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Jess twists the ties on her shirt, her gaze drifting between me and the building at the end of the parking lot. “Would it be better if I stayed in the car?”
“It would suck if you stayed in the car.” Jess anchors my sanity.
I set my hand on her back and we walk toward the building together. Having her next to me makes heading to the locked, glass door—and the final barrier between my mom and me—feel a little less death row.
At the last second, I switch directions. Veering off the walkway toward a small wooded area about ten feet away, I park myself on the stone bench by the birdbath. “This is the farthest I’ve gotten since she moved in.” I bend my fingers around the rough edge of the bench and work on deepening my ass print.
Jess pauses in front of me. “You never go in?” There’s zero judgment in her voice.
“Not since I brought Mom.” Abandoned her. Left her alone, terrified, disoriented. I glance at the canopy of clustered trees saving me from the sun beating down on me, but not from the staccato beating inside my chest. “It’s my fault she’s here. I made the decision. And I can’t even go in. I’m a shitty son.”
“You’re not.” Jess offers me mercy in her eyes and a pardon in her tone.
I don’t deserve either. “I’m pretty sure my sister visits every day.” I’m squeezing the bench so tight my wrists ache. I don’t think I could broadcast my guilt louder using a hundred more words and fifty more takes. “What she doesn’t get is that seeing Mom is not just about working up the guts to go through that door, it’s being willing to let go of who she used to be once I do.”
Jess’s boots come toe-to-toe with my sneakers.
I glance into her green eyes. They’re filled with insane amounts of empathy. No one ever looks at me like that.
“Remember how you saved me at the book signing?” Her voice wavers. “I want to do that for you. But I’m not sure how.”
I spread my legs wide, making room for her to slide closer and stand between my knees. “Just be with me.”
She takes a hesitant step into the space I’ve offered, the first touch of her hand on my head tentative, like she actually believes a universe exists in which I don’t want her hands all over me.
My palms splay across her lower back. I dip my forehead low and rest my head against her stomach.
The way her body yields and her soft hands tunnel through my hair, calms me. I can’t imagine being here with anyone else. She’s not interested in Gabriel Wade, or what he can do for her, she’s here withme. Because she wants to be.
“You were close to your mom?” she asks quietly.
“Yeah.” I’m quiet too.
“I don’t know much about Alzheimer’s.” Her words are almost an apology. “Did you know something was off right away?”
“No.” I sigh. “At first it was stupid stuff. Missed meetings. Bills she forgot to pay. Words she didn’t get right. Questions she asked over and over.” I raise my head to look at her. “Things she wanted me to do, even after I’d done them. If I said anything, she’d scream at me likeI’dscrewed up.” An edgy thump beats against my ribs.
Jess skates her hands over my neck.
I scoot back and tug her down to sit sideways on my lap. “I had to leave because of my filming schedule, but my sister lived at home. She called me with these crazy news flashes. Mom freaked out ordering at the drive-thru. Refused to go to the grocery store. Got lost jogging in our neighborhood. Cut her king-size sheets to make them fit her new queen-size bed. Wore her pajamas to the gas station when she’d never go out in anything less than designer jeans, matching jewelry, and full makeup.”
Jess shifts on my lap so she can lean back and look at me. “What did you do?”
“Told my sister she was being dramatic.”
“But she wasn’t.”
“She wasn’t.” A surge of adrenaline races through my veins, pulses through my body, twitches through my leg.
Like Jess knows I need to move, she pushes off my lap to sit on the bench.
I’m up before my next heartbeat, walking and re-walking an invisible line in the gravel along the bench. I’m talking to Jess about my mom. And it feels like I might live through it. “A month after the gas station incident, I came home for the weekend. We had this huge storm.” I inhale and exhale. “I forgot to kill the timer on the sprinklers. They went off the next morning. Mom got pissed about watering the soaked lawn. Which was no big deal.” I pause my pacing. “Until she called me David.” My gaze catches on that damn glass door.
Jess is in front of me, her hands stroking my face.
I wrap her wrists with my fingers. “She remembered it rained, but she forgotmy name.” My voice cracks all the way through. I crack all the way through, reliving that day over and over. “When we brought her here, that’s all she did—cried and screamed and hung ontomewhile she repeated David’s name over and over.” Hauling Jess against me, I pull her tighter and tighter and tighter. “How could my mom not know who I was?” But I can’t get close enough. Can’t numb the impossible ache. Can’t escape the guilt of an ugly truth no one can ever discover.
That every time I think about Mom—I wonder if it’d be easier if she were dead.
