Say You'll Remember Me(63)

“You think she’s a narcissist?”

“Oh, totally. She hasn’t spoken a word to you in over a decade but she has zero problems holding up your credentials like a trophy. And you know what’s sad? If you weren’t what you are, in spite of her, she’d do the opposite. She’d tell everyone what a failure you are and how she didn’t raise you to turn out like that.”

“She would definitely do that,” I mumbled.

“Of course. Because that’s the prophecy they foretold. And instead you’re this. You win.”

Yes. I guess I did.

Still.

Samantha reached across the table and took my hand. “It should give you a bottomless sense of satisfaction to know that they are aware of who and what you are now, Xavier. And no matter how much she wants to brag about you, that’s all she’ll ever get. She won’t get to introduce you to people, or show them pictures of you with them on holidays. The facade won’t hold up. But just know that when it doesn’t, she’ll probably fabricate some reason for you to be the bad guy, because that’s what narcissists do. She’ll blame the lack of a relationship on you and say it’s something you did so they can be the victim because narcissists love that. But nothing they ever say or do will take away the fact that you are a doctor. Okay? They don’t matter.”

I nodded like I agreed with her. But the truth was, in their own way, they did matter. I wished they didn’t. I wished memory was selective and you got to pick and choose what to forget.

My two days with Samantha went by in a blur. Before I knew it I was kissing her goodbye at the airport. Then I spent the next four weeks working myself into the ground to get back to her.





27





SAMANTHA


GRANDMA SAT ON the new kitchen barstool while we held our breath. She swiveled it left, then right. Then after making dramatic eye contact with all of us, she smiled. “I love it.”

The whole family hooted and cheered. Mom looked around trying to figure out the noise. “What?”

“Grandma approves of the stools,” I said, smiling at her. “It means the kitchen remodel is done, Mom.”

“Oh,” she said. “Well good.”

I hugged her from the side.

The kitchen was beautiful. Bright and clean and modern. We were worried Mom would be disoriented by the changes, but the layout was still the same as always, so she didn’t seem to notice.

We’d been waiting on the barstools so we could finally eat at the counter again and they’d just arrived this morning. This family had descended on those Lowe’s boxes.

“I’m thirsty,” Mom said.

Jeneva went to get a glass.

Mom was more talkative now that we’d pulled back on her medications. It felt like her dementia had regressed by a year, even though I knew it hadn’t. She was energetic and expressive again, she asked questions and was a thousand times more alert. Now that we knew what the start of a tantrum looked like, we had been able to get ahead of them so we hadn’t had any more blowups. She was more her. It felt so good to have her back, even in the tiniest way.

Mom’s care was an ever-moving target. What worked one month wouldn’t work the next. The doctors warned us that prescriptions would change, that she would change. She might need more, she might need less or something different. But for right now today was a good day. Right now she was the best version of what was left of herself.

“I’m sooo glad it’s over,” Jeneva said, opening the new fridge for juice. “I was getting tired of eating in the yard.”

“Same,” I said, helping Mom onto a stool.

And it was just in time too. Mom’s birthday was tomorrow. Xavier was flying in on a red-eye in the morning. I hadn’t seen him in a month since I went out for my work trip.

It’s funny how time passed now that we were together.

I was always waiting. Waiting for him to be off so he could call. Waiting for him to get a second to text me, waiting for him to watch the reel I sent him two hours ago when he was in surgery.

Waiting for him to come back.

My life felt like it was on pause.

I didn’t see movies I wanted to watch so he could see them with me when he got here. I held off on going places because I’d rather go with him so we could experience it together. I didn’t take my friends up on dinners because after work was the only time of day my boyfriend and I could talk.

He was working at the emergency vet clinic on weekends to fund his trips to see me. Between that and his regular job, we had only a short window of time to be on the phone. He had to be in bed by 11:00 for work the next day, which was only 9:00 p.m. my time. I didn’t log out of work until 5:00, so that gave us four hours, but we both had errands, chores, things that also had to get done around work. And on the weekends, there was no time at all. Saturday he ran right from his clinic to the ER, did an overnight shift, slept five minutes, and then worked the rest of the day Sunday.

I knew it was necessary, but I missed him so much already and this didn’t help.

It felt like the insult to the injury. Not only did we have to be separated 99 percent of the time, but to afford to see each other he had to work so much we didn’t get enough time to talk either.

But when we did talk? I fell more in love with him every minute.