Say You'll Remember Me(79)

I leaned down and kissed her softly. “Do you want to hear some good news?” I asked.

“Please, yes.”

I told her about Hank. When I was done, she shook her head.

“Wow,” she said, sitting up on her elbows. “So he’s just going to work there for free?”

“That’s what he said. I feel guilty letting him do it.”

“It sounds like he wants to,” she said. “I kind of get it. I think having us around helped Grandma too. People need people. Just pay it forward one day. Go be someone else’s fairy godfather when you’re a million years old.”

“Ha.”

“Should I send him a mustard gift basket?” she asked. “Do you think he’d like that?”

“I thought they were sold out.”

“Yeah, but the guy from distributions has a crush on me. He’d make one for me if I asked him.”

I arched an eyebrow. “The guy from distributions? Should I be worried?”

“When you’re a VILF? No.”

I snorted.

She put her arms around my neck and hugged me while I rubbed her back. “Should we do Christmas gifts?” she asked, her chin over my shoulder.

“Sure.”

She let me go and I reached over for my bag and pulled out the tiny wrapped box. We’d agreed nothing too expensive, that our money should go to travel, but I’d put a lot of thought into this.

I sat up against her headboard while she grabbed my gift out of a drawer.

“Here,” she said, climbing back into the bed. “You first.”

I tore the snowman paper. It was a framed photo. The photo of us at Mother Putters.

“I sent it to myself from your phone,” she said. “Look.” She showed me the little plaque at the bottom: Our first date, July first.

I smiled. I loved it.

“I thought you’d want to start collecting memories,” she said.

“Thank you,” I said, beaming at it.

And she was right. I did want to collect our memories.

Everything I got to do with her was precious to me. I’d never been much for mementos or keepsakes but now all I wanted was to look around me and see evidence of her. I wanted to breathe in and smell her, reach out and touch her, open my eyes and see her. Short of living with her nothing would be enough, but the frame was a start.

“Now you,” I said.

I gave her the box.

She tucked her legs under her and wiggled off the lid. She gasped. “A seashell necklace?” she said, holding it up by the chain.

“It’s one of the ones we found in Santa Monica. It was in my pocket when I got home.”

“I love it so much,” she said quietly, staring at the shell in her palm. “A memory I can wear. Thank you.”

She put it on and looked down at it around her neck for a moment. “Where do you usually spend Christmas?” she asked, gazing at the necklace but talking to me.

“Nowhere. I work.”

She looked up and blinked at me. “Every year?”

“Mostly, yeah.”

Her brows were furrowed.

“The guys sometimes invite me, but it’s a family holiday,” I said. “I don’t like to feel like I’m intruding.”

“So you’re just… alone?” she asked.

“I’m always alone.”

The look on her face was so bleak I thought she was going to start crying again.

“It’s fine, I’m used to it,” I said.

“It is not fine. That’s not something anyone should get used to.” She shook her head. “You have me now, okay? I’m your family. You spend Christmas with me. Every year, no matter what. Promise me.”

Something about it made my chest ache. Maybe because I really could see it. Decades into the future, Christmases with her, our parallel line. I could see it like it was a memory, not a vision.

I never felt like I belonged anywhere or to anyone.

But I belonged to her.

It was so natural being with her, I wondered if loving her was a contract that I’d signed in a former life. Because it had never been like this for me with anyone else.

I think there are two types of people you fall in love with. The ones who are a good fit. Their lifestyle matches yours, you share the same values and beliefs, you find them attractive and you like spending time with them. It’s good. Great even. You can live your whole life with this person and be madly in love and never want anything different… unless you’ve already met the other type of person you fall in love with.

The One.

The person who was made just for you. And you only ever get the one.

Samantha was my one.

I knew it by how painful it was to see her cry. I knew it by how I was willing to work harder for her than I’d ever worked for anything or anyone including myself. Loving her gave me purpose. It made me feel like I knew what my life was supposed to be about. I felt focused and calm and like a frantic search I hadn’t known I was on was over. This was what I was here to do, this was who I was here to be with, and now my job was to get here and take care of her. And taking care of her family was an extension of that.

From what I understood, Samantha’s grandma did most of her daughter’s daily care. If my experience with aging animals was any indication, Lisa was going to have a hard time with this transition. She’d be off her routine, she wouldn’t deal with the change well, and her condition would probably deteriorate. Accidents would be a lot more frequent. They’d forget to take her to the bathroom, they’d forget to feed her, and both those things would make her more difficult to manage. Nobody was in the right headspace to deal with anything right now. Everything was the last straw. It was clear the family was in no place to take care of the fundamentals at the moment. I got the sense Grandma had done a lot of it and the wheels of the household were not turning without her. So after I cleaned up breakfast this morning, I started figuring out lunch plans for everyone. Then dinner.