together.”

“No, not the summer, our whole lives. I’ve been thinking about it, and I wish we’d spent more time together.”

“Ali, we live together, we work at the same place, we’ve spent our whole lives together.”

In the begi

“I think we left each other alone for too long.”

“I don’t feel left alone, Ali. I like our lives, I think it’s been a good balance between an independence to pursue our own passions and a life together.”

She thought about his pursuit of his passion, his research, always more extreme than hers. Even when the experiments failed him, when the data weren’t consistent, when the hypotheses turned out to be wrong, his love for his passion never wavered. However flawed, even when it kept him up all night tearing his hair out, he loved it. The time, care, attention, and energy he gave to it had always inspired her to work harder at her own research. And she did.

“You’re not left alone, Ali. I’m right here with you.”

He looked at his watch, then downed the rest of his coffee.

“I’ve got to run to class.”

He picked up his bag, tossed his cup in the trash, and went over to her. He bent down, held her head of curly black hair in his hands, and kissed her gently. She looked up at him and pressed her lips into a thin smile, holding back her tears just long enough for him to leave her office.

She wished she’d been his passion.

SHE SAT IN HER OFFICE while her cognition class met without her and watched the shiny traffic creep along Memorial Drive. She sipped her tea. She had the whole day in front of her with nothing to do. Her hip began to vibrate. It was 8:00 a.m. She removed her BlackBerry from her baby blue bag.

Alice, answer the following questions:

1. What month is it?

2. Where do you live?

3. Where is your office?

4. When is A