In this unsentimental memoir of watching her mother fade away, of dealing with her bills, her housework, her increasing demands and dementia, Whouley brings us right into the laugh-or-you'll-cry experiences of meeting the challenge of Alzheimer's. As her mother falls into forgetting, Kate remembers for her. In her mother, we meet a strong-minded, accidental feminist with a weakness for unreliable men. We meet a daughter who learned early to fend for herself. We encounter their shared passions: books, words, and music. When the books are forgotten and the words begin to fade, it is the music that matters most to Kate's mother. Holding hands after a concert, a flute case slung over Kate's shoulder, and a shared joke between them, their relationship is healed--even in the face of a dreaded, and deadly, diagnosis.