Eren
Whenever I take the train back into Brooklyn, Mom and I have a tradition. She pops a bag of popcorn, I boot up Netflix, and we crash on the couch, gearing up for a good, old grill sesh of Grey's Anatomy. For the record, neither of us gives a flying fuck about who's banging McDreamy or who's got a bun in the oven or who Shondra Rhimes decided to kill off. We're here to shit on the medical inaccuracies.
"Oh, for Christ's sake," Mom groans, chucking a piece of popcorn at our TV. The fake doctors are trying to perform fake CPR on a fake patient. "Those half-assed compressions aren't gonna do shit, Izzy! Did they teach you anything in med school? Full chest recoil!"
"To be fair, Mom," I point out. "The actor on that operating table probably doesn't want his ribs broken. Hence, the shitty resuscitation effort—oh, fuck, they're slacking now. That's probably 60 beats-per-minute at best. Sing the Bee Gees, goddammit!"
"Nope. At this rate, this fella's gonna be 'Another One Bites the Dust,'" Mom argues, pointing at the screen. "Those vitals aren't looking so hot. Speaking of which, why are they not addressing that capno reading? Come on, you guys. That crike job was just sloppy."
Mom's a seasoned emergency room physician, and she has a morbid joke about CPR rates, which should be 100 to 120 chest compressions per minute. To hit that tempo, you should compress to the beat of "Stayin' Alive" by the Bee Gees—that is, if you're optimistic about a patient. If it's a hopeless case, however, "Another One Bites the Dust" by Queen is probably more appropriate.
"Good God," Mom remarks as an attending physician and an intern start swapping spit in an on-call room. "Karev is so lucky that HR doesn't seem to exist at Seattle Grace. It should go without saying, Eren, but never, ever try to pull this B.S., you hear me?"
"Do you really think I'm that degenerate, Mom?"
There's a scuffling sound from the kitchen, and Dad shuffles in, one hand trailing the wall for support. Alzheimer's has hijacked his confident stride, leaving him clumsy on his feet. We constantly remind him to never double-task walking with talking—otherwise, he'll find himself facedown on the floor again. Dad makes it to his chair in one piece.
"Atrial fibrillation," he croaks, leaning forward to scrutinize the on-screen cardiac monitor. His index finger zig-zags, following the bumps and dips of the electrocardiogram rhythms.
"Ding, ding, ding!" Mom exclaims, whooping. "Nailed it, my dear! You see that guy, the one with the red hair? You used to do what he does. Do you remember?"
"I did what, Carla?"
"Sweetie, you were a trauma surgeon back in the day," Mom presses him gently. "Remember all those times you had to wake up in the dead of night to help out with an emergency procedure?"
"You're right," Dad says, stroking his chin. "I was a doctor."
This townhouse bears zero resemblance to my childhood home because Mom has Alzheimer's-proofed it.
Sticky notes are everywhere, adhering to the bathroom drawer containing the blow-dryer, clinging to the wall across from the toilet, taped to the back of the TV remote. They're there because Dad struggles with sequences. He'll eat chilled leftovers, forgetting to hit the "START" button on the microwave, so Mom left him a Post-It on the fridge, which reads:
LEFTOVERS INSTRUCTIONS:
1. Choose plate.
2. Place in microwave.
3. Set timer to 1:30.
4. Hit "START." (Don't forget!)
5. Remove from microwave. CAREFUL! It's hot!
6. Take off saran wrap.
7. Enjoy!
We used to always keep a jar of Skippy's peanut butter in the pantry, but a year ago, Dad wandered around the house, licking it from a spoon. Here's the catch: he has a peanut allergy. Within moments, that spoon clattered to the ground, and he was clutching his rapidly swelling throat, gasping for air.
Mom wrenched the Skippy's away from him, yelling at me to get an Epi-pen. I rifled through the medicine cabinet and rushed back into the hallway, where Dad was writhing on the ground. I uncapped the auto-injector and positioned it against his outer thigh. With a click, a needle pierced through the fabric of his pants, delivering 0.3 milligrams of epinephrine. I handed Mom a stethoscope, and she relaxed as the wheezing sounds dwindled. Within five minutes, an ambulance pulled up outside, and soon after, we were en route to the ER.
Dad has good days and bad days.
On good days, he babbles on and on about little things in life—the weather, a car that just passed by, a favorite song. Alzheimer's has made him much more extroverted. He laughs at his own comments. He grins like a kid. But on bad days, he flies off the handle. He throws things on the ground. He screams, bites, and spits, lashing out at Mom.
Today, thankfully, is a good day. Throughout the Grey's episode, he calls out medical terms as they show up, one-by-one. He's accurate around 50% of the time, and Mom beams each time he gets it right.
"Ap-pen-dectomy," she coos, reaching over to squeeze his hand. "Not ap-ple-dectomy."
Dad chuckles.
Mom and I always drink beers together after she puts him to bed. I push her to be real with me. But Mom being Mom, she shrugs my concerns aside. She puts on a brave face because she's tough as nails. "Sooo when are you gonna finally enter the dating pool?" she asks, changing the subject. "You're twenty-four, Eren. Time's a-tickin'."
"What do you mean?" I answer, scowling. "I've had girlfriends before."
"Yeah, but you were never serious about them," Mom says. She sips from her IPA. "You dumped most of them after a month or two. And the couple of times they broke up with you, you didn't seem to really care. I've never gotten to play the Post-Breakup Mom role. You know, all reassuring over the phone, reminding you that you're great and amazing, telling you that that bitch doesn't deserve you."
"It's almost like you want me to experience heartbreak," I mutter.
"You know I'd never wish that upon you!" Mom says indignantly.
"Why do I feel like you're just desperate for grandkids then?"
"Come on, now you're just putting words in my mouth!" She reaches over and ruffles my hair. "You seriously need a trip to the barber, by the way."
I jerk away from her. "You never had a problem with Dad having long hair."
"That's different," she says, rolling her eyes. When I smirk at her, she threatens to ground me. "So how's the apartment?" she asks, wisely retreating from her original line of questioning. "Are you getting along with your roommate?"
"Oh, yeah. Kinda a neat-freak and calls me out for leaving the toilet seat up, but she's cool."
"Hold up." Mom blinks, replaying what I just said in her head. "Your roommate's a girl?"
"I didn't tell you?"
"No! You completely neglected to include this super crucial detail!" Mom exclaims, clapping her hand on the kitchen table. "You know I love you unconditionally, but you're a world-class slob. Man, I feel awful for her!"
"Wow. Thanks, Mom."
"It's not weird, is it? Living with a girl?"
"Why would it be? Of course not!" I say immediately.
"That was defensive," Mom says, narrowing her eyes. "What's going on, Eren?"
"You're imagining things," I mumble. "It's getting late. I should let you get some shut-eye."
Mom gives me a searching look before kissing my forehead, hugging me tightly, and sending me off with a plate of lemon bars.
According to Mikasa, my usual dinner of three PB&J sandwiches and four eggs neither "constitutes a meal for adults" nor does it hit all the food groups. Well, the bad news is that medical students don't have time every day to chop carrots into nice shapes, dice up garlic, season pork slices, stir-fry all this up, prepare soup, and cook rice—not to mention wash the resulting pots and dishes. Some med students spend their Sundays whipping up a week's worth of food in advance, but I actually enjoy catching up on sleep, so I settle for a quick and dirty sandwich. Five minutes of prep time, max. If I'm feeling eggs, tack on another ten minutes. Either way, minimal cleanup.
Mikasa is pitching another one of her in-house policies. Instead of an "every roommate for themselves" approach to groceries and meals, she proposes that we divvy up the costs. For some reason, she enjoys cooking a lot, saying that it's "therapeutic" for her, so she's down to take care of dinner for both of us, so long as I cover 60% of the grocery budget, while she gets away with 40%. She even offers to do the dishes for a 70-30 cut.
"Make that 65-35," I reply.
"You have yourself a deal," she says, shaking my hand.
"But what if I'm not feeling veggies or whatever?" I say, watching her add this plan to our ever-growing list of House Rules.
"I guess you can revert back to your grade school lunchbox essentials," she responds dismissively. "But trust me, I know what I'm doing."
To her credit, she kinda does. Somehow, bean sprouts, scallion-and-ginger flavors, soba noodles, and most surprisingly, tofu stir-fry have crept into my diet. Mikasa says she learned all these dishes from her mom. They'd spend hours in the kitchen of their San Francisco home, experimenting with fusion recipes. And when her parents passed in an accident (she didn't go into detail about this), Mikasa moved across the country to Jersey, where she cooked for herself and her uncle. To be exact, he's a distant relative, a second or third cousin of some sort, but "uncle" is less of a mouthful and raises fewer eyebrows.
Whatever the case, Levi sounds like a hard-ass.
"I'm so glad you're not a picky eater," she comments. "It took me months to figure out what Levi doesn't hate."
"Is he all 'Compliments to the chef!' now?" I ask.
"Let's not get ahead of ourselves. I only said he doesn't hate the stuff I cook anymore," she says, but she smiles fondly.
Mikasa has set up a whiteboard to keep tabs on grocery needs. As always, she has a system. With a permanent marker, she draws checkboxes for staple foods—meat, lettuce, beer, etc.—and she instructs me to jot down less frequent items with a dry-erase marker. I fucked this up the first time around, so "cayenne pepper" will forever be stuck on the whiteboard.
Technically, I'm supposed to snap a photo of this list once a week and do all the grocery shopping, but one time, I mixed up napa cabbage with bok choy. On top of that, I had zero idea what "cooking sake" was. Since then, Mikasa has insisted on coming along as a chaperone. I don't mind because I have fewer grocery bags to drag home by myself, and it also gives Mikasa a supervised opportunity to brave the train once a week. However, she's got a long way to go before mastering the MTA. Canal Street is supposedly a straight shot, only two stops away, yet one time, she somehow took us across the East River and into Queens. (Admittedly, I was distracted on the phone with Zeke.)
Maybe it's best if she sticks to walking for now.
As promised, I invite Armin over for dinner—but I never thought that he and Mikasa would gang up on me.
"This is airtight," Armin remarks, scanning Mikasa's handwritten rules and policies about chores, groceries, and the Jar. "Gotta say, I almost didn't recognize this apartment at first because it's so spick-and-span now. Sorry, Eren, but this place used to border on being a pigpen."
"Thank you, Armin," Mikasa says, smiling self-righteously. "Glad to hear that someone gets it."
They hit it off immediately. Armin's a total foodie, so he and Mikasa spend about ten minutes engaged in lively discourse over the varieties of teriyaki sauce. Eventually, they pinball into yet another unrelatable conversation topic: a grill sesh of the political philosopher, Robert George. I manage to make one or two contributions when they start talking about our commander-in-chief, but after a certain point, they take the conversation too deep into the humanities weeds again. My brain is better wired for science-y things, like numbers and shit, so I slip away from the table to watch a football game, while they prattle on and on about the subtle distinctions between neo-liberalism and modern liberalism.
When Mikasa excuses herself to her room to answer a FaceTime call from Levi, Armin sidles up next to me on the couch, flashing me a shit-eating grin.
"What?" I demand.
"I approve," Armin replies.
"Of what?"
"You know, I thought this living arrangement was destined for failure," Armin says. "And I was gonna press hard for you to dismantle the lease, but I think I've had a change of heart. This might just work." He has a weird look on his face. I wish I could peek inside his head and get a glimpse of whatever grand plan he's piecing together.
"I told you it was gonna be fine," I retort. I show him the sheet of notebook paper documenting each Jar penalty, and it's been almost a month since our last hookup. The recent fines consist of occasional nitpicky things. Awkward eye contact, weird silences, comments that she misinterprets as "flirty"—all harmless stuff that's been on the downtrend. Also, another development: Mikasa's loosened up on the no-shirt rule, thank God.
"So which is more effective for you? Connie's third nipple or Zeke's incident?" Armin asks, laughing.
"Ever since I discovered his secret identity, definitely Connie," I answer.
Speaking of Cornelius Funk, he's been bugging me nonstop about having us hang out with Mikasa. And of course, the sly fucker adds: "Oh, and tell her that she can bring along Sasha if she wants!"
And so, the five of us—me, Con, Mikasa, Sasha, and Armin—have started gathering weekly at Connie's bar, where we get huge drink discounts if he's on shift. It's a good time, especially since everyone's humor is so different. Sasha's one for slapstick, while Connie knows how to twist pop culture references. Armin picks apart the ironies, and Mikasa deadpans with her dry wit. I don't know what category I fall into, but all these flavors fit together. My abs sometimes hurt from laughing so much. When the evening winds down, Mikasa and I walk home together. She's definitely a lightweight, and she gets alarmingly flushed whenever she overdoes the alcohol.
One night, after too many drinks, she clutches onto my arm for support, and we stagger back to our apartment. "We made out right there," she says when we reach an intersection. She's giggling and pointing at a crosswalk light. She's running her thumb back and forth across my bicep. Neither of us budges a muscle when the light turns green.
She's giving me one of those looks where her lashes hang low over her pretty eyes. A month ago, when things were simpler and we were more reckless, she would've been irresistible.
But I shake my head. "Hey, we're wasted," I say, urging us forward. "Let's cross before the light changes."
Zeke is thirty-four years old, and every morning, he pulls up a note on his phone. It's ten questions, followed by the correct answer. Each one is slightly tougher than the last:
1. What's your name?
Zeke Jaeger.
2. Your birthday?
August 1st, 1986.
3. Where were you born?
New York City. (One extra point for "Manhattan," two for "Morningside Heights.")
4. What do you do?
Teach economics.
5. What's your mother's maiden name?
Dina Fritz.
6. What's your favorite sport to watch on TV?
Major League Baseball.
7. What did you write about for your PhD?
Democratic socialism.
8. What pet did you want when you were a kid?
An orangutan.
9. What's your ideal retirement plan?
Long Island and all the books I didn't have a chance to read as a working adult.
10. Who do you care about the most?
Eren, my baby brother, of course.
So far, he's been consistently hitting 100% on this self-made quiz. Zeke always pushes me to do this too, but I tell him to shove off. I'm only twenty-four, for fuck's sake. And I don't understand why he's so fixated on counting down the days like this. Dad didn't get diagnosed until he was forty-seven.
"Zeke, we've talked about this a thousand times already, but let me just say it again for the people in the back," I grit out, trying to keep my voice level. It's another one of those nights of sitting on the fire escape, arguing back and forth over the phone. "Let's say you start showing symptoms when you hit Dad's age. Forty-seven minus thirty-four is thirteen years, Zeke. Live your fucking life, will you? Enjoy these thirteen goddamned years, dude. We'll cross that bridge if we even get there—"
"When we get there, Eren," Zeke asserts. "It's a question of if, not when. Aren't you the doctor here? The onset window is between thirty to sixty years of age."
We got tested for the PSEN1 gene shortly after Dad's memory started declining. In broad strokes, PSEN1 is part of the brain's cleanup crew, responsible for clearing away toxins. But both Zeke and I have inherited mutations of this gene. As a result, that cleanup crew now sucks at doing its job, and those toxins build up, forming nasty plaques in our brains, hindering normal function. Long story short, we're at high-risk for early-onset Alzheimer's.
"How can you ever be happy starting every day with that stupid quiz? Isn't that just a constant reminder of our, I dunno, impending neurological doom?" I say. The railing rattles when I pound my fist. In the street below, a motorcycle roars past, blatantly ignoring the speed limit.
"You want the truth, Eren?" Zeke answers. "I'm scared. I write in a journal every fucking night because I'm scared for when I'll be utterly incapable of remembering the good times, the nice memories, and the funny stories. I count down the days because if I don't, I'll take all these moments for granted."
"Ignorance is bliss sometimes."
"That's a steaming heap of bull," Zeke says. "And I know we're on the same page, Eren. Just look at your history with relationships. You clearly don't want to commit, and I'll bet that it's because you've seen, firsthand, how Dad's condition has broken Carla, and you don't want anyone else to go through what she's—"
"Shut up, you're not a psychiatrist, so quit trying to psychoanalyze me," I bite back.
"Am I wrong?"
"Zeke. Just shut up."
There's a silence on the other line. I can imagine him standing on the balcony of his own apartment. He preaches about not taking life for granted, yet he's probably puffing on a cigarette right now.
"You blame Dad, don't you?" I say suddenly. "You blame him for passing this onto us."
"There's a lot of things I blame him for, but it's kind of fucked up to give someone grief about their genetics," Zeke says. "If I did hold a grudge over this matter, I'd have to take it up with whichever great-great-great-great grandparent started this whole intergenerational mess."
"Zeke, can you be straight with me about one thing? No talking in circles. No stupid tangents or rabbit holes."
"Ask away. I'll do my best."
"This holy war you're waging with me over ditching Dad in a nursing home… Are you doing this because it's your way of punishing him for being a shitty father?"
He pauses to take another drag from his cigarette, buying himself time to craft up, as expected, another one of his bullshit answers. "It may certainly appear that way to you, but—"
"Zeke, I said I wanted a straight answer. Yes or no?"
"We're adults. You should know by now that life isn't black-and-white. And things are more complicated than a simple yes or no," Zeke says flatly. "As I was saying, it would make sense that you suspect that of me. After all, let's lay out the facts: Dad left my mother and me. He married Carla. However, I take no issue with your mother, whatsoever. She's been nothing but lovely, compassionate, and all-around wonderful to me, and if anything, she has a special place in my heart. As for our father, he had a fresh start with you. He clearly was a better dad during his second go-around at it."
"Get to the point."
"Your mother doesn't deserve to suffer through each passing day as his babysitter. I say this as someone who cares immensely for Carla, and I also say this as someone who holds great resentment for Dad. I will acknowledge that. But Eren, at the end of the day, your mom deserves better. Let's lighten the load for her."
"It's Mom's call, Zeke. And she's put her foot down on this. She doesn't wanna check Dad into an assisted living facility."
"That's because she's a trooper by nature. Of course, she would never be on board."
This gets my hackles up. "Are you saying what I think you're saying?" I say, clenching the railing. The rusty surface gnaws into my palm. "Are you suggesting that we team up to force her hand? That's it, isn't it? Jesus, this is just manipulative, Zeke! I hate how you go around with your fucking god-complex, thinking that you always know best!"
"Let's face it. Carla's not doing so great—"
I hang up on him. I can't do this right now. Knowing Zeke, he's probably going to let me cool off for a day or two before dredging this up again. His scheming grinds my gears, but he has a point about Mom. She's fraying at the edges. She feels fragile when I hug her.
There's a knock on the glass behind me. When I turn around, Mikasa lifts up the window and crawls out onto the fire escape. She's wearing an oversized black T-shirt that reaches midway down her thighs, just hardly covering her ass. No pants. That's our compromise for lifting the no-shirt rule.
"You've been out here for a while," she says, handing me a spoon and a mug of something.
"Is this alcoholic?" I ask, peering down at its contents. It looks sludgy.
"Nope," she says. "It's a red bean dessert porridge thing. But we've got vodka if you wanna mix in a shot."
This makes me laugh. The "red bean dessert porridge thing" is sweet and strange but good. "Damn, no need for the shot. It's solid on its own," I remark. "Thanks, though."
Mikasa nods, and we watch cars zip back and forth for a while. It's nearing the end of September, but climate change has kept up the warm, summer-y breezes.
"You're weirdly quiet," Mikasa comments, stirring her own mug. "Are you okay?"
"Oh, it's nothing. Just Zeke, on his usual bullshit." I'm about to go off on a rambly, long-winded spiel, laying bare everything—my complicated family tree, Dad's downwards spiral, Mom's gray hairs, even the fucking biochemistry behind my faulty PSEN1 gene—but I force myself to pivot. "Soundgarden?" I ask, tipping my chin towards the print on her T-shirt. "You had a punk rock phase?"
"They're grunge," she corrects. "As for the punk rock phase, yes, that happened too, but my uncle wouldn't have it, so he indoctrinated me with grunge bands from the Seattle scene."
"Why am I struggling so hard to picture the punk rock version of you?"
"I used to have a ridiculous amount of piercings." She turns her head, brushing aside a lock of hair, and sure enough, there's a trail of closed-up pinpricks running up the side of her ear. Nowadays, she's just got a double set of piercings on each earlobe and a lone cartilage ring in her right ear.
"Someone was edgy in high school," I say, leaning my arms against the fire escape railing.
"For a hot sec, I went goth too," she adds, shuddering. "I had way too many phases."
"Oh my God. Please tell me that there's photographic evidence of this."
The glow of her cell phone illuminates the contours of her face, and she searches through years of pictures. Finally, she digs up a Snapchat selfie from the year 2012, featuring a teenage Mikasa with heavy, dark makeup. Goth Mikasa has bangs, and she splits the rest of her hair into two pigtails. She wears an absurd amount of jewelry: studded choker, upside-down cross earrings, multiple layers of necklaces, and rings on every finger.
"Holy. Fucking. Shit," I breathe, and before I know it, I'm bent over, laughing my ass off. "How the fuck did you get through airport security with all that?! I'm fucking dead—"
"I was fifteen or sixteen! Cut me some slack!" she fires back. She threatens to knee me in the crotch, and I almost drop the mug of red bean dessert onto the sidewalk, multiple stories below us.
"Jeez, chill," I mutter. "But if I'm being honest," I continue, shrugging, "Teenage me probably would've had a crush on goth you. I had a thing for edgier girls."
She chews on her bottom lip, suddenly deep in thought. "I'm trying to figure out how to process that statement," she says. "Because it seems like Eren from the year 2020 is trying to retroactively hit on the 2012 version of me, on behalf of 2012 him."
"You just made that so unnecessarily complicated, not to mention wack," I grumble. "I don't get you sometimes. It was supposed to be a compliment."
"What were you like in high school?" she asks.
"An idiot, honestly," I say, cringing a bit. "Bull-headed. Hair-trigger temper, always getting into fights with people. Also, my mom and I constantly wanted to strangle each other." I whistle, shaking my head. "And all that tension hit fever pitch when I started making fucking bongs out of apples. God, I seriously needed to lay off the weed as a teenager."
"You and your mom seem tight now," Mikasa says.
"Oh, def. Going to college and getting some space from each other helped with that."
And also, Dad's diagnosis. But I keep this to myself.
"Hey, Eren? This might be off-topic, but can I ask you a question?" Mikasa looks at me, uneasy.
"Yeah, what's up?"
"You know that day when we were walking back from the bar? My memory's hazy, but did I try to do anything?" she asks, fidgeting with her mug.
I start laughing. "You were pretty drunk. You pointed out the spot where I kissed you for real that first night we met. And then, we almost relapsed, but luckily, I was sober enough to steer us back on track, and you passed out right when we got home."
"That's it?"
"Yep."
"Okay," she says, after a long silence. "Just wanted to make sure because I just remember feeling like something was off. I'm sorry about that."
"You're good, Mikasa."
And we chill on the fire escape for a while, looking out across the buildings and into the night sky. Thanks to all of the light pollution, there's not a single star in sight.
A/N: Honestly, this fic has been a chance for me to reflect on my grandfather's deteriorating condition. Luckily, he's not an early-onset patient, and his lapses in memory have been fairly minor as of late—so far, that is—but the prognosis ain't looking so good. Damn, this chapter has made me grapple with the immense value that we assign to memories, and while these are discomfiting thoughts, I still think it's important to bring them to light, rather than letting them fester away in the back of my mind. I'm so thankful for writing because it's definitely helped me digest big life events in the past. There was one WUARD chapter that was super great in getting me to process a family death, and HTCE's gonna be dedicated to my grandparents (too bad they can't read English, though, oops).
As I was writing this, I realized that this Alzheimer's storyline strangely parallels some elements of the Eren-Zeke-Grisha dynamic we see in canon. I don't wanna dig too deep into these connections here, for fear of spoiling things for anime-only readers, so I'll write a thingamajig on Tumblr in the near future!
I'd like to give a bit of a shoutout to this New York Times article called "Fraying at the Edges" by the brilliant journalist, N. R. Kleinfield. This piece greatly expanded my working knowledge of Alzheimer's, particularly when it comes to how this condition shakes up day-to-day life. I highly recommend it for a thought-provoking read that will, for sure, tug on the heartstrings.
I know this chapter approached the zone of angst at some parts, but I leave you with this quote from Kleinfield's piece: "This disease was bottomless in its unhappiness if you let it take you there. Yet her belief system was optimism." My grandpa's philosophy towards his condition mirrors these lines as well. Also, trust me! I have plans in store. :')
Okay, I've been blathering for too long on this A/N soapbox. Time to sign off. Thanks for the feedback, and let me know what you all thought of this chapter!