“Me too.” He nods. “She was the love of my life. I miss her every day. But then again, when her dementia had gotten really bad, I felt like I missed her every day then too.”
“I know the feeling.” My exhalation is equal parts sad and understanding. “My mom was diagnosed two years after my father passed away. She was forty-two, and I was only twelve at the time. I feel like I’ve spent over a decade watching her slowly disappear. Her lucid moments are rare. Most times, she doesn’t know who I am.”
With my mom in the other room, I feel an unexpected sense of peace standing here with Louie. Dom and his family don’t just keep her safe—they fully accept her, as she is.
Louie lets the silence stretch for a moment, as though giving space to the weight of my words, before commenting, “Girl, you’ve been through some shit.”
“Yeah.” I snort. “Though I kind of feel like I’m still knee-deep in it.”
He laughs at that. “Make sure you and your mom come around more often, okay? I’ve enjoyed talking with the two of you. Honestly, Sherry reminds me a lot of my Harriet.” He adds a helping of potato salad to his plate.
“Okay.” I smile over at him. “Sounds like a plan.”
“Even if you realize that you’re way out of Dom’s league and kick his ass to the curb,” he adds. “Still come visit.”
Out of Dom’s league? Kick his ass to the curb?
Clearly, Dom’s grandfather thinks we’re together. Like, in a relationship. And I don’t know what in the hell to do with that information.
“Oh ... um ...” I stutter over my tongue. “Dom and I aren’t ... we’re not ... we’re not together ... we’re ...” I pause, because how can I explain what Dom and I are to one another when I don’t even know?
Louie looks at me, and his mouth quirks up into this big, amused smile that’s laced with something else I can’t discern.
“What?” I ask him, and he just keeps on smiling.
“Just come visit more,” he says and makes a point to gently squeeze my shoulder before he heads out of the dining room and toward everyone else, still in the kitchen.
I don’t know what Grandpa Louie thinks Dom and I are, but I can almost guarantee he’s not expecting our meet-cute to include me being a phone-sex worker helping Dom work a murder case.
And that doesn’t make me feel great. In fact, it makes me feel a little out of place in this big, fancy mansion Dominic Dunn’s family calls home.
23
Dominic
4:00 p.m.
“And many more!” my father cheers after we finish singing “Happy Birthday” to Louie.
Everyone joins in, even Sherry and Hannah, encouraging my grandfather to blow out all eighty-five candles that my mom managed to get lit on the massive buttercream cake I know she ordered from Triple Crown Bakery—her favorite—in Franklin.
“Make a wish!” my sister, Dakota, exclaims just as Louie starts to suck in a deep breath of air.
He stops mid-inhale to say, “I wish—”
“No!” my mom exclaims. “You can’t say your wish out loud, you know that!”
Louie just rolls his eyes. “Laura, I’m a man who is surrounded by the people he loves most. I don’t need to wish for anything except for God to call me home within the next few years.”
“Grandpa Louie!” my sister chastises with an exasperated sigh. “Stop talking like that, you old goat.”
My grandfather just cracks up and looks across the table to where Sherry stands beside Hannah. Hannah’s gently holding her mom’s hand,something I’ve learned she does when she gets worried about Sherry’s current state of mind. Most days, Sherry is blissfully wrapped up in the world ofNCIS, but every once in a while, when thoughts of the past and her true reality start to filter through, she can get scared and act out of fear and impulse.
I’ve never seen it, but once, when Hannah came into CMA with tired eyes, she mentioned having a rough night with her mom.
“Sherry, darling, would you mind helping me blow out all these candles?” my grandfather asks, and Sherry’s smile damn near lights up the whole room. She puts a surprised hand to her chest.
“Me?”
