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Howard and Maddie are coming to visit today.
Scratch that: Howard and Maddie are visiting right now, because Albert is sitting in the living room with them and with Buck. He’s not sure when exactly they got here, whether it was a long time ago or not, but he knows that they ate together, because he’s full, and he knows that things have been going well, because he feels good, even as the day falls apart behind him and he’s left with only the moment.
In the moment, he’s sitting on a recliner and cradling a baby, and he looks down at her and smiles, full of wonder. She’s beautiful. He’s so happy to finally meet her, after all this time, and then she blinks up at him and he blinks down at her and remembers that earlier tonight Howard came into the apartment and she was in his arms, and then Buck took her and bounced her around and showed her to Albert and said, Look, sweetie, both your uncles are here!
Oh. Right, of course. Of course. He’s met her before. He’s held her before. The first time he held her, everyone kept urging him to be careful, careful, careful, and he was. He didn’t hold her for long, but he was very happy while he did, and Albert’s car crashed and rolled over and she was born and she’s so cute, she’s probably the cutest baby Albert’s ever seen. He spent months and months excited to meet her, and now she’s here.
He drove Maddie and Howard to the hospital for Maddie to have the baby, but he’s almost completely sure that he was asleep when she was born. It doesn’t matter, though, he’s been assured, because he wouldn’t have been able to visit anyway, after the birth. They’re in a pandemic, which is why everyone wore masks all the time while he was rehabilitating and he couldn’t see most of his friends even though he really wanted to.
But he’s meeting her now. He knows her now.
“Do you know who I am?” he asks the baby, and then he laughs. “She’s yours, Howie,” he says, thrilled.
“That’s right,” Howard says. Albert keeps smiling down at the baby, not paying attention to the way that Buck’s hovering, spotting him so that he can take the baby from his arms if, for some reason, Albert can’t hold her anymore, given that staying upright and in control of his body has become an extreme sport. “That’s my daughter. That’s your niece.”
“Hi,” Albert whispers at her, and she looks up at him and blinks her wide eyes. “Hi...”
His voice falters and dies, and not because his tongue is heavy and numb.
His brain is the heavy, numb thing now.
Albert searches for knowledge he knows he has gained over the past few months, but he can’t find it other than the fact, or he thinks it’s a fact, that her name starts with a J. Albert feels guilt start to knot up his stomach, because he knows her name, he really does, but he can’t remember it, it’s all tangled up and it’s like every time he starts to remember, it slips away. He thinks he knew before.
He makes a sound of confusion.
He would like to say something, but his mouth doesn’t want to tell him what it is.
Suddenly, the baby is gone, and he starts, alarmed, looking around, arms twitching to reach out and find her again.
The last thing he wants is to lose her.
Then he catches up to the past few minutes and realizes that Buck took her, and he watches Buck grin at the baby and then give her to Maddie, shooting Albert a thumbs up, and there’s a hand on Albert’s knee and he looks at Howard, who’s crouched in front of him.
“Um,” Albert says, rubbing his tingling hands together anxiously. “I’m. I am. I do not, I.”
Howard says, “Take a deep breath.”
The baby is making these cooing sounds and Buck and Maddie are speaking to each other and the baby in low voices and the dishwasher is going in the kitchen and there’s an ache in Albert’s head that is becoming a stabbing pain. He screws his face up. Ow.
Wait, right, he had something important to say, he had a question to ask, and he’s worried now that he’s going to forget (even though it was really important), but he still has a body and it still does things sometimes and he’s finally able to speak clearly as he asks, “What’s the baby’s name?”
“Jee-Yun. Her name is Jee-Yun,” Howard says, giving Albert a smile that looks…brave. As though Howard is smiling through something that hurts.
Oh.
Albert thinks he’s the thing that’s hurting Howard.
He’s very sorry about that.
Jee-Yun.
A spark of excitement flares in Albert’s mind, and he says, eagerly in spite of the mounting pain in his head, “Like your mom.”
“Yup,” Howard says, squeezing Albert’s knee, his smile brightening. Albert hoped it would, with the confirmation that Albert remembered Jee-Yun’s name after all. “Just like my mom.”
“Jee-Yun,” Albert says, and then he grimaces. “My head hurts now,” he admits, embarrassed. “I’m sorry.”
Over his shoulder, Howard tells Buck, “He says his head hurts, could you get me some—thanks.” He turns back to Albert, whose vision is starting to get blurry (and who has only just realized that he’s been speaking Korean since he asked his niece’s name), and says, “It’s okay. Take these.”
Hands shaking, Albert takes the pills Howard gives him, and he drinks the water without spilling. Howard takes the cup out of his hand and sets it on the floor. Albert is a little lost on what to do now.
He puts his hands to the sides of his head.
“Hey, let’s get you to bed, little brother. We’ll FaceTime tomorrow, and we’ll come visit again soon. Maybe you’ll visit us too, huh?”
When Albert is done processing the words, the first thing he feels is a surge of frustration, one so strong that, were he not seated and busy trying to hold his head together with his hands, it’d probably move him to kick something.
He said his head hurt, not that he wanted to go to bed, and he definitely didn’t say he wanted Howard and Maddie and the baby to leave.
“I don’t want you to go away,” he says, upset. Then, not able to help himself, he asks, uncharitably, “Why are you so stupid?”
It’s not a nice question, and no one ever seems to have a good answer, but Albert still asks, because sometimes he feels like everyone and everything has gotten incredibly stupid, and he hates it. He tries to say things and no one understands, or they act like they understand even though they don’t, or they act like he’s the one who doesn’t understand, and he tries to do things and nothing works, and it’s confusing and weird and unfair and his head hurts and now he wants to vomit and he doesn’t know when his body got so messed up and none of that means he wants to be alone.
“Albert,” Howard says, voice measured and a lot calmer than Albert’s, because Albert’s getting agitated, though he maintains it’s for a good reason. “Maddie and Jee-Yun and I don’t live here. You know that. You live here with Buck. We have to go home. We have to get the baby home. We have to leave at some point.”
“But I don’t want you to leave,” Albert insists, disappointed, and he knows this is his fault, he ruined everything by all of a sudden not feeling well anymore. His voice wobbles. “I want you to come back.”
“Hey,” Howard says. “Hey, buddy, we’re gonna come back. We’re not leaving forever. We’re just leaving your apartment for now. We’re going to visit again soon, and we can FaceTime when you wake up like I said. Okay?”
“I’m not tired, it’s early,” Albert says stubbornly, because it’s probably early, he seems to always go to sleep early. Really, he just seems to always go to sleep.
He wants to stop being sleepy now.
“I kinda think you are tired,” Howard says, voice bordering on teasing, which makes Albert give him a reluctant smile. “I don’t blame you. It was a long day. You did a lot.”
Albert frowns. “Really?”
“Definitely. We all did a lot, and we have to go now. Here, let’s get you to bed first.”
Albert still doesn’t want to go to bed, and still doesn’t want anyone to leave, and still knows that his niece’s name is Jee-Yun and he knew it before too, when he didn’t remember, he really did, but Howard’s making sense and Albert finally has to admit that he is tired.
“C’mon, get some rest,” Howard says, voice encouraging. As is unfortunately usual, Albert’s brain takes a bit to catch up to the words, and his body takes longer, but he decides that yeah, it’s time to get some rest. His doctors say that it’s normal for him to sleep a lot, at least, even though it makes him feel pretty boring.
His head is starting to hurt less, but his feet tingle and he stumbles when he stands, a wave of dizziness almost overtaking him. Thankfully, Buck is supporting him on one side and Howard is on the other, and he doesn’t fall.
Now that he’s on his feet, Albert hesitates. For a moment, the new position makes him feel like he’s in a different universe, but when he gets his bearings he sees that he’s in Buck’s apartment. Which is also his apartment. He’s in his apartment, and so are Howard and Maddie, because they’re visiting, and oh, look, Maddie’s holding the baby, and he smiles brightly at Maddie and at Jee-Yun, distracted.
Maddie smiles back, and says to the little bundle in her arms, which she’s been holding for much, much longer than Albert ever has, “Say good night to Uncle Albert, Jee-Yun.”
Jee-Yun, being a baby, obviously doesn’t say good night, but she does look at Albert and he really thinks she recognizes him. He recognizes her too.
He waves goodbye to her, but then he gets dizzy again and has to put his attention to getting into bed, which is at least not as difficult as it could be, considering that he sleeps on a pull-out couch basically three feet away from where he was sitting.
Albert manages to clamber under the covers without much trouble, which is a win, and he begins to drift off.
He feels Howard stroke his hair in the seconds before he fully falls asleep. It's nice.
Albert may not remember most of today, but he had a pretty good time.