Cold raced up my spine. “What do you mean, sick? Like…terminal.”
“Technically, yes.” She went with another dramatic pause, but this time, I just sat and blinked until she started speakingagain. “He was officially diagnosed with Alzheimer’s about six months ago.”
It took a moment for the weight of her words to hit me, but when it did, I almost fell sideways. “Six months—Jesus, Mom. Sixmonths? And you’re telling me this now?”
“Well, it seemed appropriate since I’ll be leaving the country for a while. Elisa and I are going to do some traveling for the next couple of years, and someone will have to look out for him.”
“You’re his wife.”
“Only on paper,” she said, then laughed like it was some massive cosmic joke. “Stop making that face, Jonah. It’s your duty handed down by God Himself to take care of your parents in their twilight years.”
“Oh yes, I forgot about that passage,” I said dryly. “Honor thy father after thy mother abandons him the moment he becomes a fucking burden.”
I heard her tongue tick, and I knew she was debating about giving me a bible lecture. It was probably good she didn’t with the way I was feeling. “With the salary you boys make, I’m sure if you need help, there’s help to be found.”
“Ah. So it’s about money.”
The truth was, it was always about money. The book was about money. Pushing us into hockey was about money. She assumed we’d be more than willing to hand it over when her author career and attempt to be a Disability Mom social media influencer didn’t pan out.
When Micah first told her to go fuck herself, she didn’t talk to him for a month. That alone was incentive to tell her how I really felt. Only…I couldn’t bring myself to do it. I knew Micah thought I was a coward, and I hadn’t done much to change his mind on that front.
But at the very least, I was willing to be a buffer between him and our parents, which was enough for him.
“I really don’t need this attitude right now, Joe.”
“Jonah,” I corrected.
“I named you. I can call you whatever I want,” she snapped.
Pinching the bridge of my nose, I bowed forward over my legs, feeling the table for my cane with my other hand. It was right where I left it, which wasn’t always a guarantee at her house. Her other favorite game was putting it somewhere else and refusing to tell me until I gave in to whatever she was asking me for.
It was why the three of us started carrying around spares.
“What do you want me to do about Dad?”
“Look after him. Get him into a facility if you can get the old man to agree.”
He wasn’t old. That was the tragedy of the whole thing. They hadn’t been young parents, but he was barely fifty-five, which meant this was some early onset bullshit. And the fact that she wanted me, Micah, or Caleb to take care of him was hilarious.
It was mid-season, and there was a damn good chance that both of our teams were going to make it to playoffs, which meant I would be at the rink constantly, then on the road constantly. And Caleb had just bought a house with his girlfriend, not to mention his commission schedule was packed for the rest of the year.
None of us had time, and she knew it.
But I knew her a little too well to be surprised by any of this. She wanted to lock her husband away now that things were complicated. That way, she could forget about him until he died, and she could collect his life insurance policy.
My stomach twisted, and bile rose into the back of my throat. “Where is he right now?”
She sighed heavily. “His apartment, probably.”
His apartment? He had an apartment?
“I get calls about him most days, from people in the neighborhood. He keeps wandering around and trying to buy sandwiches at bookshops and pay for groceries with his house keys.”
“Jesus Christ?—”
“Don’t you dare take the Lord’s name in vain in my house.”
“You know what? Fuck this.” I stood, grabbing my cane and clicking the segments into place. I didn’t have an Uber waiting, but I could make it down to the corner of the street before ordering one. Or screw it. I’d grab the bus if I had to.
