Dom noted the way Wanda used the word “we.”Wanda and Nina weren’t related.None of them were, but that didn’t appear to matter.They really were all for one and one for all.With their lives, with their children, with access to their homes.It fascinated her to watch them together.
Sighing, she took a long gulp of her hot chocolate.“Well, for me, money was a problem.A big problem, and the worse Papa got, the more I had to call in sick, which meant the more my employment teetered on the brink of extinction.”
“You managed a cosmetics counter, right?”Marty asked, her blue eyes twinkling.
Dom snickered, pointing to her clothes and mop of hair.“You’d never know it now, but yes, I did.And keeping track of my grandfather with his Alzheimer’s progressing rapidly while trying to work twelve hours a day became almost impossible.I’m all he has…he’sallIhave,” she whispered, fighting the tears that always came with the idea she’d lose him not too far in the future.
Nina latched onto her hand and squeezed it hard.“Nobody gets that better’n me.My Nana Lou is everything to me.Fuckingeverything.I’d kill a bitch for her.”
Marty barked a laugh.“Who are you kidding, you’d kill a bitch for the fun of it.”
Everyone laughed except Dom.She went pale.Had she killed someone?Had any of them?
Wanda reached over and patted her knee.“Marty’s kidding.Mostly.I won’t lie to you and tell you there hasn’t been a death or two cross our paths, but it was always in defense and fear for our own lives.Now finish your story.How did you come to own a memory care facility?”
Dom nodded, taking a deep breath.“One day, after Papa got out and walked almost twenty blocks from home and the police contacted me to come get him, I knew I didn’t have a choice but to find him somewhere he could be cared for twenty-four-seven.I spent a full month battling with Medicare and social security until I found Remember Me, and he was doing pretty well there for a while.He made friends, he participated.It was…fine.”
Harvey leaned into her, his cologne wafting to her nostrils, as Fletcher landed on his shoulder and nuzzled his ear.He’d really taken to Harvey.Again, a surprise from her crow, who was usually so reserved.“For a while… I’m guessing something pretty bad happened?”
Man, did it ever.Dom nodded, looking down at her feet.“It sure did.It was so poorly understaffed to begin with, there had been complaints and fines for some time that I wasn’t made aware of.When one of the nurses abused a patient and left her in a closet for almost two days, the press got wind of it and it was full-on chaos.Then the state got involved, and Medicare, and it all went to hell in a handbasket.”
“Two days?”Harvey said in disbelief.“Jesus, that’s awful.”
Rubbing her eyes, the fear she’d felt after they’d found Verlean still left her weak.“It was awful.I spent almost all my free time there because they’d missed Papa’s medication a couple of times.They even forgot to feed him more than once.But when they found Verlean, someone my grandfather spent a lot of time with, dehydrated and almost comatose, I was beside myself.Verlean was as much family as my papa.Anyway, that night, I swore I’d figure something out.”
“Wait until you hear how shefigured it out,” MC chirped, with what she’d swear was pride in his cultured voice.
Even now, Dom herself still couldn’t believe how she’d figured it out.“I was gutted, leaving Papa there that night.But I had to secure somewhere else for him to go before I took him out of there, and I knew Susan would keep an eye on him.I went home that night, terrified of what came next, but I stopped at the convenience store down the road from my place because I needed some milk for coffee.I knew I had a long night ahead of me.I didn’t reallywantto stop, because it was raining and I felt like death warmed over.My boss had left me a few messages about calling out again.I felt like my head was poised under the guillotine.”
God, that awful night when the world felt as if it were crumbling around her.
“And then,” Wanda encouraged with a hopeful expression.
“Here comes the good part!”MC said with glee.
Marty clapped her gloved hands together.“I’m dying here!What happened next?”
She laughed, still in shock at the choice she’d made that miserable rainy night.“I stopped.I don’t know what the heck possessed me, but there was a line to buy lottery tickets, and I figured…what could it hurt, right?I had to wait in line anyway.So I bought one.My first and my last.”
“You won the lottery?”Harvey said in awe.“Holy cow, that’s amazing!”
That surge of adrenaline, that feeling of euphoria, washed over Dom again the same way it had when she’d found out.“I did.I still can’t believe it.”
Nina clapped her on the back with a whistle.“Holy fucking shit, Thor’s weird replacement.How much didja win?”
“A lot,” she murmured.She didn’t like talking about it.That kind of money had brought lots of people out of the woodwork she’d rather forget.
“Eight-hundred-million dollars’ worth of a lot,” MC said with a laugh.
So he’d known all along?Crazy.She didn’t question it as much anymore, but it was still crazy.
Dom clapped her hands on her thighs.“Yes.Eight-hundred-million dollars, though, after taxes…not quite as much, but it saved my papa’s life.It saved Remember Me.It saved the people who needed somewhere to go.It saved jobs.It was a miracle I never even thought to pray for.”
Harvey shook his head in obvious wonder, his eyes warm and glowing.“So you bought Remember Me.”
“Originally, I was going to bring Papa back to my apartment and hire full-time care, but despite the hurdles, he’s thrived being with people like him.They were like a gang of aging troublemakers.I couldn’t separate them, even if they don’t always know each other’s names.So I got a financial advisor and set about renovating the place and hiring reliable, credited staff, so no one would ever be left in a closet again.”
“You’re forgetting to tell them the part that makes your heart as big as all of Asgard, Dominique,” MC softly reminded.
