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“Dolly or Whitney?”
“Dolly is a dream. But Whitney”—he kissed his fingers, then blew the kiss up to the ceiling—“she’s the light and the way.”
“I feel like I know you so much better now.”
The way he threw his head back and laughed made her stomach swoop, nose-diving like a bird that had spotted something shiny.
“Tell me why you love it,” she said. “It’s only fair.”
“You’re right. You showed me yours.” His brow rose. “I’d better show you mine.”
Her brain made an unintelligible high-pitched squeak.
“I can’t hit half the notes,” he explained while she closed her fingers around her drink. “But when that song comes on, no matter where I am, no matter who I’m with, I’m on a stage, the lights are bright, and I am Whitney.”
Picking up her glass, holding it out to him, she said, “To heart songs.”
Clinking his glass with hers, he added, “And to the people we trust enough to share them with.”
After several more rounds of their game, after he asked her to name the most frivolous thing she’d buy for herself if money wasn’t an option—a Maine Coon cat—and she asked him what his favorite cartoon was—Space Ghost—she sipped the dregs of her drink, he drained his pint, and then she looked around. While they’d been talking, while time had continued to tick outside the bubble of their booth, Jimmy’s had cleared out except for the regulars who sat at the bar every night until closing.
“Is it my turn?” he asked.
“I think so.”
He pursed his lips, his eyes narrowing while he thought of another question. “What inspires you?”
That one was easy. “Listening to Ian play piano. Sometimes my mom and I will sit on the couch while he plays for us for hours.”
“That’s fantastic.”
“It is,” she said. “And I think it’s good for Mom. Jen told us classical music can help with memory.” She pulled her hair over her shoulder, tugging on it a little bit, preparing herself mentally to force the words out because making herself say them, it always took effort, like fighting the tide. “Jen isn’t just my friend. She’s also our speech therapist. My mom has what they call mild cognitive impairment.”
His forehead creased. “Is that like dementia?”
“It’s not dementia yet. But there’s a good chance it’ll end up there.”
“What’s it like now?”
She would have shrugged, but a mountain pinned her shoulders down. “Some days she seems fine. Other days she can’t remember where the forks go, or that she shouldn’t wear the same outfit two days in a row. Sometimes she remembers conversations we had the day before clear as a bell. Other days it’s…murkier.”
Taking her hand like it was the most natural thing in the world, he asked, “Do you want to keep talking about this? Because we can, but I wanted to check.”
A wave of relief washed over her, through her, all around her. “I really, really don’t.”
He nodded, gave her hand a squeeze, then he let her go. “I just thought of agreatquestion. But I think I’ve already asked you two in a row.”
Raising her hands, she said, “I yield my time to the senator from Washington,” grateful for the distraction, even more grateful he was the kind of person who knew when to let a conversation end. Because a lot of people weren’t. A lot of people asked her a thousand questions about her mom she either couldn’t answer or didn’t want to answer because it hurt too much. A lot of people couldn’t wait to offer endless advice on the newest medications or some overpriced but useless supplement they saw on the news. A lot of people thought sharing war stories about everything their grandparent with Alzheimer’s went through was somehow helpful, when all Mira could handle was the day, the hour, the minute right in front of her.
“What kind of couple are we?”
His question yanked her out of her head so hard the room spun. “What?”
“We’ve been together for months, ostensibly,” he went on. “So what kind of couple are we? Are we secret glances from across the room? Are we hand-holders? Or are we full-on PDA, nobody ever wants to invite us anywhere because we can’t keep our hands off each other disasters?”
Words, every single one of them, flitted from her mind like snow.
“We can be anything,” he said. “Anything you want. Imagine your dream wedding date, your perfect night. I want to be that for you.”
