Chapter 19 #2
They drove to the harbor, Ben's headlights sweeping across the docks. Kate was the one who spotted him: a figure at the far end of the pier, standing dangerously close to the edge.
“Pop!” Kate ran toward him, Ben close behind carrying a flashlight
Pop turned, and in the flashlight beam, she could see tears on his face. He was in his pajamas and slippers, shivering violently, one foot actually over the edge of the dock.
“I can't find her,” he said. “Elizabeth. She went in the water. I saw her.”
Kate's heart stopped. “Pop, step back. Please.”
“No! She needs help. She's drowning.” He leaned forward more.
Ben moved smoothly, quickly, grabbing Pop's arm and pulling him back from the edge in one fluid motion. Pop fought against him, surprisingly strong in his confusion.
“Daniel, Elizabeth sent us to get you,” Ben said firmly. “She's safe. She's at home waiting.”
Pop stopped struggling, looked at Ben with desperate hope. “She is?”
“Yes. She sent Katie and me to bring you home. She's worried about you.”
It was a kind lie, the sort Amy had taught them to use. Pop let Ben wrap his jacket around him, but he kept looking back at the water.
“I saw her,” he whispered. “She was calling for me.”
In the truck, Pop between them, Kate texted the others that they'd found him. Her hands were shaking. Another few seconds and Pop might have gone into the harbor. The water was forty degrees. He wouldn't have survived.
“You're dressed up, Katie,” Pop said suddenly, as if just noticing. “Pretty dress.”
“I was on a date, Pop.”
“With this fellow?” He looked at Ben.
“Yes.”
“Good. Solid hands. Knows how to build things.” Pop closed his eyes. “Your mother always said to look at a man's hands. Tells you everything.”
Back at the inn, chaos erupted. Amy took Pop immediately, checking for injuries. Tom was on the phone with someone medical. James paced, running his hands through his hair. Dani cried quietly. And Lillian sat in one of the restored chairs, looking every day of her seventy-three years.
“He could have died,” Lillian said quietly. “If you hadn't found him...”
“But we did,” Kate said.
“This time.” Lillian stood slowly, painfully. “Katherine, he needs professional care. This isn't about money or pride anymore. It's about keeping him alive.”
“She's right,” Tom said, putting down his phone. “I just spoke to a friend who specializes in elder law. After tonight, if something happens, we could be held liable for negligence.”
“Negligence?” Kate's voice rose. “This is my father. I've taken care of him for years!”
“And you've done amazingly,” James said. “But Katie, he almost jumped in the harbor. He thought he saw Mom drowning.”
“The facility in Wells has an opening,” Lillian said. “I called while you were gone. They can take him as soon as tomorrow.”
“Tomorrow?” Kate felt the world tilting. “No. That's too fast.”
“It's not safe to wait,” Tom said in his lawyer voice. “What if he gets out again? What if Ben's not there to grab him?”
Kate looked around at her family, all of them aligned against her. Even Dani looked convinced.
“I need air,” Kate said.
She went out to the porch, still in Marcy's borrowed coat, still in the green dress that now seemed to mock her attempt at normalcy. Ben found her there a few minutes later.
“They're right,” she said before he could speak. “I know they're right. But it feels like betrayal.”
“It's not. It's love.”
“How is locking him up with strangers love?”
“It's keeping him safe. It's accepting that love isn't always enough, that sometimes expertise matters more than devotion.”
Kate turned to look at him. “Is that what you'd do? If it was your father?”
“I don't know. I'd probably fight it just like you are. But then I'd remember that what I want and what he needs might not be the same thing.”
“I hate this.”
“I know.”
She let him pull her against him, let herself be held. He was solid and warm and real, an anchor in a world that kept shifting.
“I'm sorry about dinner,” she said into his shirt.
“We finished dinner. We even had dessert.”
“But the evening...”
“The evening showed me exactly who you are. Someone who drops everything for family. Someone who runs toward crisis instead of away.” He pulled back to look at her. “Someone I'm falling for despite trying very hard to take things slow.”
Kate's breath caught. “Ben...”
“I know it's too soon. I know everything's chaos. But Kate, when I saw you in that green dress tonight, when I watched you run toward your father, when I saw you trying so hard to save everyone... I realized slow isn't working for me anymore.”
Before she could respond, the door opened and Tom appeared.
“Kate, we need to decide. Amy can't watch Pop alone anymore, not after tonight. We can’t lock down the inn. He needs to be protected in a facility.”
“I know,” Kate admitted.
She looked at Ben, then at her brother. “Give me tonight. Let me say goodbye properly. We'll take him in the morning.”
Tom nodded and went back inside. Kate stood with Ben on the porch, looking out at the harbor where they'd almost lost Pop, where everything had changed in an instant.
“Will you stay?” she asked suddenly. “Not... not like that. Just... be here? I don't want to be alone tonight.”
“Of course.”
They went inside, and Kate changed out of the green dress into jeans and one of Pop's old flannel shirts.
She sat with Pop until he fell asleep, Ben in a chair nearby, just present.
Her family came and went, planning, discussing logistics.
Amy spoke to the intake nurse who would make sure everything was ready in the morning.
At some point, Kate briefly dozed off in the chair beside Pop's bed. She woke to find Ben covering her with a blanket, his hand gentle on her shoulder.
“Thank you,” she whispered.
“Always,” he whispered back.
Tomorrow they would take Pop to the memory care facility. Tomorrow everything would change again. But tonight, she sat with her father while he slept, Ben keeping watch over them both, and tried to memorize everything about this moment before it became just another thing she'd lost.