Chapter Forty-Six
Seventy-two days had passed since Eleanor had last stepped foot in this house.
Seventy-two days of music, of movement, of chasing echoes of the girl she once was.
The Lincoln coasted to a stop in the familiar driveway, and a different kind of silence settled in.
Heavier. Thicker. Not the quiet before a song but the hush after one ends, leaving her to wonder what came next.
She didn’t move at first. Her hand rested on the car’s door handle, fingers curled tight. Inside that house waited her past, her grief, her aging bones, and the space Henry had once filled like a bass line—steady, low, reliable.
The scent of old denim and cigarette smoke still clung to her jacket, souvenirs from the road. She hadn’t washed it on purpose. There was something sacred in the smell, a reminder that said she’d lived this summer, not just passed through it.
But now she was home. Or was she?
She’d been too tired to retrieve her car from the airport, and Leanne and Nora had promised to fetch it tomorrow.
Eleanor hesitated, bracing for the flood.
The weight of the silence, the ghosts that might rise like smoke the second she crossed the threshold.
Would the walls feel smaller than before?
Would the rooms trap her, press in around her, remind her that the music was fading from her mind the same way it had faded from this space?
No.
She took a breath. She would not let it be like that.
She wanted to step inside and feel Henry’s presence, not as a void but as a warmth.
She wanted to remember the joy—the nights they danced barefoot in the kitchen, the lazy Sundays spent on the porch with records spinning and coffee cooling too fast. She wanted to see Leanne again, no longer the woman weighed down by expectation but the girl who used to leap across the living room, her fingers chasing chords across ivory keys, hope in every note.
She wanted to turn on the record player, let the needle hum and crackle to life, pour herself a cup of tea, and sink into her old chair like her life was still whole, still steady.
She just wanted normal. Or something close enough to pretend.
But Eleanor knew, deep down, that life would never be normal again.
Whether she stayed in the car or stepped inside her old house, the truth would follow her like a shadow.
Things had changed, even the ones that hadn’t.
She still had dementia. Still carried that ticking clock inside her chest, her head.
The funny thing was, sometimes she knew what was happening. But other times she did not. And worse—she knew exactly what would eventually happen and couldn’t stop it. Eleanor had watched her grandmother go through the same thing. Her own mother spared losing her mind by a tragic early death.
The part that frightened her the most was the lack of control in her undoing.
Roxy put her paws up on the dash, tongue lolling out as she stared at the familiar house.
Eleanor turned her head slowly, her neck stiff from the long drive and weeks of travel and performing.
Leanne sat beside her, shifting the car into park with a soft click, her face a mixture of exhaustion and resolve.
Nora offered a quiet smile in the back seat, and Eleanor could still smell the ocean in her granddaughter’s hair—sun, salt, freedom.
The memories of the road, the concerts, the sunsets had become some of the most cherished in Eleanor’s life.
But she’d also realized that the life she’d led before mattered too.
Perhaps most of all. The people she was with now were the loving parts of her existence.
She hoped that when the darkness came to claim her completely, it wouldn’t take away Leanne and Nora first. That she’d be granted more time in the light before the fog rolled in for good.
The doctor had said there would be “lucid moments.”
God, let there be an abundance.
Leanne swung open the creaking car door and stepped out of the car.
Through the car window, Eleanor watched her daughter circle to the back, open the trunk, and gently lift out Eleanor’s worn travel bag and her guitar.
The sight of it struck something in her chest. Her fingers itched to play. Would she still remember how?
Eleanor reached for the door handle, her hand hovering there, trembling.
“A wise woman once told me not to be afraid to leave,” Nora said from the back seat, “but also not to be afraid to come back.”
Eleanor turned slightly, her spine stiff but her smile soft. “Wise?”
Nora grinned. “Very.”
Eleanor arched a brow. “Walk me to the door, then?”
“Of course.” Nora popped her door open and climbed out, rounding the car just as Eleanor hesitated.
She didn’t want to do this—not really. Not to go back inside. Not to face the silence. Not to face what came next. But she knew she had to. Some things in life were unavoidable, and no matter how far she ran, the inevitable was that life would catch up to her in the end.
Nora opened the passenger door and held out her hand. “Sometimes it’s better to do things together.”
Eleanor nodded, her throat thick. She placed her hand into her granddaughter’s. Her own hand looked small in Nora’s grip—weathered and veined, worn by time. But strong too.
When she tried to pull away, Nora only tightened her hold. “We don’t have to let go just yet, do we?”
“I’ll hold your hand anytime you want,” Eleanor whispered.
Roxy rushed to the door, scratching to be let in.
Leanne was already on the porch, Eleanor’s bag in one hand and her guitar case in the other. “Mom, do you have your key?”
Eleanor reached into her handbag and froze. Her fingers fumbled uselessly through lipstick tubes, loose change, and receipts. A knot twisted in her chest.
Then—relief.
“In the suitcase,” she said, remembering suddenly. “Tucked it in a side pocket.”
Eleanor knelt beside her trusty old suitcase, the same one she’d taken on her honeymoon, unzipping the leather, and dug through until her fingers brushed yarn—soft and worn from years of use.
The key was still threaded through the crocheted heart Leanne had made in second grade.
Uneven stitches. Faded red. Her girl had been so proud.
Eleanor lifted it slowly, held it in her palm, and grinned at the treasure.
“You still have that?” Leanne’s smile was tremulous.
“Never leave home without it.”
They opened the door and stepped inside. The house smelled exactly as it had when she left. A blend of patchouli and something faintly floral, maybe lavender, maybe memory. The scent wrapped around her like an old shawl, familiar, comforting, and just a little heavy with time.
Roxy raced in wild circles through the house, overcome with joy to reclaim her kingdom.
Leanne quietly set her mother’s bags in the bedroom while Nora wandered into the living room, flipping through Eleanor’s old records. In the kitchen, the sound of the kettle clinking against the stove signaled Leanne’s silent offering of tea, the universal balm.
Eleanor moved to her dresser and pulled open the top drawer.
Tucked inside was an old scrapbook she’d started when she was barely more than a girl.
The pages were thick with song lyrics scribbled in ink and pencil, ticket stubs from smoky bars, and black-and-white photographs of her wide-eyed younger self holding a guitar.
Before Henry. Before Leanne had even been a thought.
She carried it into the living room, settling onto the purple velvet couch that had cushioned her through countless evenings. The fabric was soft beneath her palms, worn in all the right places. She patted the cushions on either side of her.
“I want to show you two something,” she said.
Nora looked up from the records. Leanne poked her head around the corner, steam curling from the kettle behind her.
Eleanor rested the scrapbook on her lap. “This is something I should’ve shown you both long ago. Maybe why I left would’ve made more sense. Why I needed to take this tour. Why I had to go.”
She glanced at Leanne first. “I never regretted meeting your father. I never once regretted having you. Being your mother has been the honor of my life.” Her voice faltered, but she pushed forward.
“But…sometimes people have regrets toward the end of plans they never finished. And I wanted—needed—to live the life I gave up. Just one more time. Before I can’t remember what it felt like. ”
Before either of them could respond, a knock sounded on the front door.
Eleanor’s brows lifted, surprised. She eased the scrapbook closed and stood, crossing the room slowly, her knees protesting just a little. She opened the door to find a young delivery man standing on the porch, a bouquet of roses cradled in his arms.
“Delivery for Eleanor Bell?”
She nodded, her voice caught somewhere behind her ribs. “That’s me.”
He handed over the bouquet with a polite smile, tipped his cap, and turned back down the steps.
Eleanor didn’t need her glasses to read the little white card tucked into the petals. The handwriting was unmistakable, rough and looping from someone who held a pen like a guitar pick.
Until next time.
Her breath caught. The roses were pale pink, edged in crimson. Familiar.
She lingered in the doorway, one hand clutching the blooms, the other pressed lightly to her chest. She didn’t say a word. She didn’t need to.
Because she knew exactly who they were from.
Memories are delicate, fragile things—needing to be nurtured and loved, conjured when the longing to relive the most wonderful chapters of a life is overwhelming.
And Eleanor was reliving all of hers, then and now, and she was beyond grateful that time had gifted her that much.
A second chance. A final chorus. A song that would echo forever in her heart.