Nana sat on the couch, watching as Dad and I stuck the artificial branches into the plastic tree trunk. Nobody was saying much. In silence, I handed Dad branches in order of increasing size, starting with the small ones up near the top, finishing with the big ones that filled out the bottom of the tree. Then came the lights, three strands wrapped around the tree, and when we plugged them in, we discovered the middle set didn’t light up. Dad groaned and said he’d go down to Genovese Drug to get replacements. After he left, I sat down next to Nana to look up at the unfinished tree. “Where’s Patsy?” she whispered. She asked this five or six times a day. It drove Mom crazy. Nana knew that the question had become irksome, but still, she was heartbreakingly unable to retain its answer. So when she asked it, she tended to whisper it, and usually she directed it to me. “She’s at St. Luke’s,” I replied. When she heard this, Nana would always nod, as if she recalled everything.
