Chapter 24
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
As I will later tell the police, I don’t lose Lovie.
Technically, she loses me.
Like, gives me the slip loses me.
It started with her planting more damn forget-me-nots in the garden. Watching her plant something that was for all intents and purposes meant for her sparked an idea for the cover art of the new podcast, the last piece of the puzzle. After Lovie went to bed last night, I recorded the first episode and a new intro for Elle on the L , explaining the premise and assuring listeners the original show would continue as promised. And with the ideal photo in mind, I was one or two camera clicks away from being able to press “Make Live.” I ran inside for two seconds to grab a picture from my dresser, one where I’m on Lovie’s lap in front of that very garden.
But now, when I return with my phone and the picture, ready to snag a packet of seeds and set up the perfect shot, Lovie isn’t in the garden anymore. The side gate is creaking, wide open.
I drop the picture frame, the glass cracking quick and rough like lightning on the cobblestone. The sharp pinch in my foot barely registers as I run around the side of the house.
“Lovie!” I yell. I wasn’t gone that long, was I? Sure, I stopped to pee, but that takes two minutes max.
If I’m really not allowed to piss while watching my grandmother, we’re going to need more adult diapers.
I bolt to the front walk, looking both ways down the sidewalk before running into the street, not even checking for cars. There are candy wrappers still littering the asphalt from Halloween a week ago, garbage cans from those who set out their bins a full day early. All of those things, and no Lovie.
I pull open the front door so hard the knob puts a hole in the stucco behind it. I run from room to room, shouting her name. No-Man’s-Land is empty. The kitchen is empty, and the laundry room.
I get desperate and start checking random places. The shower, even though she just had her weekly one yesterday. The hall closet. My bedroom. The crawl space.
Everywhere she is supposed to be, she isn’t.
She’s nowhere.
Lovie is gone .
I clutch my phone in my trembling hand. I don’t have to navigate far. My contacts are sorted by last name, but he’s still under A. For Nurse Adam . His sister called him again, a conversation with hushed voices and tense tones. He ducked out shortly after to go “take care of something.”
He answers on the third ring. “Elle?”
“Lovie’s missing,” I say. “She’s gone. I can’t find her.”
His sigh is so heavy I feel the weight of it through the phone. “Call the police. I’m on my way.”
“Please hurry,” I say, right as he disconnects the call.
The police find my grandmother two blocks over trying to pet a dog, and she’s returned to the safety of our home only seconds before Adam’s car screeches into the driveway. Panic gives him a frantic energy, makes his jaw tight as he rounds his still-open car door.
“She’s fine,” I call over the policewoman’s shoulder. “She’s okay.”
He stops there, in the driveway. I try to focus on what the officer is saying, but my eyes are locked on Adam, the way his chin drops to his chest as he sucks in a shuddering, relieved breath. As he nods once, then twice. Like both syllables of that word.
Okay. Okay.
“The elderly can be tricky,” the officer says as she tucks her notepad in her belt. “If it happens again, give us another call. And try to keep a better eye on her.”
My mouth gapes wide enough she can probably see my tonsils. She knows nothing . Nothing about how my grandmother hates me now for some unknown reason, how it’s always my shin she finds with her cane, never Adam’s. Why is it only me? Her face lights up when she sees him. When she sees me, she runs the other direction.
Literally.
The officers nod at Adam on the way back to the squad car on the street. I manage to hold it together until they pull away and we’re left staring at each other from across the yard. A whimper escapes my trembling lips, and I sniffle. But the tears won’t go back inside this time. They cloud my vision, slide down my cheeks and off the point of my chin.
This isn’t fair. Lovie doesn’t deserve this, to have forgotten all the memories that made her life worth remembering. Adam doesn’t deserve to be working two jobs; he hasn’t had a true day off in over a month. I don’t deserve to have two police officers waltzing in like this is anything other than what it is: common and completely terrifying. And I know this shouldn’t be about me, but I don’t deserve to be abused by the woman who raised me or called fat every time I show a sliver of belly skin.
This disease has taken all the best parts of her and left us with the worst.
I’m crying so hard I don’t hear him approach, but he’s here. At first, I think he’s got his hands on my shoulders to move me aside so he can go in the house. But then those hands slide around me and pull me to him, and he’s hugging me. Just like that.
Adam Wheeler is hugging me.
It’s as close as we’ve been since Halloween. Since he kissed me.
He fits me to his chest in a way that should feel like a cage but instead is more of a weighted blanket. His scrubs are soft against my cheek. He’s stroking the back of my neck over my hair, while his other hand rubs small circles between my shoulder blades, and it’s as calm as I’ve felt all day. Maybe since I came here. I sob onto his chest, grip the fabric on his back and let him hold me up.
And his words .
“It’s not your fault, Elle,” he murmurs. “It could have happened to me too. I’m here. I’m right here with you. She’s okay now. I’ve got you, baby. We’re okay.”
Things he doesn’t say: Stop crying. You’re being overdramatic. This is all your fault.
It loosens something warm and buttery in my chest and gives me just enough of myself back that I’m able to pull away.
“I got your scrubs all wet.” I lift a shaking hand to his collarbone and run the tip of my finger over the wet patch there.
“’S okay,” he says, a little gruff. “They needed a wash anyway. And salt water helps get the stains out.”
A wet laugh bubbles up my throat, and when I meet his eyes, they’re fierce but not angry—at least, not at me. Maybe he’s mad at the situation too. I don’t want to let go, but Lovie has been alone inside for much longer than it took her to disappear the first time, and we can no longer afford to place bets on what she’ll get into if left alone. There are gates to padlock and glass to clean up and—
“Are you bleeding ?” Adam says in a panic, looking at my foot.
Ten minutes later, Lovie is down for an afternoon nap and I’m perched on the closed pink toilet lid.
Adam balances my foot in his lap while he sits on the tub rim across from me. He doesn’t find any glass in it, but it doesn’t stop him from digging around until I’m biting on a hand towel to avoid cursing his grandchildren. Or kicking him so hard he’ll never have any in the first place.
There are blood spots all over the house from my search-and-rescue efforts, which resulted in a trickle of tears from my now-puffy eyes when I saw them setting into the carpet Lovie worked so hard to keep clean.
“Distract me?” I say, then hiss as Adam dabs more hydrogen peroxide on the cut.
He doesn’t miss a beat. “Did you know goose bumps were an evolutionary response to help make us seem larger in the eyes of our predators? Since we had more body hair back then, it was incredibly effective.”
I’m shocked and amazed and a little turned on, which is surprising but also not. Science is sexy. A loud laugh hiccups out of me, and I clap a hand over my mouth. “Sorry,” I mumble through my fingers. “It’s adrenaline, I think.”
He smiles at my foot. His lashes are so long, they almost touch his eyebrows when his eyes are open, his cheeks when they’re closed. “Don’t apologize. I’d rather hear you laugh than see you cry.”
There was a compliment in there somewhere. He’s been paying me more of them lately. Did it start when we shared my bed? When he trolled my trolls?
When he kissed me?
He regretted kissing you , my conscience tells me. He works for you.
He is literally cleaning your wound , my heart weighs in. He doesn’t exactly hate you right now.
It’s got to be the air in here, warmed by more bodies than usual, that makes my neck heat.
Adam doesn’t miss this either. “Humans are the only animals that blush. And it’s believed we’re the only ones who can be embarrassed.”
“I’m not embarrassed.” It’s just there’s a sixty-nine-percent chance I’m undressing you with my eyes. I’m having vivid nurse-patient fantasies. He doesn’t even need to change. He’s already dressed for the part. How considerate.
He looks down, but I’ve seen him try to hide his smile too many times now. He applies another round of antiseptic.
“You like science?” I ask.
“Oh, it’s the first thing they ask on the nursing school application. It’s a checkbox. The no’s go straight to the recycling bin.”
He’s just trying to distract me, like I asked. It’s not his fault he’s good at that too. “What other things do you like?” I wince as he does something uncomfortable to the cut, jerking away involuntarily.
He gives me a few-second break, then grips my calf to guide me where he needs me, my foot back on his lap. The warmth from his hands counteracts the cold stinging along the heel. “Running. That’s usually how I spend my lunches when I’m at work.” Here, too, if he can swing a half hour to himself.
“When do you eat, if you run during lunch?”
“Whenever I can. That’s the first rule of nursing.”
“I thought the first rule of nursing was that you have to like science.”
“No, that’s the first application question.” A grin wrinkles the skin around his eyes. It’s a flash forward to how he will look in ten years’ time, if life treats him well. He’ll gray around the temples first, maybe grow a salt-and-pepper beard. “Come on, Elle, keep up. It’s like you’re distracted or something.”
I toe him lightly in the shin with my other foot. “Keep going.”
“I’ve also been into podcasts lately,” he says, too casually to actually be casual. “There’s this one I’m quite fond of. Maybe you’ve heard of it?”
What is he doing? What am I doing? And why can’t we stop? “What’s it called?”
He cocks his head. “Elle … Michelle …” His tongue rolls over his plump bottom lip. My heartbeat lives in places I didn’t know it could. Inside my wrists. My ears. Deep in my stomach. He snaps his fingers. “ Hell in a Cell .”
This time when my foot connects with his shin, it’s a little more on purpose. “Tell me, Nurse Adam, will I survive?”
“Undoubtedly.” He tosses dirty gauze in the trash can and grabs a fresh piece. “You’ll live to be ninety-seven, have fourteen grandchildren, and a dog named Gigi.”
I snort, his statement clearing away my lust. “The dog, maybe. But having grandchildren would first require having children , which sounds like a living nightmare.”
He must think I’m joking when I shudder, because he laughs.
I’m not. Just the idea of children gives me stress hives.
The silence stretches a beat too long. His eyebrows rise. “You’re serious. No kids?”
I shake my head. “No weddings either.”
When his face flashes, I think I’ve revealed too much, and my blood pressure spikes. Why do I care whether Adam wants kids and a wedding? I’ve had my mind made up since the day I turned eighteen.
“Can I ask why?” he says.
“I love myself too much to ever risk getting lost in someone else.”
He leans to swipe the bandage off the sink, and he’s so close I smell those faint hints of summer I’ve come to expect around him. Citrus and sunshine. “I don’t think you’ve loved the right people if you lost yourself because of them. Love is supposed to make you more yourself, not less.”
I shrug and grip the toilet underneath me, locking my elbows. “That’s great in theory, but I don’t know if I’m that evolved yet.”
He’s tender as he applies the bandage to my foot. He smooths it down with the back of his finger, making sure none of the edges are loose or folded. It must be a big bandage, because it takes longer than I expect.
“The right person won’t care that you don’t want those things.” He firms up his touch, effectively turning the gesture into a foot massage. “They’ll just want you, in whatever capacity you’re capable of giving.”
It takes physical effort not to moan. I bite my lip. Besides a pedicure, when’s the last time someone touched me this way? Awareness prickles to life on every inch of my skin.
“What about you?” I ask. “Do you want the wife-and-kids thing? Or partner-and-kids, I guess.”
“It’d be a wife for me, yes, but I’m not going to rush into anything. Love …” His eyebrows draw together. “I think love should be about the person, not the title. And I don’t have a burning desire for children, which I think means I’d be okay without them. My nieces are all the kids I can handle. Plus the world is, like, really shitty.”
“Isn’t it, though?”
We laugh together, and it echoes in such a confined space, bouncing off my skin and getting under it at the same time. The sound dies, and the moment draws taut as we stare at each other. The space between us seems to shrink by a foot.
“You know what else goose bumps can show?” His eyes are near black. They captivate me—especially how they’re on my mouth. “Reaction to strong emotion. Fear, excitement, euphoria …” His finger slips around my heel, massaging my Achilles tendon. “Arousal.”
I grip the seat harder so I don’t do something stupid, like reach out and touch him. Because as his touch wanders around my ankle, creeps up my calf, he’s proving his point. Goose bumps erupt on my skin.
My eyes flutter as he reaches the area behind my knee, and I am in danger of melting into a puddle of pink goo right here on the tile floor. At least I’ll match the aesthetic.
When his hand slips higher, to the back of my thigh, I moan, my knees turning to water even though I’m sitting. I’ve never been touched there so delicately. I’ve never been touched anywhere so delicately. I moan as his hands move higher. “I think the Band-Aid’s on.”
He jolts like I’ve electrocuted him, standing so swiftly my foot thuds to the floor and sends a spark of pain through my leg. “I’m sorry.” Adam gathers the remnants of his first-aid efforts, tossing them to the garbage, not meeting my eyes.
What, exactly, is he apologizing for?
“No, don’t,” I say, but it’s too late. He’s already out the door.
I stay in the bathroom until my goose bumps fade.
“Hi everyone. This is Elle. I’ve already recorded an episode, but something happened this morning I couldn’t quite shake. I think it’s the perfect way to introduce this show, the why behind it. So we’re starting over. My grandmother has mid- to late-stage Alzheimer’s, and she doesn’t remember me.”
The cut on my foot throbs as a reminder.
“This morning, my grandmother walked out the side gate of her garden and made it two blocks before she got distracted petting a dog. When the police found her, she didn’t remember where she was or what she was doing. I can only imagine how terrifying that must have been for her. It was terrifying for me .
“But someone I’ve come to know recently told me something after we found her. Love is supposed to make you more yourself, not less. And I think that goes for all those we ever love, the people and the places and the memories that make us. I owe it to my Lovie’s memory—her own, and the ones I have of her—to show all of her. The good parts and the bad. So that’s what this podcast will be.”
I clear my throat. Across the hall, Adam’s got his eyes trained on the television, volume too low to carry, but something in the set of his shoulders, the way he’s leaning into the open space between us, tells me he’s listening.
“I can’t tell whether it’s funny or sad—how we can get older and younger at the same time. So many things about Lovie remind me of a child, a baby, even. She needs help cutting her meat and bathing and has to be reminded to take medicine. She wears diapers to sleep, can’t dress herself. There have been days where I haven’t heard her say anything other than single words. Hungry . Tired . Headache . No .
“That’s terrifying too, when you stop to think about it. How sometimes our best days really are behind us and we have absolutely no idea. And I don’t know whether I should be mourning her now so it will hurt less later, or enjoying what’s left of her and let myself hurt when the last pieces finally slip away. Hopefully this podcast will help me do both, and you, if you’ve ever found yourself in a similar position. This is Forget Me Not .”