16. Gordon
— ? —
Gordon
I’ve never once been inside this building.
The talk show fallout is still everywhere. My face on every screen, every take hotter than the last, every comment section a new variation on the same theme: Gordon Bryce is a terrible husband and probably a terrible person and definitely deserves whatever’s coming to him.
I can’t fix any of that. I can’t fix most things, it turns out.
But there’s one thing I can do.
The memory care facility is two hours outside Los Angeles, tucked into a quiet suburb with tree-lined streets and manicured lawns.
From the outside it looks like any other well-maintained medical building, easy to drive past without wondering what happens inside.
I’ve been paying the bills since they moved Aunt Viv here two years ago, when her condition progressed past what letters and phone calls could manage.
Before that, somebody handled it. The letters kept arriving, wherever she was, and the calls kept getting made, and in ten years I never once asked who was doing it, because asking would have meant admitting I wasn’t.
The drive out takes two hours. Two hours of highway and then smaller roads and then smaller ones, and somewhere around the halfway point it lands on me that Eliza has been making this drive for two years.
Alone. After work, on weekends, in traffic, in rain.
Four hours round trip to hold my aunt’s hand, and she never once mentioned it, never once used it against me in a fight, and she had eleven years of fights where it would have won her every single one.
The parking lot is mostly empty when I pull in. It’s a Tuesday morning, not exactly peak visiting hours. I sit in the car for a few minutes, staring at the building, trying to work up the courage to go inside.
I haven’t seen Aunt Viv in three years. Maybe longer.
The last time was a quick visit between meetings, an hour squeezed into a schedule that didn’t have room for it.
I remember feeling relieved when it was over, when I could get back to the office, back to the things that seemed so important at the time.
I don’t remember what we talked about. I don’t remember if she was having a good day or a bad one. I don’t remember anything except the feeling of wanting to be somewhere else.
I get out of the car.
The lobby is bright and clean, with comfortable chairs and soft music playing from somewhere. It smells like disinfectant underneath something floral, that particular institutional smell of places designed to feel homey but never quite managing it.
I sign in at the front desk. Get a visitor badge. The nurse behind the counter reads my name off the sign-in sheet, and her face does something complicated, surprise landing on top of recognition.
“Mr. Bryce,” she says. “Oh. Your aunt will be so happy.”
The oh. A name off a check, standing in the lobby in person, two years late.
“Is she having a good day?” I ask.
“She is, actually. Lucid, talkative. Better than she’s been in weeks.” The nurse pauses, checking something on her computer. “Your wife is already with her.”
I stop. “My wife?”
“Eliza?” The nurse looks confused, like I’ve asked a strange question. “She’s been coming regularly since your aunt moved here. Before that, she used to write every month. Your aunt always talked about her letters.”
I didn’t know. I didn’t know any of it.
“How often does she come?” I ask.
“Every couple of weeks, usually. Sometimes more if your aunt’s having a rough stretch.” The nurse’s smile softens. “She’s been wonderful, honestly. Your aunt lights up when she visits. It’s really lovely to see.”
Every couple of weeks. For two years. That’s over fifty visits, maybe more. Fifty times my wife drove two hours each way to sit with my aunt while I was too busy to remember she existed.
“Thank you,” I say, because I don’t know what else to say. She hands me a visitor sticker with my name written on it in marker, and under the name, in smaller letters, family, and I look at that word for longer than a person should look at a sticker.
I walk down the hallway, following the room numbers, my heart pounding harder with every step. The facility is quiet at this hour, just the occasional murmur of voices behind closed doors, the squeak of rubber-soled shoes on linoleum.
Aunt Viv’s room is at the end of the hall. The door is open, and I stop just outside, and I hear Eliza’s voice before I see her.
“‘And the Skin Horse said, Real isn’t how you are made. It’s a thing that happens to you.’”
I know that book. The Velveteen Rabbit. Aunt Viv used to read it to me when I was small, when my parents were gone and she was the only family I had left.
I’d forgotten about it until this moment, but hearing those words brings it all back, the smell of her kitchen, the feel of her arms around me, the way she’d do the voices, making the Skin Horse sound wise and the Rabbit sound young and hopeful.
I step into the doorway.
Eliza is sitting in a chair by the bed, holding my aunt’s hand, the book open in her lap. Aunt Viv is propped up on pillows, her white hair thin and wispy, her face lined with years I missed. But she’s smiling, that same smile I remember from childhood, soft and warm and full of love.
“That’s a nice story,” Aunt Viv says when Eliza finishes the passage. “You should read it to the children.”
“I will,” Eliza says gently. “When the time comes.”
“Gordon would like it. He always liked that book. Such a sweet boy.” Aunt Viv’s eyes drift toward the doorway, and she sees me standing there.
Her smile falters, confusion flickering across her face.
“No, that’s not right. You look like Gordon, but Gordon’s much younger.
Are you his father? He never brought his father around. ”
My throat closes up. My eyes are burning.
“Aunt Viv.” My voice cracks. “It’s me. It’s Gordon.”
She shakes her head, frowning. “That can’t be right. Where’s Eliza? Have you seen Eliza? She was just here, she reads to me, she’s such a nice girl. I keep telling Gordon to marry her, but he never listens.”
Eliza stands up. Her face is carefully neutral, but I can see the tension in her shoulders, the way she’s holding herself apart from me.
“I should go,” she says.
“Wait.” I catch her arm as she tries to move past me. “How long have you been doing this?”
“Since the beginning.” She pulls free, and her voice is flat, matter-of-fact.
“Letters during the lean years, when we couldn’t afford visits.
Then regular trips once she moved close enough and we had the money.
” She pauses. “Someone had to stay connected to her, Gordon. You certainly weren’t going to. ”
“I sent money-”
“Money’s not visiting. Money doesn’t hold her hand when she’s scared. Money doesn’t remember which stories she likes.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Because it wasn’t about you.” She grabs her bag from the chair by the bed. “It was about her. She deserved someone, even if you couldn’t be bothered.”
“Eliza-”
“I write to her every month. Cards, updates, pictures. She doesn’t remember reading them five minutes later, but she likes getting mail.” She pauses at the door, and her voice goes quiet. “She asks about you sometimes. I always tell her you’re doing well. That you’re busy, but you love her.”
“That’s-”
“The least hurtful lie I could think of.”
She walks out.
I stand in the doorway for a moment, my chest tight, watching her disappear down the hallway. Then I turn back to my aunt.
“Are you a doctor?” she asks. “I don’t think I’ve seen you before.”
“No, Aunt Viv. I’m not a doctor.” I walk to the chair Eliza vacated and sit down, taking my aunt’s hand in mine. “I’m Gordon. Your nephew.”
She studies my face, frowning. “Gordon’s much younger than you.”
“I got older, Aunt Viv. It happens.”
“That’s silly.” But she’s smiling now, that same warm smile. “Gordon should marry Eliza, you know. They’re perfect for each other. I could see it the first time he brought her home.”
“He did.” My voice breaks. “He did marry her, Aunt Viv.”
“Oh, that’s wonderful!” Her face lights up with genuine joy. “Tell me about the wedding. I’m sure it was beautiful.”
“It was.” I squeeze her hand. “At a courthouse. We didn’t have any money, but we didn’t care. She wore borrowed shoes, and I wore a shirt I’d ironed myself, and we were so happy.”
“That sounds like Gordon.” She pats my hand. “He never cared about money. Always said love was the only thing that mattered.”
I used to believe that. I used to say it and mean it.
When did I stop?
“He used to help me in the garden,” she says, her eyes going distant.
“Such a good boy. Always wanted to dig in the dirt, get his hands messy. I’d find him asleep on the couch with his comic books.
” She laughs softly. “He thought I didn’t know he stayed up past his bedtime reading. But I always knew.”
I remember that. Hiding under the blanket with a flashlight, turning pages as quietly as I could. I thought I was so clever.
She knew the whole time.
“I have to go now, Aunt Viv,” I say. “But I’ll come back soon. I promise.”
“That’s nice, dear.” She’s already drifting, her eyes heavy. “Tell Gordon I love him, when you see him.”
“I will.”
I lean down and kiss her forehead. Her skin is papery and thin, warm under my lips. She smells like lavender and something medicinal, and underneath it, faintly, like the kitchen where she used to bake me cookies.
I walk out of the room before I can fall apart in front of her.
The parking lot is bright with late-morning sun when I push through the facility doors. I’m scanning for Eliza’s car, expecting it to be gone, but she’s still here.
She’s standing by her car, keys in her hand, not moving. Just standing there, staring at nothing. Her eyes are red, like she’s been crying.
“Eliza.”
She turns and sees me, and her expression goes flat, guarded.
“What else?” I ask, before she can tell me to leave. “What else have you been carrying?”
She looks at me for a long moment. The sun is in her eyes, making her squint, and I can see the exhaustion in her face, the weight of years I never bothered to notice.
“You really don’t want that list,” she says.
She gets in her car and she drives away, and her turn signal blinks at the lot exit, careful and law-abiding even now, even wrecked, and for some reason that’s the detail that finally puts a crack in me.
I stand in the parking lot and watch her go, and I don’t try to stop her.
But I’m not done. I’m not even close to done.
I go home and I start making a list. Everything I forgot. Everything I let slip away. Everything she held together while I was too busy to notice.
Aunt Viv. The letters, the visits, fifty of them, more.
My own birthday dinners, which I now realize she planned every year and I missed more than half of.
The passwords to the household accounts, the name of our plumber, which neighbors we owe favors to, when the cars are due for service, where the tax documents live.
The friendships she kept warm on my behalf, the condolence cards she signed both our names to, the wedding gifts she sent to colleagues of mine whose weddings I skipped.
The list is longer than I expected.
And I’m only getting started.