Before I Forget

Twenty-six-year-old Christine “Cricket” Campbell returns to her family’s home on Catwood Pond in upstate New York after a nine-year absence. Her car gets stuck in the mud a mile from the house, in a place that she has avoided ever since she experienced a tragedy there as a teenager. Her visit is prompted by a call from her older sister, Nina, a computational biologist who has accepted a postdoctoral position in Stockholm. Their plan is to move their seventy-four-year-old father, Arthur, who has Alzheimer’s disease, into a memory-care facility and sell the family home to pay for it.

At the house, Cricket is greeted by Nina and Arthur. Arthur is physically frail and, as Cricket discovered with devastation during a visit two years prior, no longer recognizes her. In her childhood bedroom, she finds a box containing a fishing-fly ring and a Polaroid of a blond teenager named Seth, reminders of a painful past. During dinner, Arthur’s sense of humor is intact, but his memory is clearly failing. Later, Nina and Cricket discuss the necessity of selling the house, For Cricket, the house is complicated by the memory of someone from her past named Seth.

The family tours two memory-care homes, both of which Arthur dislikes. On the drive home, they find a note from a neighbor, Carl, offering to help with Cricket’s stuck car.

Back in New York City, Cricket feels alienated from her life and her unfulfilling job at a wellness company called Actualize. After her boss, Gemma Dwyer, pitches an absurd new product line, Cricket impulsively quits. She immediately calls Nina to cancel the sale of the house, announcing she will move to Catwood Pond to become their father’s full-time caregiver.

Cricket moves back to the Adirondacks and spends a month learning Arthur’s care routine from Nina before Nina leaves for Stockholm. Once in charge, Cricket abandons Nina’s rigid schedule for a more intuitive approach. She soon notices her father making small, accurate predictions, such as the return of loons to the pond after a years-long absence. Their neighbor Carl confirms he has also witnessed Arthur’s gift of prediction. Nina dismisses these as coincidences.

Financial pressure mounts when the family cat, Dominic, requires a $2,300 dental surgery. To cover the cost, Cricket takes a part-time marketing job with her former dance teacher, Paula Garibaldi, and accepts freelance copywriting work from her ex-boss, Gemma. Arthur’s premonitions continue. Carl, the neighbor, reveals that Arthur had been predicting Cricket’s return for years. On Halloween, during an experiment with sciomancy, which involves reading shadows and potentially communing with ghosts, Arthur sees Seth’s ghost.

A flashback to the summer she was sixteen reveals that Cricket fell in love with a boy named Seth Atwater. Their relationship was transformative and solidified her dream of becoming a veterinarian. As summer ended, Cricket, on Nina’s misguided advice, broke up with a heartbroken Seth, hoping to protect herself and reunite with him the following year.

At Thanksgiving dinner with Carl and Paula, Cricket shares her theory that her father is an oracle. Carl reveals that Arthur once channeled the spirit of Carl’s deceased mother, delivering a healing message that assuaged Carl’s guilt over her death. Both Carl and Paula agree that Seth’s ghost is likely visiting Arthur for a reason.

Gemma contacts Cricket, requesting a session with “The Oracle” for herself and her friend Inez, a magazine editor. With help from Carl and Paula, Cricket stages an elaborate ritual. During the session, Arthur provides Gemma with a surprisingly insightful prophecy about her failing marriage. Inez's article goes viral, and a subsequent feature in The New York Times turns The Oracle into a national sensation. The project revitalizes the local economy as hundreds of visitors, or "supplicants," flock to the town.

A second flashback details the night of Seth’s death. On New Year’s Eve, Cricket surprised Seth at a party, intending to reconcile, but was devastated to find him with another girl. She ran out onto the frozen pond to walk home. Seth followed on a snowmobile to give her a ride. After an emotional conversation at her dock, she sent him away. Shortly after, he crashed the snowmobile on a pressure crack in the ice and was killed instantly. In the aftermath, Cricket was consumed by guilt, which was amplified when Seth’s cousin, Greg Seavey, publicly blamed her. The trauma contributed to her parents’ divorce and her estrangement from her father, leading her to drop out of college and spend years drifting aimlessly.

Back in the present, Arthur matter-of-factly reports that Seth’s ghost visited again, this time with “Coconut,” the snake Cricket had rescued as a teen. 

Cricket reconnects with her childhood best friend, Chloe, a deeply healing experience. She also meets and begins dating Paula’s nephew, Max, an arborist.

Gemma returns with a venture capital partner, Anthony, and offers Cricket $100,000 for the “IP” of The Oracle. Their plan is to buy the abandoned Seavey camp across the pond, turn it into a wellness retreat, and create an AI version of Arthur as the main attraction. The deal is brokered by Greg Seavey, Seth’s cousin. After discussing the offer with Max, Cricket gains clarity and turns Gemma down. Shortly after, she discovers Gemma has launched the “Catwood Collection,” a skincare line using water from Catwood Pond.

Nina gives birth to a son, Anders Arthur, in Stockholm. That same day, Arthur suffers a transient ischemic attack (TIA), or mini-stroke, and Cricket puts the oracle project on hold. Seth’s mother, Jill Atwater, makes an unexpected visit. She reassures Cricket that she was not to blame for Seth’s death, providing profound closure. Arthur suffers two more TIAs, and his health rapidly deteriorates. His doctor recommends hospice care, which Cricket’s mother, Tish, offers to pay for.

Arthur enters the final stage of his life. Cricket sits with him, reading to him and thanking him for his love. He passes away peacefully at home. Nina arrives with their mother, and the three women have a frank, healing conversation about the past. Tish confirms the divorce was not Cricket’s fault and offers to pay for her to finish college and attend veterinary school.

On the night before Arthur’s funeral, Cricket dreams her father takes her heart, telling her that a new heart is “almost ready” for her, symbolizing her healing. The next morning, she finds a copy of All Creatures Great and Small that her father inscribed to her on her tenth birthday, encouraging her to design her own future. Cricket realizes her father’s greatest gift was not seeing the future, but helping others see the truth within themselves. She is at peace, ready to pursue her own future at Catwood Pond.