Can't Get Enough (Skyland, #3)
Kennedy Ryan
For the ones who have used your magic to lift, protect, and illuminate everybody else… rest is our new resistance.
Rest & shine, my loves.
Rest & shine.
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AUTHOR’S NOTE
It often feels like the stories I tell find ways to intersect with my real life. I’m one of those “precious” writers who actually believes a little bit of the divine finds its way into the creative process. So I’ve stopped being surprised when there are signs along the way that I’m on the right path or that I’m writing exactly what I should be. I believe that when I follow those whispers, people who need my work and my words will find them at the right time.
If you’ve read the first two books of the Skyland series, Before I Let Go and This Could Be Us, you’ve already met Hendrix, the heroine of this book. I’ve mentioned previously that she was caring for an aging parent living with some form of dementia. In Can’t Get Enough, we learn that it’s Alzheimer’s. Research and interviews are always the cornerstones of my creative process. It’s where I begin. So I interviewed several people who are caregivers for loved ones with dementia and also health care professionals who work in this area. One of the people I interviewed was my mother because her mother, my “Banny,” had been living with dementia for several years and her condition had continued to deteriorate.
The week after I turned in my edits for this book, Banny passed away. It was not an easy journey. She wasn’t consistently recognizing people around her at the end, but she would ask for her sisters, for her brothers, for her mother—all who had gone ahead of her. I like to think that in the haze of her final days, they were light and lifeline to her, and she was reaching for them. She was longing for a peace that I firmly believe she has now found.
I tell you this so that you know Hendrix’s journey is not theoretical for me. I’m not removed from the emotions and the difficult task of caring for a loved one in various stages of dementia. I’ve also seen the flashes of joy this experience can bring when we least expect it. How the human mind, which can betray us, can also delight and astound when we’ve underestimated its capacities.
No two journeys are identical. Some aspects of Hendrix’s mother’s situation may feel familiar to those negotiating these circumstances, and some may be quite different. Special thanks to Jess, Tiye, Erin, Jazmine, Eric, Teresa, Lexi, Lucy, and my mama for sharing their experiences as caregivers and loved ones. I also want to extend grace to the caregivers who manage the challenge of living their lives, taking care of their families, and working, while also finding themselves parenting their parents later in life. It is tough in so many ways, but based on the conversations I had, also a responsibility most see as a privilege. If you’re walking this road in any role or capacity, my great wish is that even as parts of this story may hit close to home, that they hit with hope. That this story resonates and that you feel the care and thought with which I tried my best to handle this topic. I’m sending you strength and hope and all the best.
Thank you for reading.
“A woman is free if she lives by her own standards and creates her own destiny.”
—Mary McLeod Bethune, educator, philanthropist, activist
PROLOGUE
HENDRIX
The front door stands wide open.
That has always meant a warm welcome at the two-story traditional house where I grew up, but now the sight makes me shiver more than the chilly wind of Christmas Eve whistling in my face.
“Is this it?” the Uber driver asks, watching me stand in the driveway with my rolling suitcase.
“Uh, yeah.” Uncertainty colors my voice and probably my expression if the driver’s Can I go now? face is anything to judge by. “This is it. Thanks.”
But is this home? The slightly overgrown lawn and uneven hedges would never have been tolerated by my mother in all the forty years of my life. The garage door is up and Mama’s pride and joy, Shortcake, her pearl-colored Lincoln MKC, is parked there. Mama wouldn’t leave her baby exposed like that.
Something’s wrong.
Something’s been wrong for a while. I haven’t exactly ignored it. I’m not one to bury my head in the sand, but I did hope it wasn’t as bad as I’d suspected. There are worse things to be guilty of than hope, but right now I can’t think of them.
As the Uber pulls off and I drag my bag up the driveway to the wide-open front door, the cloud of dread that has gathered in my belly for the last year calcifies and drops like a stone. I cross the threshold and shut the door behind me, surveying the front room Mama always kept immaculate. It was the first impression of our home, and I’ve never seen it in such disarray. Black dirt from an overturned plant soils the white carpet. A thin layer of dust dulls the end table’s usually shiny surface, and the lampshade is askew. The whole scene is askew, and I’m so disoriented it feels like I’m standing on the ceiling.
“Mama?”
Her name comes out thin and tentative, like when I called her as a child, scared there was a monster hiding under my bed. She always responded right away, coming into my room with a reassuring smile.