It was a balmy, late spring day in the Bronx when Bobby first forgot her grandson’s name. She opened the door and there he stood, carrying cartons of eggs, a rolled up newspaper tucked under his arm, and rosemary clenched between his teeth. He said, through a wide, closed grin, “They were all outta bags.”

Bobby nodded, and watched him. Her brow furrowed up and her shoulders raised and tucked inward, tight. He walked through the doorway, his smile fading into a curious stare, his face following hers as he placed the groceries on a kitchen island.

“Grandma Bobby,” he said, “Do you want to sit down? You seem, well, you look a bit pale. Let me grab you a chair.”

Bobby accepted the chair offer, multitasking the careful crouching of her wobbly knees with an investigation of her guest. Who is he?. She steeped in the feeling of distant familiarity, and strove to remember any specifics. At the least, her body seemed to know not to be afraid. And then, a fleeting moment of lingual clarity burst to her tongue.

“Christopher,” she exhumed his name, exhaling, in a gasp. “Christopher, thank you honey.” Upon saying this, a light flickered in her mind, illuminating a room of memory. Photos of Christopher as a boy, and sea glass from walks along Brighton Beach and tattered couches impressed with his sleeping body. And, like her bedside lamp, a beaded string was pulled and the light went out again.

The man unpacked the crinkling brown bag of groceries and handed Bobby a rugged, orange citrus. “I’ll be out in the back for a bit, Grandma Bobby. Mom mentioned you haven’t been able to weed it.” He squinted his eyes towards her, leaning his face in, smiling slightly. Bobby turned away. The man opened the glass paneled sliding doors to the backyard. Bobby absentmindedly peeled the orange, and watched his broad figure kneel down on the soil, lit up by the sun, where he stayed working for about an hour. When he reopened the sliding doors he wiped his face with a towel, softly hugged Bobby, said goodbye, and left.

A few weeks passed, and Bobby was pacing her kitchen floor. She was struggling to recollect what it was that, just moments before, she was trying to remember. Forgetting about forgetting about something, how far I’ve fallen, she thought. The doorbell rang, the disturbance of noise amounting to an explosion of fireworks. Stunned for a moment, and hoping this might cause some sort of electrotherapeutic regeneration of mind, she waited for an epiphany. Sharp knocks on the door soon followed, though, quickly ending that fantasy. She went to the door.

“Grandma Bobby, hello!” greeted this total stranger, looming on the porch. His hands were full of brown paper bags, brimming with food. “I’m here with your groceries!” He said this with space between each word, and annunciation. Bobby could hear just fine, the problems came after the hearing. How should these words matter? What had she heard before these words? Bobby stared up at him, paralyzed in the confusion. “It’s your grandson! Please let me in!”.

Bobby sheepishly turned her body, opening the door a crack more to welcome him in. The man seemed kind enough, and she thought the impending arrival of groceries might have been her forgotten thought. The man placed the bags down on the kitchen island and looked around. He slipped a finger on the surface of the granite table and gazed at a pileup of grime and dust. “Ah Grandma Bobby, have you not been wiping down your tables? That’s okay, I’ll get some rags.” And the man began to clean, and Bobby let him.

When he was finished, and had put the groceries away, he went outside the sliding doors, knelt on the ground and worked. When he came back inside much later, a few hours, he wiped his forehead and smiled. Bobby was sitting there fidgeting, eating some of the citrus she had seen the man take out of the bags and place in the fruitbowl.

“Okay, Grandma Bobby. I’ll see you soon. I’m not sure if you remember, but my mom is going to start living here with you this week. Do you remember that? She was going to come today but had to take an extra shift at the hospital. She’ll be here on Tuesday! Today is Sunday!”

“Okay, okay,” Bobby said. Bobby did not remember this. Nor could she remember the now very dark room full of photos, and sea glass and tattered couches. The man left, and she returned to the kitchen island, and clutched the brown paper bags in her fists.

There was a woman in the house now, who sometimes tried to help Bobby remember things. Remember words, and places, and people. The doorbell rang, and the woman answered it, bringing in a tall, lumbering man with two bags of groceries under his arms. He gave Bobby a warm smile and waved one of his hands underneath the grocery bag as he came into the kitchen. He put the groceries away, the clamor of cabinets and rustling bags and muffled refrigerator hums filled the kitchen. The man and the woman began to bicker.

“It’s no use,” the man said, pointing towards Bobby, filling her with fright. She realized though, he was pointing to the papers strewn around the glass table where Bobby was sat. The papers were filled with beautiful, penciled script.

“I know,” said the woman, defeated. “It’s just something I heard them say at the hospital that could be helpful. I see her start to write, and the handwriting is so perfect, I get so optimistic, and I hope she will remember. But, you’re right. It’s no use.”

Bobby, listening to this, felt her forehead sweat, and her muscles tense as they talked about her. Her fists clenched. But she struggled to say a word. Language had finally left her, and she just sat there, staring into what she had come to feel was a wall papered abyss. This home felt as if it were shrouded in moving blankets. Protected from wear and dust and dirt, in preparation for the next move.

After more tense whispering, the man slipped open the sliding doors and went onto his knees. In the evening, after the sun had set, he came back, and threw water onto his face, then dried it down. He hugged the woman, who had been sitting at the kitchen island reading a creased Sunday paper and kissed her cheek, and then said “Goodbye Grandma Bobby, I love you.” He stood there and strained a smile, and then walked away. Bobby heard the door shut. The woman turned to Bobby. “Okay, mom, let’s try this again. Write down, ‘I’ve just spent some time with my Grandson Christopher’.” Bobby watched her own, varicose hand move in curves and loops, cradling a short, yellow pencil, forming a meaningless sentence.

Days grew harder for Bobby, and emptier. More moving blankets. “Mom, did you eat today?” the woman asked her one afternoon. “You’re hunched over, and you look so frail. Don’t you know you have your meals in the fridge? Oh goodness, I’m. I’m so sorry.” Bobby felt the hunger. She’d felt it all day, and felt it distend her belly and turn into that awkward satisfaction when you’ve been hungry a long enough time for your body to look for sustenance in itself. First memories, then words had left her, and now the rest of her was keen to depart. She was disappearing. Bobby watched the woman bring a cold spoonful of oats to her mouth, and she opened and swallowed the milky, soggy soup of a meal. A blurry figure, a man walked behind the woman with the spoon, he smiled and waved, opened the sliding doors and went outside.

Bobby was in bed. She had watched summer emerge through her window. Today, the tree outside her window was lush in the humid air.

“Mom, mom.” A woman appeared in the doorway, smiling. “Mom, you have a visitor.” Bobby thought the woman was a visitor herself. She nodded and raised her eyebrows. A man came to the doorway.

“Grandma Bobby!” Taller than the woman, with a longer face and tired features, the man did seem happy and wore a wide smile. “I’d like to bring you downstairs for a minute, would that be okay?”

The only light in the room came from the window, through which the lush tree looked like a painting. The woman came to help Bobby up, and took her left arm and the man took her right. They walked forever down a flight of stairs. The downstairs was bright; light gleamed in from glass sliding doors, leading to a verdant garden.

“Do you want me to come,” Bobby heard the woman whisper softly to the man.

“No I think, I think I’ll just go with her,” he replied.

The woman bit her lip and nodded. Bobby turned towards the sliding doors, stared out towards the light, curious about it.

“Okay Grandma Bobby, we’re going outside to the garden. I’ll come help you up. Okay, watch, yes good. Good.” The man slid open the doors, and Bobby held his arm as they stepped onto the grass. The sun came down hard and she put her arm above her eyes, and enjoyed the warmth on her hair. There was a small bench, and several green plants growing, and red fruits on a vine.

“Okay Grandma, we’re going to sit down,” said the man. “I want you to close your eyes shut, I am going to also. And then…and then we’re going to breathe in through our nose. We’re going to sniff. And, maybe we’re going to do that again. I don’t know what I’m hoping will happen here but, I just miss you so much. I…I thought it could help.”

The man looked at Bobby with hope, and held a stare for a moment. Then he faced forward. Bobby watched the man close his eyes, and so she closed hers. And then Bobby heard him sniff, loudly, and so she sniffed, loudly. She felt the rush of warm air, and scents, and moisture through her nostrils. He sniffed again and so she sniffed again.

As the physical sensation of the sniff subsided, a feeling poured over her. A scene played in her mind, she was now pouring orange juice for her grandson, and had just opened a window to let in a breeze, which came upon his overgrown mop of middle school hair. She heard a voice, high and soft, and her own voice.

“Grandma, what do I call the smell of basil? Does it smell green? Can something smell green? I guess it just smells like basil. There don’t seem to be many words for saying how things smell. I don’t know what to call it.”

“Well,” mused Bobby. “Who said we need to call it anything at all.”

“How will you know what I’m talking about though, when I want to describe the smell?”

“How about this?,” Bobby mused. “We can just sit here, and sniff, and sniff. And close our eyes. And we’ll know. Without saying anything. Ready?”