[ WP ] A man/woman with a photographic memory is diagnosed with Alzheimer 's .

Nancy slowly surveyed her grandmother's room in the home. It looked more like her own bedroom during her teenage years: there were countless pictures tacked to rows of cork boards on the wall opposite the bed, only these were n't pictures of now defunct boy bands, cheap reprints of famous artists, or torn out book pages. Told in chronological order across the boards the nurses had allowed her father to hang was her Grandmother's memory. Newspaper clippings, family photos, cheap Polaroids of the house she'd never return to -- it was all there, painstakingly fitted together by Nancy's father. 
 
 Grandmother ( never Granny, never Grandma ) had a very peculiar memory. When she was younger, Grandmother could recall down to the number of buttons and color of the seam what someone had been wearing on any given day. She could tell anyone who cared ( or did n't ) exactly what her childhood room looked like, the way her elementary school teacher styled her hair, who was in which row for the school photo. Grandmother had been very charming and loved to impress at parties whenever someone challenged her memory, most often by daring her to describe the front page of last week's Sunday paper, headlines and all. Grandmother never lost a challenge. 
 
 Except when it came to Nancy. She'd been a petulant, rowdy child. Quiet yet stubborn, she'd been a dare all her own. From a young age Grandmother had been interested in charming Nancy into submission, regaling the little girl with her favorite stories, recited from memory, or painting memories for Nancy from her infancy in such vivid detail that even today, Nancy felt they really could be hers and not just some sly story. 
 
 The older Nancy became the more she rebelled against Grandmother, especially when she entered school and had refused to wear dresses. Grandmother found the plain denim overalls Nancy wore daily to be silly, impractical, and worst of all ugly, and tried to coerce Nancy into dresses each weekend when she visited. One memory Nancy does have is of her seventh Christmas. That year Grandmother had bought her a deep red woolen peacoat with a large black bow at the neck. She'd hated it on sight, but Grandmother made her try it on immediately and they'd posed for a picture together in front of the tree. Grandmother would always have that memory, or so they'd thought, but she'd wanted a picture to prove to Nancy how cute she could be if she'd only act like a lady. 
 
 In the picture, which Nancy now held in her hand, she was scowling, her tiny chin poking out in a pout over that ridiculous bow, while Grandmother stood proudly with one hand on her shoulder to ensure she stood still. Nancy hated that coat and never wore it after that Christmas day, a fact that Grandmother never let her forget, even if her own memory of it would eventually fade like a snapshot left in the sun. Nancy still can remember the sharp squeeze of those long, thin fingers, the perfectly manicured nails digging into her shoulder, forcing her to stand still. 
 
 Nancy looked to the small, knotted form of Grandmother sleeping on the hospital bed, curled and rolled on her side underneath a thin layer of woven cotton. She felt ill at the sight -- not in mourning for the woman she was losing now frame by frame, but in shame for the blankness she felt instead. She turned back to the wall and worked her way down the timeline until she found that red-coat Christmas, carefully tacked the picture to the board, and left.
