This wasn’t Jet.
And she wasn’t nineteen.
This wasn’t the county music festival just outside her hometown. Nor was she dressed in her school uniform after having snuck off to perform. Worst of all, she wasn’t in love for the first time.
Instead, Eleanor was standing in the middle of a field in… Wherewere they?Her knees ached. Her hands—she looked down at them—were thin and veined and spotted with age.
Only a few days ago she’d missed the celebration for her sixty-ninth birthday because she’d run away.
The realization came down like a soft collapse, deflating the hope she’d felt just seconds before.
“Oh,” she whispered, her voice caught on the wind.
The last lines of “Proud Mary” faded from somewhere in the distance, followed by the crowd cheering for the next act. A girl danced by in a yellow fringe vest, a tambourine trilling with each bounce against her palm.
“I don’t remember the mountains being so tall,” Eleanor murmured, squinting at the hazy, jagged horizon.
The young man turned, following her gaze. “Denver caught you by surprise?” There was a bit of surprise in his tone too.
She nodded absently. Denver… They weren’t in California anymore. Eleanor suppressed a shiver at not remembering how she’d gotten here or where she was. Her mind flashed to the appointment with her doctor. To his prognosis. The words had tumbled from his mouth in a cloud of nonsense that she still hadn’t parsed.
More than Denver caught her by surprise. So did time. But shedidn’t say this part aloud. There were some things she needed to keep to herself. Yet somehow her expression must have conveyed her confusion.
“We’re in Mile High Stadium,” the stranger said gently. “Remember? You rode here with me in the van. Me and the band.”
“Oh,” she said, laughter softening her slipup, she hoped. She shook her head lightly like she was brushing off a cobweb. As if it were just a silly, momentary lapse. Not the reality, that she couldn’t remember any of the drive. Couldn’t remember climbing into his van. Couldn’t even recall his name until—
Shep.
Yes. That was it. Shep.
The resemblance to Jet was uncanny, but she wasn’t about to confess to knowing Shep’s uncle. That would break two of her rules. One, a lady never kisses and tells, and two, a lady never reveals her true age. At least she’d come back to the present.
But the rest? A haze.
“You okay?” He studied her, his voice lined with something like worry.
Eleanor tried to brush off his concern with a pat to his arm, her touch warm and practiced. The same pat she’d given Henry, Leanne, and Nora when she was proud of them, comforting them, walking past. The same one she gave Roxy when the little dog was twirling in a circle. A touch that spoke louder than words. A touch that held depth.
“I’m doing just fine, honey.” She mustered a smile, hoping it stuck.
His hand covered hers, brows wiggling, giving her a cheeky, teasing look. “Oh, you’re flirting now? Don’t hold out on me, Ellie. Give me all you’ve got.”
Heat filled her cheeks, and she playfully swatted his hand away.
Ellie.The nickname still made her heart hiccup. Two syllables, so personal, echoed from a time when someone else used to sayit—whispered behind a stage curtain, wrapped in the sweet heat of summer and possibility.
But she didn’t want to think about that. She didn’t want to think about the part where she had forgotten—again—where she was. Or the sharp, terrifying emptiness that opened up when a name or a thought slipped away like it had never existed at all. The truth was, Eleanor hadn’t been completely honest with her daughter or the doctor about how things were progressing with her. She’d told them the bare minimum too afraid to face the truth of how fast she appeared to be slipping away.
“Want to sing with me again?” Shep asked. “Last time, we were a real hit. Got the crowd going.”
Eleanor looked past him to the field, the heat warping the distance, bodies packed in tight. The late-June sun pulsed against a chaotic wash of sound—drums, shouting, someone tuning a guitar far too loudly. Tie-dye bled into camouflage. Shirtless men threw Frisbees across clusters of half-pitched tents. This wasn’t like California. There, the festival had felt dreamy. Loose and golden and strange in a beautiful way.
Here, there was tension beneath the joy. Electricity. Like something might crack open at any second.
Still, she nodded. “Yes.”
Shep took the cigarette from her fingers, flicked off the long, crumbling ash, and handed it back to her with a quick glance. His expression said what he didn’t:You okay with doing this?
