Forgetting Foster Read Online Free Page A

out why he couldn’t cut them in half. Foster and Dad giggled about it. But then the forgetting got less funny. Like when Dad got confused on the drive home from work and had to park on the side of the road to figure out where he was. The police found him parked there, looking muddled. They thought he was drunk at first. They put him in the back of the police car and rang Foster’s mum. Nobody laughed much about that.
    The beginning of the forgetting was the worst because Dad knew about it. He knew something was wrong. Once the forgetting really set in it didn’t seem to matter to him. But somewhere in between the funny forgetting and the not talking anymore his dad had moments, just moments, of absolute clarity which really hurt him. Foster could see that Dadknew. He knew there were things he used to know that were going away. Mum started to get angry at the silly things Dad sometimes did and he’d go sort of pale, the colour of a second-hand book page, and make little clicking noises in his throat to cover his confusion. Foster imagined the noises were Dad’s memory trying to squeeze out, like air being pinched from the stretched neck of a balloon.
    His dad started walking differently. The change in his walking paralleled his forgetting, as if he were trying to make himself smaller, less noticeable. He started shuffling like a tall person trying to conceal their height. He wasn’t a particularly tall person but he stooped anyway, dragging his feet so they scuffed the floor. You could hear him coming. It made Foster’s mum mad. Sometimes Foster would stumble across Dad leaning against a doorframe or sitting in a corner, always still, always expressionless, and sometimes he wouldn’t answer when Foster talked to him. It was scary to come across Dad without warning. The only way to be sure where Dad was at any time was if he was making his way from one part of the house to another. Then there was that rasping of his feet on the floor.
    His dad would sit in the lounge room a lot fiddlingwith a tin that had belonged to Grandma. It was an old biscuit tin that was probably not all that old but it had a russet tarnish around the lid which made it look like a shoddy heirloom. Foster had a trawl through that tin himself once. It was full of fusty-smelling bits and pieces that Grandma had obviously wanted to keep for some reason. A few photos, birth certificates, letters, along with some other things that seemed insignificant: feathers, a couple of shells, old movie tickets. Somehow, though, Foster knew none of the things in that tin had been accidentally placed, and his dad picked through everything meticulously, regularly, as if they were triggers to his memory. Sometimes his dad would just hold the tin in his lap, running his fingers across the lid, and then raise and lower the lid, up-down-up-down, the hinges stiff and squeaky. Foster would watch him and it was as if he were playing an instrument. He would carry that tin around with him, room to room, wherever he went.
    The one place his dad never went anymore was the backyard. He used to love the backyard. They had one of the few big blocks on the street. The distance from the back door to the back fence seemed miles and miles, and at the back fence, hunkered down likean arbour sentry, was a jacaranda. As soon as Foster could walk his dad started taking him out into the backyard to catch balls and watch clouds and play chasey with Geraldine, their drooling mutt. Dad loved Geraldine. He said mutts were best. Purebreds were full of temperament and malaise. When Foster asked what that meant Dad told him bad manners and bad health. Dad called Geraldine a genetic jigsaw of proper dogs. She had a crooked face and tender eyes. When the forgetting and shuffling got worse Foster used to hold Dad’s hand and try to lead him into the backyard. But when Geraldine howled for chasey now it just seemed to upset Dad and Mum told Foster to leave Dad be. That’s when Foster would run out