Chapter 49
CHAPTER
FORTY-NINE
EMMETT
Rory.
For a second, I can’t breathe.
Yesterday feels like a cruel joke.
Today, she doesn’t know me. The speed of it pierces me. Those good days make it easy to forget how cruel this can be—how permanent this reality is—and leave me wondering every time if I’ll ever get her back.
I let myself believe we had more time. I held onto the hope.
That’s the trick this disease plays. It gives you a good day and convinces you it’s the beginning of something. But there are no guarantees. Ever. We’re never safe from it, yet it’s so easy to forget that.
“Gran,” I say, trying just one more time to break through.
Her gaze lands on me, and for a second, hope surges as recognition flickers.
Then her brow furrows and her lip trembles.
“Who are you?”
Fuck.
“It’s me.” My voice wobbles, and I clear my throat, trying to sound stronger than I feel. “It’s Emmett. Your grandson.”
It comes out desperate.
Her eyes widen.
“Where’s Rory?” she asks Connie. “He’s lying.”
Connie steps in, placing a hand on my chest and looking at Aspen.
Wrapping her hand in mine, Aspen leads me towards the door, giving my grandmother some space.
“You’re safe,” Connie assures her.
My grandmother clutches the blanket tighter, her gaze drifting to me.
“I just want my daughter.”
Connie’s voice is soft. “I know.”
Her voice cracks.
Fear floods my grandmother’s face.
“Why won’t anybody tell me where she is?”
Aspen’s fingers squeeze mine in silent support, but I barely feel them. The only thing I can feel is my heart breaking and all the hope I felt yesterday draining from me.
I’m standing six feet away while the woman who raised me begs for a daughter she’s already buried.
And there’s nothing I can do to fix it.
The answer burns in my throat.
Because she’s gone.
Because she’s been gone for twenty years.
Because I watched her die.
Connie catches my eye before I can say a word.
“You miss her,” she says gently.
My grandmother’s lip trembles. “I need her.”
“I know.” Connie squeezes her hand. “But your grandson came to see you.”
Her misty gaze flits to me and she lowers her voice. “Mike doesn’t have any kids.”
She remembers the addict who left home at seventeen but not me.
“Rory is barely a teen.” Her fingers twist in the blanket. “I want to go home. Can you call my husband?”
Connie coaxes her to the edge of the bed.
“Why don’t you tell me more about Rory.” She covers her hand and pulls it to her lap, patting it. “What’s your favorite thing about her?”
My grandmother’s eyes scan the room, landing on a picture of Rory and Mr. Pickles. “She’s so clever—kind too. And an excellent rider. That horse there”—she lifts a finger, pointing at the photo—“such a prick. But Rory wouldn’t give up on him though.”
The wrinkles around her eyes deepen as she studies it. “That horse used to bite.”
Her smile fades.
“Do we still have him?”
At some point, Aspen moved closer, wrapping more of her body around my arm.
I need every bit of the support. The worst part about moments like these aren’t that she doesn’t remember me, but how scared she gets.
The fear in her eyes and the way she keeps looking for someone that isn’t coming, cuts me half.
Connie looks back at me over her shoulder.
“Why don’t you give us a minute?”
I nod once, the lump in my throat too thick to speak.
I don’t make it more than a few feet before I stop. Aspen’s hand slides down my arm and I shake out of her grip, pacing the hallway, my hands folding together behind my head.
Neither of us say anything.
But there’s nothing to say. Words can’t make this better. This is the heartbreak of loving someone with dementia.
Connie joins a moment later, her lips set into a thin line. I can’t read the expression on her face.
“I’m making it worse, aren’t I?” The question comes out rough. “I walk in there and she gets scared.”
“This would be happening whether you were here or not.” She smiles softly.
“What happened this morning?”
Connie sighs. “The fall didn't cause this either.”
The floor seems to tilt beneath me. “Then what did?”
“Nothing.” Her expression softens. “That’s the hard part. It’s the disease.”
“But yesterday was so good,” I say.
It’s a stupid thing to latch onto, but I can’t help it.
Yesterday was everything.
Connie nods slowly.
“It was.”
“Then maybe this is temporary, too.”
The look on Connie’s face tells me everything.
“Good days are real, Emmett.” Her voice is gentle. “Bad days are real too.”
There’s a pause, then she adds, “We’ve been seeing more confusion lately—longer episodes. More difficulty finding her way back afterward.”
I stare at the floor. The weight against my chest is nearly unbearable.
Good days don’t mean you’re safe.
Aspen squeezes my arm. “I’m going to go make a call.” She points just down the hallway.
I nod, my attention returning to Connie.
Acting more like the friend she is than my grandmother’s nurse, Connie reaches out, patting my shoulder. “She’s still in there, Emmett.”
“I don’t know how to do this, Connie.”
“Just keep being there for her.”
A call light comes on down the hall, drawing my attention back to Apsen’s back, where she’s leaning against the wall, the phone pressed to her ear.
“I better get back in there,” Connie says, giving me a sad smile.
“Hey, Connie.”
She turns, one hand on the door, finding me over her shoulder.
“Thank you.”
Then she leaves me to go back where she’s needed.
I step back from the door, resting against the opposite wall.
When I can stand the thoughts swirling in my own head, I look for Aspen and find her still on the phone.
I don’t mean to listen as I approach her from behind, but the hall is quiet.
“Hey.”
A pause.
“No, I know.”
Another pause.
Her shoulders sink.
“Okay. Thanks anyway.” There’s another beat of silence. “No, I get it, Becky—the kids come first.”
She ends the call and immediately opens another contact.
“Hi. Sorry to bother you.”
Another pause.
“Could you cover my shift for me tonight? I’ll take your weekend.”
A tired smile.
“Thanks for checking.”
She ends the call and starts another.
And another.
I watch her willing to burn through every favor she’s got without complaining once, rubbing her neck between calls but never giving up until she releases a quietly muttered, fuck.
God, I love her.
But my grandmother isn’t her responsibility.
She turns and finds me.
Hot tears cling to her lashes.
I open my arms and she steps into them without hesitation.
With her folded against my chest, I press a kiss to the top of her head.
“No luck,” she mutters.
“You were trying to cover your shift.”
“I want to be here for you.”
My eyes close, and I fight the swelling feeling in my throat.
I believe her.
She wants to be here not because she has to, but because she wants to.
I’ve carried everything alone for so long that it still catches me off guard when someone stays.
Especially when they have every reason not to.
I tighten my arms around her. “Thank you.”
Neither of us moves as things move around us. A nurse skirts around us. There’s a page over the intercom. Everything moves on like the world isn’t shifting beneath my feet.
Aspen eventually tips her head back.
“I’ll figure something out.”
She will, because that’s exactly who she is.
Aspen doesn’t quit on people. She would drop everything for the people she cares about—trade everything so I don’t have to do this alone.
My chest aches.
I don’t want her to leave.
But a small, ugly part of me is already wondering what happens when she does.
No one can stay forever.
Maybe this time it’s only for a shift.
But sitting in a memory care facility less than twenty-four hours after watching the woman I love sleep beside me, is a reminder from the universe that nothing stays the same forever.
Yesterday, my grandmother knew my name, and today she doesn’t.
That’s the thing that breaks me open.
Not because I doubt Aspen.
Because I doubt the world.
For the first time in years, I have something worth losing.
And I can’t. I just fucking can’t.