Ripening

The papaya sat on her father's kitchen counter, already overripe, its skin giving way to the pressure of her thumb. Lena had bought it because he used to love them, before the dementia took even the memory of what they tasted like.

"He called again," her sister Carol said from the doorway. "The pyramid scheme guy. Says Dad can still get his money back if he acts fast."

Lena scraped the fruit's flesh into a bowl. "How much does he want this time?"

"Five thousand. For processing fees." Carol's laugh was dry. "Dad's been writing checks to these people for two years. They're not even good scams anymore."

Their father had always been susceptible—baseball cards, collectible coins, investments that promised exponential returns. The pyramid schemes had found him exactly where they always found people: lonely, watching daytime television, convinced that one more bet could fix everything.

"He doesn't remember he's broke," Carol said. "He asked about the goldfish this morning. The one that died when we were kids."

Lena paused, knife hovering over the papaya's black seeds. "He remembers that?"

"He remembers the fish more than he remembers you."

Lena set down her spoon. They hadn't spoken about it in twenty years—the way their father had missed her college graduation to attend a seminar on wealth multiplication. The way he'd emptied her education fund into a scheme that collapsed before her first semester. She'd put herself through school, worked three jobs, stopped asking him for anything.

"The baseball game is tonight," Carol said. "The Old Timers match at the high school. He thinks he's pitching."

The dementia had wrapped their father in a haze where past and present bled together—where he was still young, where his investments had paid off, where his daughters were still children who needed him.

"He's going to be disappointed when he gets there and they won't let him on the field," Lena said.

"He won't remember long enough to be disappointed." Carol's voice cracked. "That's the terrible part, Len. He forgets the disappointment before it can even land."

Lena looked at the papaya in her bowl, its orange flesh already browning where the air had touched it. Everything ripened toward rot eventually—fruit, memories, the carefully constructed stories people told themselves about who they were and what they deserved.

"I'll take him," Lena heard herself say.

"What?"

"To the game. I'll take him." She speared a piece of papaya with her fork. "We'll sit in the stands. I'll let him believe whatever he needs to believe."

Carol looked at her for a long moment. "Why? After everything?"

"Because he forgot why I was supposed to be angry at him." Lena swallowed the papaya—sweet and cloying, like forgiveness she hadn't earned yet. "And I'm tired of remembering alone."