8
By the time Henry had unpacked the kitchen and the main bedroom, his granddad had fallen asleep on his lounger, the sun was
setting, and the community office was closed. He hated parking the rental car here overnight without a permit, but hopefully
if anyone asked, they’d give them a pass, since they were just moving in.
Henry spent the rest of the night checking work emails and had finally gone to sleep himself around ten. The night had been
so quiet, all lights were out up and down the street before the sun even seemed to set. When he’d looked out his window at
night, only one light from the house across the way was on. Every other house on the block was darkened other than front-porch
lights.
He slept hard. Harder than he’d slept in as long as he could remember.
He was up early, but his grandfather was already sitting at the kitchen table, mug in hand.
Henry looked at the counter to find a jar of Folgers instant coffee out, the Keurig he’d bought as his first housewarming gift left untouched.
He didn’t want his granddad heating up water in a kettle next to any kind of open flame.
He made a mental note to look into changing out the stove from gas to electric, despite it looking pretty new.
“Granddad, I’m gonna make a quick trip to the community center and the office to get all your passes straightaway. Don’t want
to start your time here off on the wrong foot,” he said.
“No rush, Hank. We can do it later.”
“I’m fine just getting it over with now,” he assured him.
“Okay, but when you get back, let’s go do something fun, just you and me. We gotta make up for lost time. I don’t get you
for very long this summer, and I want to make the most of the time we’ve got,” his granddad said.
It struck Henry hard, the words. Unlikely meant to have the ominous undertone Henry took away from them, but they still hit
like a ton of bricks. He didn’t want to think about one day not having his grandfather around in his life. That would leave
him with no one.
“Sounds great. I’ll be right back, and then we can decide what we want to do today. We should plan to hit up the grocery store
and stock your fridge, though. And we can restart the meal-kit delivery service you had at the old house.”
His grandfather nodded as he walked to his lounge chair and took a seat. He pointed the remote toward the TV and settled in.
He’d be good for a bit.
Henry grabbed his keys and checked the thermostat on his way out. Seventy-six degrees. His granddad had a habit of trying
to lower it to sixty-eight. Maybe in other climates, but out here in the desert that would eventually blow the entire HVAC
system.
Okay, he’d only be gone thirty minutes, tops.
Everything was in order. There were so many things to constantly be worried about.
Did his granddad think of any of these things when he was on his own?
Would he need help once Henry got him settled and left to go back to New York?
Dennis insisted he could take care of himself.
And he wasn’t technically sick, at least not enough for palliative care.
Henry might look into getting a private nurse for him a couple times a week. Dennis would hate that, though.
“I’ll be back in a few. Call me if you need anything.”
His granddad leveled him with a stare just short of rolling his eyes. Okay, so maybe he was being a little ridiculous. But
as far as Henry was concerned, he could be a little overprotective, overbearing even, while he was here in the flesh. So he
would be. He smiled at his grandfather, both in apology and appeasement, and walked out, locking the door behind him.
He was immediately met with a wall of intense, dry heat. It took him a second to ensure he wasn’t in fact in any danger. He
was tempted to jump in his car, crank the AC, and drive the four blocks down to the community center. It wouldn’t be unheard
of. But Henry liked a challenge, as long as he wasn’t unsafe about it. It was still early enough, the sun not at its peak.
He started walking, already feeling the cotton of his chinos stick to the sweat on his legs and begin to weigh him down almost
like armor. He replayed the things he needed to do today in his head.
Check in with the office so they knew his grandfather had moved in.
Get a parking pass.
Register himself as an underage visitor.
Going over the things he needed to do helped settle Henry. Focus him.
When he arrived at the community center, there was a group of older residents with white hair gathered around the entrance. Henry stopped and waited as one of them tried to use their key card to let them all in.
“Step aside, Walter. I’ll use mine.”
“Mine works just fine.”
“Well, clearly it doesn’t or we wouldn’t be melting out here in the sun. Move it.”
“The sun isn’t even at its highest point yet, you wuss. If you can’t stand the heat—”
“Get outta the desert,” the group said in unison. The old men laughed and wheezed and slapped each other on the back.
Henry stood wondering if there was an entry doorbell he could ring to have someone open the door for them. He didn’t have
a key card for his granddad yet—he added that to his mental checklist—and he didn’t want to be standing out here much longer.
He heard the beep of the lock and the click of the door unlatching.
“See, you old goat? Told you mine works just fine,” the man named Walter said.
The group ahead of him walked in and straight to one of the card tables set up along one side of the room.
There was a large central room and multiple rooms branching off it. Henry saw a small gym inside one of them with some free
weights on the floor. He made a mental note to ask if he could use the facilities while he was a registered visitor here.
Another room had a Ping-Pong table and still another had rows of tables with sewing machines on them. And a farther room was
filled with bookshelves and leather chairs.
It was all a little dated, yet impressive nonetheless. They had something for everyone. Well, at least those residents that were younger than his granddad.
The group in front of him sat down around a table, and one of them produced a deck of cards from his pocket and started dealing
while the others settled in.
Henry saw the door with the Office sign above it and headed in that direction. Sitting behind the reception desk was a young
woman in what looked like a well-worn set of scrubs with a teddy bear pattern on them. She had her hair tied back with a bright
pink scrunchie, almost neon, and the color on her lips matched the vibrancy. She had her feet crossed on the desk, clad in
yellow Crocs decorated with charms. She was leaned back in the desk chair reading a magazine that looked to be decades old.
It was as if she was a young woman dressed as an old nurse in an explosion of colors and patterns. Henry felt like he’d stepped
back in time into a scene of a television sitcom.
And yet, something about her was so familiar, Henry wanted to physically scratch his brain to try to recall where he might
know her from. Not knowing made him feel on his heels.
“Excuse me,” he said and quickly glanced at the name placard on the desk, “Gladys?” It wasn’t a name he’d recognized nor seen
many younger women have these days, and it honestly didn’t fit the one sitting here.
“How can I help you?” she said. She looked up at Henry, and her eyes widened in surprise. She seemed to recognize him too.
Henry quickly thought through any possibilities. He had no reason to know anyone out here other than Dennis. Had he met her
at the airport? She didn’t work for the rental-car company. She wasn’t the flight attendant on his trip. He couldn’t place
her as the barista at the coffee shop. Who the heck was she?
She furrowed her brows together. It was a race to see who could figure it out first.
“Wait.” She squinted her eyes as if trying to look through a different lens. “Oh my god,” she gasped. A wicked smile took
shape on her face. She scanned him from head toe. “Willow on Ninety-Fifth Street. A couple weeks back. Good scotch. And great,
well—” she cleared her throat and winked “—you know.”
Henry’s jaw dropped. Of course the one time recently that he’d allowed himself a one-night stand and it turned into some weird
Twilight Zone episode.
She smiled and shook her head. “What are the odds? Tell me, what brings you here to Sunset Hills Senior Living Community in
Palm Springs, California?” She delivered the question like a marketing campaign for the neighborhood.
Henry could not believe this was the same woman he’d hooked up with. He could see traces of the stunner from that night. God
knows he’d let the memory of her run through his mind enough times since. She had been so sexy and responsive, lithe, incredibly
good in bed. But she looked decidedly very different now. He couldn’t wrap his head around what was happening. Why was she
here on the other side of the country when he was also here, and why was she dressed like that?
Henry’s lawyer brain immediately ran through questions and scenarios in his head. He started with the most obvious possibility.
“Are you the . . . nurse here?” Henry asked, nodding his chin toward her scrubs.
She looked down at herself almost surprised at what she found herself wearing. “Ha! No, not a nurse. Just found these in Mimi’s closet from her working days and decided to wear them today. These too,” she said, pointing at the hair scrunchie and then down to her shoes.
He had no idea who this Mimi was and wasn’t sure he wanted to ask. “So you don’t live in New York? I’m sorry, I’m just confused.”
“God, I’m confused too,” she said and laughed. “Actually, I do live in New York. Well, I did. Maybe I still will. For now,
I live here. And hopefully I won’t be living in Florida. It’s all kind of a mess.”
Henry had been so attracted to her the other night. Regretful, almost, for not having gotten her name or her number. Maybe
he was lucky he hadn’t. She was a bit scattered and odd in the light of day.
He felt a headache coming on.