Chapter 20
Kate didn't sleep very well the night before taking Pop to Wells. She sat in the chair beside his bed, watching him breathe, memorizing the sound of him in this room he'd shared with her mother for twenty years. At three in the morning, he woke, looked at her with complete clarity.
“Today's the day, isn't it?” he said.
Kate's throat closed. “Pop?”
“The place. The memory place. That's where we're going.”
“How did you...”
“I'm confused, Katie-girl, not stupid. Not all the time anyway.” He sat up slowly, looked around the room. “I hear you all talking. Sometimes it makes sense, sometimes it doesn't. But I heard Tom on the phone. Very official sounding.”
“Pop, I'm so sorry. After last night at the harbor...”
“I remember the harbor. Sort of. Like a dream. I thought I saw her.”
“I know.”
“I see her a lot now. Sometimes she's young, sometimes older, sometimes in between.” He touched Kate's face with his papery hand. “You look tired.”
“I'm okay.”
“No. You haven't been okay in a long time. Maybe with me gone, you can be.”
“Don't say that. You're not gone. Wells is only twenty minutes away.”
“It's not the distance, Katie.” He looked around the room again. “Will you pack my good sweater? The one Elizabeth made?”
“Of course.”
“And the photo album? The one with our wedding pictures?”
“Yes.”
“And you'll visit?”
“Every day.”
“Don't do that. Don't make your life about visiting me. I won't remember anyway.”
“Pop...”
“Listen to me while I can say this.” His voice was stronger than it had been in weeks. “I'm proud of you. You held everything together when it was falling apart. You stayed when everyone else left. But Katie, it's time for you to live now. Really live, not just survive.”
“I don't know how.”
“That Ben fellow seems to have ideas.”
Kate almost smiled. “Yeah, he does.”
“Your mother liked him. Said he had honest hands.”
“Mom never met Ben.”
Pop's face clouded, confusion creeping back in. “She didn't? But she said... she told me...”
“It's okay, Pop.”
“I'm tired, Katie. So tired of fighting to remember, tired of feeling lost in my own life.”
“Then rest. Stop fighting. We'll take care of everything.”
He lay back down, closed his eyes. “Tell Elizabeth I'll be late for dinner.”
“I'll tell her.”
By six, the house stirred with people. Dani made breakfast that no one ate.
Tom handled paperwork with terrible efficiency.
James packed Pop's clothes, folding each item with unnecessary precision.
Amy prepared his medications, typing up detailed instructions for the facility staff though they had their own protocols.
Ben arrived at seven, didn't say anything, just started helping. He carried boxes to the car, fixed a drawer that had been sticking for years, made coffee that was actually drinkable. His presence was steady, undemanding, exactly what Kate needed.
Lillian came at eight, using her walking stick more heavily than before. She sat in one of the restored chairs, watching the preparations with an expression Kate couldn't read.
“I can ride separately,” Lillian offered. “But, if my presence makes this harder, I’ll stay here”
“No,” Kate said, surprising herself. “You should come. You're family. We can meet you there.”
Something flickered across Lillian's face. Gratitude, maybe, or surprise. “Thank you.”
Pop came downstairs at nine, dressed in his good khakis and the navy sweater, the one Elizabeth had actually made despite his confused memory. He looked around at everyone gathered, his children, Amy, Ben, Lillian.
“Are we having a party?” he asked.
“We're going for a drive, Pop,” Kate said. “To a new place.”
“Oh. Will Elizabeth be there?”
“She'll visit,” Kate lied, the words like glass in her throat.
The drive to Wells was silent except for Pop occasionally commenting on things they passed. The facility was nice, Kate had to admit. More like an upscale apartment building than an institution. Gardens, walking paths, a secured perimeter that looked decorative rather than prison-like.
The director, Mrs. Libby, met them at the entrance. She was warm, professional, exactly the right balance of medical competence and human kindness.
“Mr. Perkins,” she said, offering her hand. “We're so glad you're joining us.”
Pop shook her hand politely. “Is this a hotel?”
“Something like that. Let me show you to your room.”
The room was actually a suite, private, with a view of the garden.
Lillian had paid for the best they had. Kate and Dani made the bed with Pop's own sheets.
James set up photos on every surface. Tom installed a digital frame with hundreds of family pictures.
Pop sat in the chair by the window, watching birds at a feeder.
“This is nice,” he said. “Elizabeth will like the birds.”
A nurse came to do intake, asking Pop questions he couldn't answer. What year was it? Who was the president? What season? Pop looked to Kate for help, but she could only squeeze his hand.
“It's okay, Mr. Perkins,” the nurse said gently. “There are no wrong answers here.”
When it was time to leave, Kate couldn't move. How did you walk away from your father, knowing he might not remember you tomorrow?
“We should go,” Tom said quietly. “The staff said it's easier if we don't linger.”
“Easier for who?” Kate snapped.
But Pop had already dozed off in his chair, the confusion and stress exhausting him. They slipped out while he slept, and Kate felt like the worst kind of betrayer, abandoning him while he was unconscious.
In the parking lot, she stood frozen by the car. Her siblings were in their own vehicles, waiting for her to move so they could leave. Lillian left in her Mercedes, and Ben stood by his truck, patient, watching Kate.
“I can't,” Kate said to no one in particular.
Ben walked over, didn't touch her, just stood close. “You can. You did.”
“What if he wakes up and doesn't know where he is?”
“Then the staff will help him. That's what they do.”
“What if he thinks we abandoned him?”
“Then tomorrow he'll forget he thought that.”
“That doesn't make it better.”
“No,” Ben agreed. “It doesn't.”
Kate drove back to the inn on autopilot. The building felt wrong without Pop in it, too quiet, too empty. His chair in the sunroom looked accusatory. His coffee mug sat in the dish drainer. His slippers were by his bed, forgotten in the packing.
“I'll take them tomorrow,” Dani said, seeing Kate hold them.
“He has other slippers.”
“But these are his favorites.”
“Katie...” Dani's voice was gentle. “He won't know the difference.”
That was the worst part, Kate thought. Pop wouldn't know the difference. Wouldn't know his room from any other, his children from the staff, his life from whatever dream he was living in his broken mind.
She went to his room, stood in the doorway. The bed was stripped, boxes of his remaining things stacked by the dresser. Twenty years of living reduced to what would fit in a single room at a facility.
“We kept too much,” Tom said from behind her. “He can't have all this there.”
“I know.”
“We'll need to sort through it. Decide what to store, what to donate.”
“Not today.”
“No, not today.”
But Kate started anyway, opening boxes, finding treasures and trash mixed together. Pop's fishing licenses from forty years ago. Love letters to Elizabeth. Tax returns from the eighties. Photos of people she didn't recognize. A lifetime of accumulation that meant everything and nothing.
In his nightstand, she found a notebook. Pop's handwriting, but recent, shaky. Daily entries, most just a few words:
Katie made eggs. Sunny day. Elizabeth is gone. Man fixing roof seems nice. Can't remember Tom's wife's name. Katie looks tired. Forgot where bathroom is. Katie still tired. Want to go home. Am home? Katie needs to smile more.
The entries stopped several days earlier. Kate sat on the floor, holding the notebook, crying for the father who'd been documenting his own disappearance, who'd noticed her exhaustion even as his mind failed.
Ben found her there an hour later.
“Everyone’s worried,” he said, sitting beside her on the floor.
“Pop kept a journal. He knew what was happening to him.”
Ben read a few entries. “He loves you. Even confused, that comes through.”
“I failed him.”
“You saved him. Every day for so many years, you saved him.”
“And now?”
“Now you save yourself.”
Kate leaned against his shoulder, too tired to maintain distance. “I don't know how to do that.”
“Start small. Eat dinner. Sleep in a bed instead of a chair. Let people help.”
“Let you help?”
“If you want.”
She turned to look at him, this patient man who'd shown up in every crisis, who'd saved her chairs, the inn from a tree, and maybe her sanity.
“Stay,” she said. “Tonight. Not... I just don't want to be alone with my thoughts.”
“Okay.”
That night, after her siblings had gone to their rooms, Kate sat in the sunroom with Ben. They didn't talk much, just sat together, watching the harbor lights. The inn felt hollow without Pop's presence, like a tooth missing from a smile.
“He'll be okay,” Ben said finally.
“Will I?”
“Yes. Different, but okay.”
“I put my father in a home.”
“You put your father somewhere safe, where trained professionals can care for him.”
“Same thing.”
“Not the same thing at all.”
Kate wanted to argue, but she was too tired. Tomorrow she'd visit Pop, see how he was adjusting. Tomorrow she'd start sorting through his things properly. Tomorrow she'd figure out how to be Kate without the constant responsibility of Pop's care.
Tonight, she just sat with Ben in her mother's inn, in her father's chair, and tried to believe that she'd done the right thing.
The notebook was still in her lap, Pop's shaky handwriting documenting his decline. The last entry, the one she hadn't read out loud, said simply:
Tell Katie I'm sorry for forgetting.
But Kate was the one who was sorry. Sorry for not being enough, for not saving him from this disease, for choosing his safety over his freedom.
Tomorrow she'd start going through everything properly, would pack up his room, would begin the process of accepting this new reality. Tomorrow she might find some peace with this decision.
Tonight, she just grieved.