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he found it inappropriate, as he did most of Renny’s behaviors, and he would drive to the grocery and take them down. That he remembers.
    But then last week they heard that Ray had been released. Del told them. Second-degree murder charges, is that what they were called? A class 2 Felony. Time was up. Or not really. How many years for one life? But there was earned time. Good behavior. No one, not even the judge, can accurately calculate the sentence. Like a math problem that can’t be solved. Like a life. No one can calculate. No one knows. Del had sat them down at the kitchen table and said all this. He had presented them with a waxed bag with two Fern’s Very Famous Cinnamon Rolls and had said, “Renny and Ben, I wanted to tell you. Jess and Billy know. You’ve probably been notified, or you will be. But I wanted to tell you myself. Ray’s been released from prison. His time was up. He’s going to Greeley—” and here Del glances at Ben, because Ben was born and raised in Greeley, and then he adds, “Just thought you should know.”
    A switch flipped, then. Ben couldn’t help it, but he started having conversations with Ray in his head each day, all day. He says, Out, Ray, out , but Ray is still in his brain. Ever sinceDel told them, he has been walking and saying Out Out Out and walking more and saying Out Out Out and yet Ray has moved into his brain. Ray has moved into his brain, right next to the disease.
    The conversations fill his mind like chickadees coming in for bread crumbs, always there, always there even when you try to shoo them away.
    Out, coward.
    Out, bully.
    Out, small man. Drinking too much. Depressed. Feckless. So you say. But why? Because you’re selfish.
    Too lazy to be a good human. Lazy coward.
    He heard something in that meeting he goes to that is not true. The woman said that it’s very hard for people losing their memory to realize when they’re moving into the new stage, the one where you don’t remember that you have a remembering problem. But that is not true. He can tell. It is happening now, and he can tell how little time he has left. He knows. He knows he has to hurry. So that he can have this conversation for real. He wants to hold Ray up to his face and say it all. He will tell Ray all these conversations and then they will be out of his brain.
    He will finally say these words. He will get them out of his brain. Because courage is fear that has said its prayers. The perfect words come to him in a flash.
    He has already prayed and asked forgiveness from the universe. If he has upset the natural order of things. He has nearly forgiven himself. He has always been a gentle man, and in part, that has been the problem. He must rise up and be fierce for once. He has asked forgiveness for his gentleness and not fighting more for Rachel to come home, for not fighting when Rachel raced into his house, for not noticing fast enough thatRay had a gun and was raising it, and for tackling Ray three seconds too late (exactly three because he has counted so many times), and that he has not done more good in his life. At least he can do this.
    He has this disease with his brain—he can’t remember what it’s called—and he knows it gets worse. That’s why Renny moved him back to the farmhouse, made him leave his little cabin. He remembers that room, how Renny found scraps of paper in his kitchen and stared at them a long time and said oh god, oh god . The names of his friends and the vet and his address and his hometown. He heard oh god oh god and he had been ashamed and scared. That is when she took him to the doctor who studies brains and she dumped the slips on the doctor’s desk. The doctor asked him so many questions that his head hurt and then the doctor said, “I’m sorry,” and then talked about a drug called Aricept (for some reason he can remember that) but he had not taken it because Renny, at her