Say You'll Remember Me(87)

Lisa had asked for her mom when I was there too, but not like this. Everyone had been home, the boys were running around, she had her husband—it was distracting. With just Samantha there and the house empty the way it usually was during the week, she was noticing her mom missing.

It was only 9:15 in California. Nobody would be home to take over until at least five. Even if I were in the car on the way to the airport now, I couldn’t get there faster than that.

I had never felt so helpless. The distance had never felt so big.

Samantha had just lost her grandmother, she hadn’t rebounded yet, she wasn’t okay, and now this.

“There,” I said, finishing the compilation. “I sent it. Both earbuds.”

“But I won’t be able to hear Mom—”

“You need to de-escalate yourself before you can do anything for her. Okay? You put the oxygen mask on yourself first. She’s used to the yard, she’ll be okay in the gazebo.”

She sniffed. “All right.”

She hung up with me.

I texted the family group chat, minus Samantha and told them what happened, asking if anyone could get home early. Tristan said he could. He wasn’t exactly gentle, but his direct delivery had a way of bringing his sister back from a nosedive, so this might actually be the best-case scenario.

Then I ordered her favorite iced coffee to be delivered to the house.

I went to Murkle’s on Instagram. The last graphic was a retro-looking picture of a smiling couple holding corn dogs with a yellow mustard squiggle on them. The text read, “This could be us but you only like ketchup.” The last thing she posted.

I unfollowed the page.

And that was it. That was all I could do. I couldn’t hold her. I couldn’t help her.

We were a bonded pair, separated by cages two thousand miles apart.





40





SAMANTHA


THREE MONTHS. THAT’S how long Grandma had been dead. That’s how long since I’d been laid off.

It was also how long it had been since I’d seen Xavier.

He’d tried to come in February. He had the flight booked and everything. But a pipe burst at the clinic two days before his trip. It flooded two of the exam rooms and the bathroom and he’d had to close the office for a week to mitigate the water damage.

He had insurance but it didn’t cover flooding or paying his staff while they were closed. He’d had to put payroll and the repairs on cards and then work graveyards at the ER just to pay them off before the interest kicked in. It took him two months to financially recover from that.

He was finally going to come this weekend, but now he was sick. Hank came in for him and Xavier went to urgent care, where he found out he’d been working eighty hours a week with a severe sinus infection.

Hank was covering for him going on two days now. Xavier hated that because Hank couldn’t be on his knees that much, but he was too sick to go in—which knowing my boyfriend spoke to how bad it truly was. Xavier would probably come to work on hospice, he didn’t shirk his responsibilities for anything.

I was also sick.

Physically I was fine. Mentally I was unwell.

Since I lost my job it didn’t make sense to hire the home aide for Mom. Now I was the home aide.

My days were monotonous. I couldn’t leave. I couldn’t take her anywhere. Not even for a quick drive for a coffee or a walk or to sit in a park. I washed her, dressed her, changed her diapers when she had an accident. I fed her with a spoon and wiped her mouth and did listless orange juice shots with her in the kitchen. I hung out alone all day with someone who couldn’t talk to me, who couldn’t remember my name. Who looked like my mom, but didn’t know her, couldn’t remember her, had never seen her a day in her life.

Mom asked about Grandma constantly. For the last three months, seven days a week, eight hours a day I told a story about Grandma being at Vons half a dozen times in a single afternoon.

I stopped doing her makeup. No point. It just gave me one more thing to do at the end of the night when I had to take it off. Her roots were growing out again. Nobody had time to do the little things for her anymore. Or we had time, but we just didn’t have the energy. None of us did. We were all too sad.

My family was a mess.

Tristan wasn’t talking to Dad. This made Jeneva mad, so she wasn’t talking to Tristan, which was an interesting position to take considering she also wasn’t speaking to Dad over the Grandma thing. Dad seemed to be avoiding both of them. He looked even more worn out than usual and I was so depressed I just wanted to be alone whenever I could so I could do the only thing that actually brought me happiness, which was talking to my boyfriend, who worked so much he never had time.

I missed Mom. I missed Grandma. And I missed the person I was three and a half months ago too.

Last Year Sam was shiny and hopeful and making mustard jokes. The me of today was a worm. And my worm expert never came to see me.

I tried to see the bright side of this thing with Xavier. I’d never get tired of my boyfriend being around. I’d always have something to look forward to. The sex would always be great because by the time we saw each other we were famished.

That’s it. That’s all I could come up with for the bright side.

It was like dating a ghost.

I was attached to someone invisible. I didn’t have someone to help carry groceries in from the car, or to put the clothes in the dryer when I forget, or to go with me to get drinks on a random Tuesday when I was stressed and tired from taking care of Mom and I needed a beer.