I stayed by my mother’s bedside and prayed to a god I wasn’t sure I believed in that she would know my face when she opened her eyes.
Eighty-six hours after the surgery, I’d woken to my mother’s voice calling my name and asking for a cup of water.
She’d remembered me.
Her prognosis hadn’t been good, and recovery wasn’t easy. But my mother was a headstrong woman. She worked hard to rehabilitate herself. I brought her home with me to live in my mansion while she worked on her health. Professionals came by every day: physiotherapists, chiropractors, motor-function specialists, therapists, and her friends. Everyone served a role in her recovery, and I lived and breathed for my mother’s health for twenty-four months until she was independent again.
Then one morning when I came down to make coffee, I’d startled my mother in the kitchen. She’d screamed bloody murder when she turned around and saw me smiling at her and wishing her good morning. She’d rushed to the other side of the kitchen to put the island between us like she thought I was going to hurt her.
She had no idea who I was.
Her own son was a stranger to her. A threat.
If I thought too long about that morning, the feeling of devastation I’d felt in that moment would come back in full force.
I’d made appointments with the best doctors as her memory lapses grew more frequent. After several consultations and tests, a doctor pulled me into his office and told me my mother had a degenerative issue in her brain that would result in fast-moving dementia. There were suspicions it was accelerated or caused by the brain injury some years before but there was no way to prove such a theory.
I paid for the best specialists to save my mother’s mind. Nothing worked.
So now she was in a home.
I parked my Lykan in the parking lot outside the care facility. It was an impressive building with perfectly manicured grounds and old English architecture. Several people were wandering the grounds as I made my way up the path to the front doors, through which was a lobby with dark green velvet sofas and a reception counter with a fish tank built underneath it.
I approached the counter and the middle-aged woman behind it. She rose from her seat with a smile. “Mr. Holt, what a nice surprise to see you in the middle of the week like this.”
“I had some free time.”
“Well, I’m sure Ally will be delighted to see you. She’s been stable this week. She even joined some of the others for some lawn bowling when we had that beautiful sunny day. When was that? Sunday? Monday. Gosh, I can’t recall. But she had a glorious time. You should have seen her. I might have some pictures somewhere around here if you—”
“Is she in her room?” I asked.
“Yes, yes, go on in. Pictures can wait.”
I hoped my mother was having a lucid afternoon as I made my way down the hallway to her room. She had a corner unit, something I’d insisted on, with her own private little patio that overlooked the gardens. She liked to sit outside and listen to the birds with her morning cup of coffee.
I knocked on her door before opening it a crack. “Mom? It’s me, Lukas.”
Music was playing inside, a familiar John Denver tune. I opened the door the rest of the way and found my mother sitting in her rocking chair by the window. She blinked at me.
“How are you, Mom?” I asked as I moved into the room. It smelled like fresh laundry and egg salad. I spotted a plate with breadcrumbs on it sitting on the windowsill beside her. “Did you have an egg-salad sandwich for lunch?”
My mother nodded. She still hadn’t placed me in her memory but I was used to it taking a minute or two for her mind to catch up.
Instead of telling her who I was, I waited for it to click. Doctors and nurses alike had told me over the last couple of years that this was the best approach. The worst thing to do was to make a person with dementia feel like they were forgetting something. It caused embarrassment, shame, and sometimes anger.
I never wanted to cause my mother any of those feelings even if it meant some visits were spent with her never piecing together that I was her son.
“Too bad I didn’t get here earlier,” I said as I sat down in the other chair across from hers. “I could have gone for a sandwich. What song are you listening to?”
My mother’s blue gaze slid to the radio behind her right shoulder. “It’s John Denver.”
“You did always love John Denver, didn’t you? I remember waking up to it on Sunday mornings. You’d be in the kitchen making breakfast for me and Lisa and her mother. They say hello by the way.”
My mother’s expression shifted. Her eyes brightened, and she smiled. “Lukas,” she said warmly.
I smiled. “Hi, Mom.”
Chapter 6
Kayla
Our waitress for Happy Hour was a young girl who seemed barely old enough to legally serve us alcohol. She was a bubbly and somewhat scatterbrained person and it took her more trips than it should have to bring us our drinks and our shared appetizer platter of Thai chicken bites, pita crisps and hummus, and vegetables with ranch. Nevertheless, we eventually sat with the full spread before us, sipping our drinks on the enclosed and heated glass patio.
The mules had a powerful ginger kick. “These are fantastic,” I said, licking my lips. “Really strong but delicious.”
Lisa nodded and smothered
