“You’ve been carrying this alone for too long,” I observe, but she doesn’t reply. Doesn’t make excuses or give any reasoning, because to her, this is exactly as it should be.
I grip the steering wheel harder than necessary, knuckles whitening. I want to take her hand. To calm her. To say something that makes this easier. I wanted to do something important for her. Something right. I wanted to show her she shouldn’t have to kill herself to get the help she needs for her grandma.
The truth is, I can see I made everything harder in the way I went about it…
“The staff there,” I say, choosing the words carefully, “are highly trained and fully invested. She will be treated with dignity, care and respect.”
Her eyes flick to mine.
“Thank you,” she clips.
Two words. Quiet. Sharp. Hiding her heartbreak.
I have to look away for a moment. I don’t know what to do with this.
We pull into a gated entrance guarded by three men with weapons my brother trained them to use. The car glides to a stop, and one of them opens her door.
Callie falters when she steps out, not because she’s afraid, but because she’s overwhelmed.
The building is clean. Bright. Alive. Flowers line the walkway. Welcoming visitors and patients alike.
She presses her hands into her pockets and swallows.
“I didn’t know places like this existed for people like her,” she whispers.
“They don’t,” I say. “This is a place for people like me.”
Her head turns sharply.
“So why bring her here?”
I look down at her and try to ignore the way my heart shatters. Every thought and feeling she has is right there in those violet eyes. Pain and heartache and something that looks suspiciously close to betrayal.
She feels betrayed by me for not trusting her. Only I don’t know how to make her understand the severity of it all. That our worlds are two very different places. That my need to claim her isn’t enough. That her willingness to be claimed by me could be self-preservation. And in my desperation to have her, I could miss the signs that she is right there, ready to stab me in the back.
The truth is, I don’t know her and she doesn’t know me. So I say the only thing that I know to be true right now, “Because she matters to you, and you matter to me.”
Her breath catches, her eyes shine, and I feel the snap of another thread inside me, something that once kept me sane, gone.
I place a hand at the small of her back and lead her inside.
The nurse at the desk smiles, warm and genuine. She recognizes me for several reasons. She also knows better than to acknowledge it. Her smile falters when she tracks the placement of my hand, then turns tight when she takes Callie in.
“She’s awake,” she says, her voice a little tight. “Waiting for you.”
The words break whatever fragile restraint Callie had left.
She moves, and I stay close enough that if she falls apart, I’ll be the one to catch the pieces.
Callie
The hallway is bright with natural light, clean in that homely way of daily vacuumed plush carpets and vases of fresh cut flowers on the windowsills. It’s all too hopeful for the kind of fear that’s currently crawling under my skin.
I rush ahead, practically running, and it’s only when I reach the doorway of her room, her new room, that I freeze.
Grandma is sitting up in bed, a knitted blanket over her lap, sunlight pouring in through large, wide, windows. The kind of sunlight she hasn’t had since the illness took her memory piece by piece. There are photos on the nightstand, framed, not taped to a wall like in the last place. Her favorite perfume and face cream laid out like someone actually applied them for her this morning.
“Oh…” The word leaves me on a sob.
