SAMANTHA
Eleven Months Later
D AD AND TRISTAN on either side of her, they’re the strongest,” I said, talking to my family in the driveway. “Jeneva, you’re in the front seat, I’ll drive.”
It was Mother’s Day.
We’d talked a lot about how to celebrate today, and in the end we’d universally agreed to my idea.
A ride in the Dart. Top down, one of Mom’s tapes in the tape player. A scarf around her hair, a little dab of coconut sunblock on her face.
I wanted to help her relive some of her favorite memories. We wouldn’t know how much of it she’d actually absorb. Her dementia had progressed over the last year. She was harder to reach, more confused. The car ride might scare her, she might try to jump out, Dad and Tristan might need to hold her on to the seat. But we agreed to try it. If it worked, the payout would be worth it.
Xavier came out of the house and jogged down the steps. “Hey.”
“What did they say?” I asked.
“They want to come with me to work.”
I laughed. “You offered to take the boys anywhere while we’re gone and they want to go to the clinic,” I deadpanned.
Jeneva shook her head. “I think they’d live there if they could. They love Uncle Z.”
My husband looked at his watch. “What time will you be back?”
“An hour maybe? Depends,” I said.
“Okay. Whose night is it for dinner again?” he asked.
“It’s mine,” Dad said. “I’m making spicy coconut chicken.”
“Need anything from the store while I’m out?” Xavier asked, over my shoulder.
“I’ll text you,” Dad said.
“All right.” Xavier leaned in and kissed me. “Drive safe.”
I smiled against his mouth. “I will.”
“If it breaks down again, call me.”
“If it breaks down, I’m opening the hood. It’ll be faster.”
He snorted.
“Are we going?” Tristan said impatiently.
I rolled my eyes. “Yes, we’re going.” I looked back to my husband. “Tristan,” I said under my breath—and Xavier knew exactly what I meant.
“I love you,” he said.
“I love you too.”
He grinned and kissed me again.
Almost two years together now. Contrary to what I’d wished for, I never did get tired of him. I don’t think I ever would.
We got Mom in the car. Dad and Tristan sat on either side of her. I popped in the tape, backed out of the driveway, and off we went with Xavier waving from the porch.
I started slow. Just around the block in case we needed to abort the mission, but Mom was sitting quietly, looking at the houses, so I left the neighborhood. We drove past her old high school. Took her up to Brand Park and we got out and walked her through the grass and set a blanket up under a tree. It was the first time she’d been out like this in almost two years. She was too unpredictable, but with the four of us we could handle it.
The four of us could handle anything, I learned. The five of us. Because Xavier was a part of this family now too.
I wouldn’t lie and say that it had been all easy sailing. It hadn’t. Mom’s moods ebbed and flowed. We were always pivoting, dealing with whatever the next thing was. She ended up in the ER again a few months ago after a severe UTI. She was delirious and it was extremely scary. Then she had a fall in the shower and took Dad down with her. He’d wrenched his back and it was a month before he could do any of the heavy lifting with her again. But she was still home. We didn’t know if that would always be what was best or safest for her, but for now it was.
My phone pinged and I checked it. It was from Xavier, a picture of the boys in the back of the clinic, both grinning and holding kittens. I showed it to my sister.
“I swear they’re going to end up veterinarians,” she said.
“Good,” Dad said. “Family business.”
I smiled. It was entirely possible.
Something remarkable had happened after Xavier left Minnesota. The clinic there didn’t close. It opened six days a week instead.
Hank had some retired colleagues who were bored and liked the idea of getting out of the house once in a while to hang out with their friends, with the added bonus of bailing a young veterinarian out of financial ruin. They took turns working shifts. Same arrangement as Hank.
The practice kept running.
It wasn’t a forever fix, but it was long enough and substantial enough to keep the business in the black and his credit score high so he could get a loan to open a second location in California. So now he had two buildings with his name on them in not one but two different states.
I hoped his parents’ eyes bled every time they googled him.
The plan was to try to keep the Minnesota location going for a few years until the loans for the business were down to what Xavier could get for it if he sold it or until he could afford to hire a doctor to run it. Either way, what Hank had done had changed our lives, even though Hank insists that Xavier changed his. Hank had changed our lives a few times, actually, starting when my husband was just a boy. Hank was a ripple in the ocean of our love story. If it hadn’t been for him, Xavier would never have become an animal doctor and he and I would have never met.
Xavier might never have come here.
Hank was an honorary grandfather now, a part of our family. We flew out every few months to see him and check on the clinic and visit Becca and the guys.
Hank stood in as father of the groom at the wedding. And he looked so proud.
After an hour we packed up the blanket and left the park. Mom was doing so well, we decided to stop at Grandma’s favorite panaderia for Mexican sweet bread like Grandma would have asked us to had she been here.
Mom didn’t ask about her much anymore. Every once in a while, but not like before. She was forgetting. The memories were smearing. For once I was glad they were.
She didn’t need to know her parents were both gone. Mom was the only one who got to exist in a world where that never happened, where Grandma was just out of sight and not lost to us forever.
All Mom knew was that she was loved. Her son put her to bed at night and her husband woke her up every morning and took her down to breakfast with her grandkids and her daughters and a son-in-law she met for the first time every day when he made her eggs.
She had witnesses to her life—and love. She was surrounded by love. And there’s nothing more beautiful.
We took the freeway home. The weather was cool and the sun was setting. We kept the top down. I put in another of Mom’s mix tapes and turned up the volume and we cruised the freeway to Alanis Morissette’s “Hand in My Pocket” She was singing about how everything’s gonna be quite all right. One hand in my pocket, the other one smoking a cigarette.
A cigarette…
Didn’t these old cars have ashtrays?
I’d explored every inch of the Dart, but I didn’t smoke so it never even occurred to me to look. I found an almost secret compartment by the steering wheel, flush to the dash, right under a push button cigarette lighter. I flipped it open expecting ancient cigarette filters or old pennies.
I found the missing jewelry instead.
I gawked between the road in front of me and the treasure trove sparkling from the tray.
Jeneva glanced over and did a double take. Then Tristan leaned between the seats and saw what we were looking at and tapped Dad. His eyes went wide in the rearview mirror.
Jeneva reached in and started pulling it all out.
Rings, bracelets, lockets, earrings—it was all of it. Every last missing piece.
We looked at each other and I slapped a hand over my mouth and started to laugh.
I beamed and looked in the rearview mirror at Mom. Tristan on one side of her, Dad on the other. Dad was holding her hand. And my mother sat there in full color with her eyes closed, the wind in her hair, smiling.