Say You'll Remember Me(8)

She scoffed. “No. Maybe I should offer them Roblox cards instead. Might renew their sense of urgency.”

Mom had lost all the family jewelry in the months before Jeneva moved in. Great-Grandma’s wedding ring and heirloom locket, the diamond tennis bracelet that Dad had given her for one of her birthdays, her diamond earrings, her engagement ring, her wedding ring—irreplaceable memories somewhere in the house and our best hope for recovery were an eleven-and twelve-year-old with ADHD. That scavenger hunt would be the first thing I started when I got there.

“I wish I would have thought of hiding that stuff,” Jeneva said.

“We didn’t know what we didn’t know.”

I misted my makeup with setting spray.

My sister went quiet on the other end.

“I need to tell you about something before you get here,” she said.

I lowered my hand. “Don’t tell me you’re back with your ex…”

“What? Ew, no.” She stopped. “I shouldn’t say that, that’s my babies’ daddy. But no.” I pictured her shuddering. “Dad had to put child locks and alarms on all the doors,” she said.

My face fell. “For Mom? Did she take off again?”

“She did.”

I let out a puff of air and sat on the closed lid of the toilet.

She’d done this a few years ago during a visit here to see me. It was the first time we realized things were worse than we thought. She’d had a UTI we didn’t know about and it had exacerbated her symptoms. She was disoriented and didn’t know where she was and she’d wandered out of my apartment. Some strangers found her at a bus stop.

She hadn’t done that since. But now her condition was progressing. We knew it would. But the scary things were happening now. The dangerous things were becoming more common.

“Do the locks help?” I asked.

“Sort of? She can figure them out, but it takes a minute. Most of the time they frustrate her and she just gives up, but I still have to watch her constantly.”

“Is there a GPS tracker we can put on her?”

“She takes it off. Dad tried necklaces, bracelets. He hid an AirTag in her shoe, but she doesn’t always put on her shoes. Or put on both.”

I squeezed my eyes shut at the visual of my beautiful, sophisticated, young mother leaving the house barefoot.

I let out a long breath. “I’ll be there soon and you guys will get a break.”

A message came through. It was Xavier telling me he was outside.

“He’s here,” I said. “I have to go.”

“Text me the whole time.”

“I will.”

I hung up and sat there for a moment, just to gather myself.

After the incident with the bus stop, every time I saw a missing person alert on the news, I thought of Mom. Wandering off, getting lost, getting hurt, getting kidnapped. It was like she was a full-grown toddler who had to be kept from accidentally killing herself.

She kind of was.

Dad worked. He couldn’t be home with her all the time. They’d moved in with Grandma for extra help, but then Mom became too much for her too and Jeneva moved in next. Three grown adults there and I was still worried it wasn’t enough to keep her safe. And a facility wasn’t an option.

We’d talked about this as a family early on, with Mom while she could still give us her thoughts. We wouldn’t be putting her in memory care.

She wanted to be home. We wanted her home. We wanted her with people who loved her in a place she’d remember as long as she possibly could. She grew up in that house, it was familiar to her. Her long-term memory would be the last to go and being there would be comforting. So we had to make this work. We had to figure it out. I needed to help figure it out.

But I couldn’t think about this now. I’d think about it tomorrow when I saw her. When I was there and it was in front of me.

For now I wanted to forget.

I got off the toilet seat, spritzed myself with perfume, and went to meet my date.

When I got outside, Dr. Rush was standing there looking very serious and holding a small succulent.

“Hi,” I said, putting my back to the door.

“Hello.”

I nodded at the pot in his hand. “Is that for me?”

“I wanted to bring you flowers, but you said you’re going out of town.”

“Awwwww. So you brought me something that can survive long bouts of absence and neglect instead? That’s really thoughtful—and also completely appropriate for my gardening abilities.”

The corner of his lip twitched.

“You look very nice.” He said it like it was his duty to inform me. It cracked me up.

Xavier was dry. He spoke in matter-of-fact tones. Sort of brooding.

Extremely, alarmingly handsome.

He was wearing a navy button-down shirt with the sleeves rolled to the elbows. He really leaned into the blue thing—he’d been wearing navy-blue scrubs both times I saw him at the office. He must know it brings out his eyes. He had these really piercing crystal-blue irises. They reminded me a little of a kaleidoscope. Darker on the outside and then clear and pale.

It was sort of a shock to see him out of the white veterinary jacket and scrubs, but a good shock. He definitely knew how to dress. Also, he smelled amazing.

Smart, successful, gorgeous, good with small vulnerable creatures. This man must get so many women, my God.