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“She looked just like herself on this day—direct and vague as in fact she was, sweet and ironic.”

On the day Fiona leaves for Meadowlake, she looks and acts like her usual self, dressed gracefully, imagining her new life optimistically. She shows her characteristic combination of precision and whimsy as she removes the scuff marks of her shoes from the floor, hangs up the dishrag, and applies red lipstick before she leaves the house. Underneath the surface, however, her appearance and behavior in this moment demonstrate the uneven progression of her dementia, a source of uncertainty for Grant. Because the story is narrated from Grant’s perspective, he becomes an unreliable narrator here as he tries to convince himself that Fiona is just as she always was and that she is not deteriorating, even as he knows she is leaving the house for the final time before he takes her to the assisted living facility. In this moment, readers are prompted to see Fiona as she once was, through Grant’s eyes, rather than through the lens of the circumstances of her supposed reality.

She said, “Ice-land.” The first syllable managed to hold a tinkle of interest, but the second fell flat. Anyway, it was necessary for her to turn her attention back to Aubrey, who was pulling his great thick hand out of hers. “What is it?” she said. “What is it, dear heart?” Grant had never heard her use this flowery expression before.”

When Grant brings Fiona a book of paintings of Iceland, a present intended to remind her of her mother and her past interest in perhaps someday traveling to the country, she is instead wholly focused on Aubrey, who is leaving Meadowlake. Though he tries to hold her attention and remind her of a facet of the past and their life together, Fiona’s pronunciation of “Iceland” demonstrates how Grant cannot force her to overcome her memory deficiencies nor distract her from her sadness at the loss of what she now perceives to be most important. In this passage, Fiona shows a tender concern for Aubrey, using an endearment for him she has never used for Grant, illustrating the intimacy of their relationship as well as ways dementia or living at Meadowlake is changing her personality and behavior. Though Grant has believed to know her fully in their fifty years of marriage, at this moment she unintentionally presents him with the opportunity to understand that he has never actually known or understood her, and to realize that his chance to do so may have passed.

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