Chapter 52
CALLUM
Remember to Forget - Passenger
It was tough. Tougher than he expected—listening to his taid lose the threads of conversation, seeing his gaze drift somewhere else, only to return and ask the same questions again.
It was hard. Harder than he’d thought it would be.
As he rounded the corner to grab some wood for the fire, he found his grandfather seated on one of the benches in the backyard, his eyes set on the ocean.
Until now, his mother had been the mediator between them, but it felt right—now that Alejandra was relaxing in his bedroom—that he sat with him. No matter where the conversation went. No matter how painful it might become. He wanted him to know, somehow, that he was there.
“Hello, taid.”
The old man raised his gaze, and for a second it looked clear. Not the cloudy, confused look Callum had seen so many times since coming home.
“Callum. Sit here, son.” He smiled wide. There was recognition in his eyes, and warmth swelled in Callum’s chest.
His taid had been his father figure, the only one. They used to go fishing in Cardigan Bay, back when it was still his job. Even after retirement, he’d looked at the ocean the same way Callum had seen Alejandra look at it, like it was sacred. Pure awe. Pure reverence.
“How do you feel?” Callum asked, sitting beside him. There was a time when he’d been amazed by how tall the old man was. Now, hunched with age, Callum towered over him.
“Good. Calan Mai always makes me happy. Reminds me of your nain.” There was a soft, faraway look in his eyes. “I miss her so much.”
Callum couldn’t say much about her. She died when he was still a baby, no memories beyond a few blurry photos and the stories told by his taid and mam. But she had always sounded like someone he would have loved to know. Someone who could have guided him.
“She loved the ocean passionately. Every time she could, she’d go down to the beach, knitting, breathing in the salt air,” his taid said with a wistful smile. Then he leaned in closer, grinning. “Or to avoid me.”
Callum chuckled. That felt right. That felt like home. That felt like him again.
“How are you, son?”
“Good. Very good,” he admitted. “In love.”
His taid wiggled his bushy eyebrows. “And who is she?”
Right. Short-term memory was unreliable these days.
“Her name’s Alejandra. She’s Spanish. A surfer. She loves the ocean like nain did. Even though… she had a bad experience, and she’s trying to find her way back to it.”
“A surfer,” he repeated, smiling. Then, without warning: “Reminds me of that asshole of your father.”
Callum blinked. “What?”
“Yeah, that Mick. What an idiot.” He waved him off.
Was he serious? Or was his mind playing tricks again?
Had he just said that some surfer named Mick was his father?
Somehow that name felt familiar, but there could be so many Mick he had met along the years.
Callum barely had time to steady himself before his taid turned toward him again.
There was something unbearably lucid in his eyes now, as though the fog had lifted just long enough for him to realize it was there. His taid gripped his hand tightly.
“I feel like I’m slipping away, Callum.”
The words hollowed something inside his chest. Callum searched his face instinctively, desperate to understand what he meant, desperate for it not to mean what he already feared it did.
“What do you mean?”
His taid’s mouth trembled.
“I can’t hold on to my memories.” His voice cracked softly. “Everything slips through me. I try to grab onto things and they’re just…” He shook his head weakly. “Gone.”
His hand trembled violently in Callum’s grasp.
“I know they matter. I know they do.” Tears welled in his cloudy eyes. “But I can’t find them anymore.”
Callum felt his throat close. Because this wasn’t confusion anymore. This was awareness.
“I feel like I’m disappearing,” his taid whispered. “Bit by bit.” His breathing hitched painfully. “And one day I won’t remember your mam. Or your nain.” His eyes searched Callum’s face desperately, as though trying to memorize him before it was too late. “Or you.”
The last two words nearly destroyed him.
Past and present bled together in his taid’s expression—fear, grief, confusion, shame. Like he was mourning himself while he was still alive enough to know what he was losing.
“I don’t want to forget,” he whispered, voice breaking completely now. “God, Callum, I don’t want to forget you.”
Callum couldn’t breathe for a second.
Because suddenly he was eight years old again, sitting on this man’s shoulders. Twelve years old learning how to fish beside him. Sixteen years old being told that heartbreak wouldn’t kill him, even if it felt like it might.
This man had been solid his entire life. Immovable. The person who remembered everything.
And now he couldn’t even trust his own mind to hold onto the people he loved.
“Everything will be fine,” Callum whispered hoarsely, pulling him into his arms.
But the words felt useless. Fragile. Meaningless against something this cruel.
His taid broke apart against him with a sound Callum knew he would carry for the rest of his life. Deep, helpless sobs shook through his body, the kind that came from somewhere beyond dignity.
Callum held him tighter. The man who had once carried him through every storm now felt frighteningly small in his arms.
Callum stared over his shoulder, jaw clenched so tightly it hurt, forcing himself not to cry. His taid didn’t need to comfort him too. Not now. Not in this tiny, devastating moment of clarity the disease had accidentally allowed him.
“Everything will be fine,” he repeated softly, over and over again, like if he said it enough times maybe it would become true.
His taid eventually pulled back just enough to wipe at his face with trembling hands.
“I’m sorry,” he whispered.
And somehow, that apology shattered Callum more than anything else. Because it sounded genuine. As though he believed he had failed them somehow. As though forgetting the people he loved was a personal weakness instead of a disease slowly eating away at him from the inside.
“It’s not your fault,” Callum said immediately, voice breaking despite himself.
But Alzheimer’s did that to people. It stole memories first, and then dignity right after.
It hollowed people out slowly enough that everyone they loved had to watch it happen in pieces.
A name forgotten here. A face misplaced there.
Entire lifetimes dissolving quietly inside a brain that could no longer carry them.
And the cruelest part was that sometimes they knew.
Sometimes there were moments like this, terrible moments of clarity, where they understood exactly what was happening to them.
Where they realized they were losing everyone they loved while those people were still standing right in front of them.
“There’s nothing to apologize for,” Callum tried to smile, to sound reassuring.
Then, his taid smiled. “So, where’s my love? Where’s Teresa?”
Callum smiled back, swallowing the ache. “She’s down at the beach, taid. She’s down at the beach.”
He walked his taid slowly back inside, one careful step at a time.
The old man leaned heavier against him than usual, exhausted by the weight of his own emotions.
Every few seconds, he seemed to drift somewhere else entirely, gaze unfocused before blinking himself back into the present again.
Callum kept his hand firm around his arm the entire way up the stairs, terrified that if he let go, even for a second, something else would slip away too.
By the time they reached the bedroom, his taid looked drained.
Callum helped him sit on the edge of the bed before crouching in front of him to pull off his slippers the same way his grandfather used to do for him when he fell asleep in the car as a child. The memory hit him so suddenly it nearly knocked the air from his lungs.
His taid looked down at him with tired, red-rimmed eyes.
“Thank you,” he whispered weakly.
Callum swallowed hard.
“Try to get some sleep, yeah?”
The old man nodded faintly. Callum pulled the blankets over him carefully, tucking them around his shoulders out of instinct more than thought. For a moment, his taid caught his wrist before he could pull away.
There was panic in his eyes again.
“You’ll still be here tomorrow?”
The question shattered something fresh inside him.
“Yeah,” Callum answered immediately, forcing steadiness into his voice. “I’ll still be here.”
His taid relaxed little by little, reassured enough to finally let his eyes close.
Callum stayed there longer than necessary, sitting beside the bed in silence while the room filled with the soft ticking of the clock on the wall and the uneven sound of his grandfather’s breathing.
Only when he was sure he had fallen asleep did Callum finally stand.
The hallway felt unbearably quiet.
Every step toward his bedroom felt heavier than the last, his chest tightening harder and harder the farther he got from that room. He kept seeing his taid’s face in flashes—the fear in his eyes, the trembling apology, the desperate way he had said I don’t want to forget you.
By the time he reached his door, his hands were shaking.
Alejandra was sitting on the bed when he walked in, a book resting open in her lap. Warm lamplight softened her features, casting the room in gold. She looked up immediately the second the door clicked shut.
And she knew. He saw it happen instantly in her expression. The concern. The understanding. The quiet heartbreak. She didn’t ask questions. Didn’t force words out of him. And somehow that destroyed the last fragile piece of composure he had left.
Callum’s back hit the door. Then his knees gave out beneath him. He slid down slowly until he was sitting on the floor, one hand pressed hard against his mouth as though he could physically hold the grief inside himself if he tried hard enough.
But he couldn’t. The sob tore out of him violently.
Raw. Helpless. Humiliating.
Callum bent forward, shoulders shaking hard enough to hurt, every breath catching painfully in his throat. Years of restraint collapsed all at once beneath the unbearable reality of watching the strongest person he knew disappear piece by piece.
“There’s nothing I can do,” he choked out between uneven breaths. “I can’t—I can’t fix it.”
Alejandra was in front of him before he even realized she had moved. She sank onto the floor beside him immediately, arms wrapping around him without hesitation. One hand slid into his hair while the other held him tightly against her, anchoring him through the breakdown.
“It’s okay,” she whispered softly, over and over again.
Callum shook his head against her shoulder, crying harder.
“He apologized to me,” he managed to say, voice cracking apart completely. “He said he was sorry.”
Alejandra’s grip tightened.
“Oh, Callum…”
He buried his face against her neck, overcome with grief so sharp it felt almost unbearable. He couldn’t remember the last time he had cried like this. Maybe he never had. Not even after the injury. Not even after everything with Vanessa.
Because this felt different. This wasn’t loss all at once. It was loss in slow motion.
And somehow that was crueler.
Alejandra held him through every shaking breath, fingers threading gently through his hair while her forehead rested against his temple. She didn’t rush him. Didn’t try to offer meaningless reassurance.
She just stayed.