The Circle

spent denying coverage,
     arguing, dismissing, thwarting—surely it was more trouble than simply granting her
     parents access to the right care.
    “Enough of this,” her mother said. “We brought you a surprise. Where is it? You have
     it, Vinnie?”
    They gathered on the high bed covered with a threadbare patchwork quilt, and her father
     presented Mae with a small wrapped gift. The size and shape of the box suggested a
     necklace, but Mae knew it couldn’t be that. When she got the wrapping off, she opened
     the velvet box and laughed. It was a pen, one of the rarefied kind that’s silver and
     strangely heavy, requiring care and filling and mostly for show.
    “Don’t worry, we didn’t buy it,” Mae’s father said.
    “Vinnie!” her mother wailed.
    “Seriously,” he said, “we didn’t. A friend of mine gave it to me last year. He felt
     bad I couldn’t work. I don’t know what kind of use he thought I’d have for a pen when
     I can barely type. But this guy was never so bright.”
    “We thought it would look good on your desk,” her mother added.
    “Are we the best or what?” her father said.
    Mae’s mother laughed, and most crucially, Mae’s father laughed. He laughed a big belly
     laugh. In the second, calmer phase of their lives as parents, he’d become a laugher,
     a constant laugher, a man who laughed at everything. It was the primary sound of Mae’s
     teenage years. He laughed at things that were clearly funny, and at things that would
     provoke just a smile in most, and he laughed when he should have been upset. When
     Mae misbehaved, he thought it was hilarious. He’d caught her sneaking out of her bedroom
     window one night, to see Mercer, and he’d practically keeled over. Everything was
     comical, everything about her adolescence cracked him up. “You should have seen your
     face when you saw me! Priceless!”
    But then the MS diagnosis arrived and most of that was gone. The pain was constant.
     The spells where he couldn’t get up, didn’t trust his legs to carry him, were too
     frequent, too dangerous. He was in the emergency room weekly. And finally, with some
     heroic efforts from Mae’s mom, he saw a few doctors who cared, and he was put on the
     right drugs and stabilized, at least for a while. And then the insurance debacles,
     the descent into this health care purgatory.
    This night, though, he was buoyant, and her mother was feeling good, having found
     some sherry in the B&B’s tiny kitchen, which sheshared with Mae. Her father was soon enough asleep in his clothes, over the covers,
     with all the lights on, with Mae and her mother still talking at full volume. When
     they noticed he was out cold Mae arranged a bed for herself at the foot of theirs.
    In the morning they slept late and drove to a diner for lunch. Her father ate well,
     and Mae watched her mother feign nonchalance, the two of them talking about a wayward
     uncle’s latest bizarre business venture, something about raising lobsters in rice
     paddies. Mae knew her mother was nervous, every moment, about her father, having him
     out for two meals in a row, and watched him closely. He looked cheerful but his strength
     faded quickly.
    “You guys settle up,” he said. “I’m going to the car to recline for a moment.”
    “We can help,” Mae said, but her mother hushed her. Her father was already up and
     headed for the door.
    “He gets tired. It’s fine,” her mother said. “It’s just a different routine now. He
     rests. He does things, he walks and eats and is animated for a while, then he rests.
     It’s very regular and very calming, to tell you the truth.”
    They paid the bill and walked out to the parking lot. Mae saw the white wisps of her
     father’s hair through the car window. Most of his head was below the windowframe,
     reclined so far he was in the back seat. When they arrived at the car, they saw that
     he was awake, looking up into the interlocking boughs of an unremarkable tree. He
     rolled down the window.
    “Well, this has been wonderful,” he said.
    Mae made her goodbyes and left, happy to have the afternoon free. She drove west,
     the day sunny and calm, the colors of the passing landscape simple and clear, blues
     and yellows and greens. As she approached the coast, she turned toward the bay. She
     could get a few hours of kayaking in if she hurried.
    Mercer had introduced her to kayaking, an activity that until then she’d considered
     awkward and dull. Sitting