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Beau’s hair is thinner than it used to be but still silky, like the pajamas I gave him for his birthday. My fingers move slowly,
finding the familiar part above his left brow, soft and silvered in the lamplight. I take the brush and style it just the
way he likes. The carers don’t bother about the little things; they probably don’t even matter to him anymore, but they matter
to me. He leans into the touch, barely.
Somewhere down the hall, “Silent Night” is playing. I used to dread Christmas—the pressure, the noise—but with Beau, it was
different. He adored every part of it, and his excitement was impossible to resist. Every year, he bought us both chocolate
advent calendars, counting down the days like a kid who never stopped believing.
I reach under the bed and pull out the one I ordered online: a glossy box with a grinning snowman on the front. I pop open
number eighteen and place the Santa-shaped chocolate gently in his mouth. “Only one week to go, handsome.”
Beau swallows but doesn’t respond; words are rare these days. There’s no reaction to taste, just the tick of the clock, the
gentle brush of my thumb over his temple, and the foreboding sense that this will be the last Christmas we’ll have. And he
doesn’t even know it.
He watches me. Golden-brown eyes hazy and trusting.
My gaze rests on the photo of me on his bedside table, labeled GRIFF.
Beau stares at it too, blinking like it’s a word from another life, his eyes glassy, lips moving soundlessly for a moment. His voice, when it finally emerges, is paper-thin, worn down by the disease. “I knew a Griff once. He loved someone very much.”
I grip the armrest to steady myself. “He still does.”
Beau’s gaze drifts, then falters back. His mouth trembles. “I hope . . . I was good to him.”
I press his knuckles to my lips. “You were the best thing that ever happened to him.”
He doesn’t answer, just hums faintly, and I sit there, holding his hand, as the music drifts through the hallway and the night
folds in. I’d been so afraid of the gaps—the hollow spaces where pieces of him used to be. But in the slow undoing of who
he was, when memory failed and nothing else held, love always showed up to pay the balance.
He lies down in the single bed across from mine, eyelids drifting shut, exhaling, soft and full. “Griff?”
“Yes, love?”
“Will you stay?”
“Yes. I promise.”
After lights-out, I slip into his bed and rest my hand on his chest, counting each breath. The room smells of lavender and
antiseptic. But there’s still something of him beneath it all, that faint trace of soap and citrus and Beau. I inhale it until
mercifully sleep arrives.
Light slips through the curtain in pale ribbons. The room is still, too still. He’s curled in my arms, but something’s wrong.
I shift, heart thudding, and press my palm to his chest. Nothing.
My fingers fumble over his neck, his wrist—searching, begging. Still warm. But gone.
A sound escapes me, torn from somewhere deep. Not a sob, not yet, just the beginning of breaking. I gather him closer, burying
my face in the hollow of his shoulder. The cruel grip of Alzheimer’s has at last let him go. And it took everything with it.
“Morning, boys—” Navneet stops cold, then comes forward to check Beau. Her fingers hover for a moment longer than they need to. “Oh no. I’m so sorry, Griff.” She backs out quietly. I hear her voice in the hall. Then Lisa’s name.
Lisa arrives minutes later. Still in her pajamas, puffer jacket zipped halfway up, hair tied back with a pink fluffy sleep
mask. She crumples over us, crying into his chest.
Neither of us says a word.
Everything blurs. The funeral home staff come after lunch. Lift him with efficient hands. Wheel him away like he’s something
ordinary and not the most precious thing in the whole world. And I can’t say anything. Just like that, he’s gone.
I stay in his bed, numb, curled around the dent he left behind, face buried where his scent lingers. Still breathing, still
pretending.
When Lisa finally leaves, I reach for a notebook and write three words: The Death Menu.