Page 21 of Meet Me in the Valley
All I can do is stare down into the freezer, serving as a painful reminder of this devastating disease that has my mom stuck in some sick time loop of hell.
She thinks today is his birthday, which means every pie sitting at the bottom of this freezer …
“When was she diagnosed?” I close the lid of the freezer, unable to look at it anymore.
“I’ve had concerns going back almost six months. But the official diagnosis was just a few months ago, at the end of summer.”
Six months? End of summer? While I was home?
I fight back the burn of tears pricking behind my eyes. As I pace the garage, I sense my father’s gaze on me. The emotions stirring within me fight against each other.
It’s anger versus sadness, then guilt and devastating grief join the battle. My thumbnail becomes raw and agitated from my incessant gnawing—a god-awful habit I formed since childhood for when I get anxious.
The air thickens too fast, like it’s trying to strangle the breath from my lungs. Something ugly barrels through me in sharp, crashing waves—and panic follows close behind. I’m on the brink of completely losing it, and I need air.Now.
I stop pacing, barely holding myself together before my dad pulls me into his arms. His embrace is steady, radiating warmth and strength, like he’s trying to carry what I can’t. My breath stutters in broken bursts, the overpowering smell of gasoline and rubber pressing in until my stomach turns and the world spins backwards.
With the fear of passing out, I focus on my dad’s scent, burying my nose into his arm as he holds me. Squeezing my eyes shut, my mind betrays me, grappling me with images of my mom manic in the kitchen.
Wild eyes, messy hair, and a dying brain.
“Why didn’t you tell me sooner, Dad?” I’m hurt by his conscious choice to keep this from me. I was home most of summer, selfishly living my life and missed all the signs. I could’ve helped somehow. Maybe I could’ve seen it earlier and worked with my dad to help fix it. I could’ve?—
“Stop doing that to yourself, honey,” my dad interrupts my self-loathing thoughts as if I were saying them out loud. “I didn’t want to tell you yet because I was still coming to terms with it myself.”
My battered heart shatters a little more at his admission, and I let my dad hold me as we breathe together.
“How often is she making these pies? Why does she keep replaying your birthday?”
“I was actually on the phone with her doctor before you came into my office earlier. And the truth is, Alzheimer’s is an unforgiving neurological disease. There’s not really a pattern for what triggers my birthday—at least one I’ve observed. I know that disrupting her routine can set her off, and those days can be really hard.”
I remain in my dad’s arms, nodding like I understand what he’s talking about, but I don’t really. I have a thousand questions I want to ask, burning through my mind in cluttered chaos. Dad strokes my back softly, exactly how he did when I was little to placate me when something was deeply upsetting.
“The doctor told me to play along with the birthday thing to prevent any sort of breakdown. She was making almost two pies a week. After a month, I couldn’t eat any more of them.” We both let out a hollow laugh at that. “I didn’t have the heart to toss them out. So, I started freezing them. I’m good on birthday pie for a while.”
I smile against his arm, holding him tighter to me, grieving with him over the slow decline of my mom’s health.
He’s had to do this all alone. He shouldn’t have to do this by himself. My mom deserves for her family to be whole again. Because once upon a time, we weren’t broken. We were happy. Thefourof us. And I can’t help that my mind takes me back toher.The missing piece to our fractured puzzle. The one person I wish I could talk to right now, but can’t have.
I have to fix this.
“We have her on new medication to help alleviate symptoms, but we have good and bad days, sweetheart.”
“And today is a bad day?” I look up at him with misty eyes.
His somber face tells me everything I need to know.
It’s not a good day.
Chapter Six
LOGAN
No matter how old I get, sitting in the front seat of Dad’s cruiser will never not be awesome. As soon as I was big enough, sometimes Dad would take me around town and let me pretend we were hunting for bad guys. I even had my own handcuffs—they were made from a flimsy plastic, but still.
I’d press my nose against the passenger window, imagining lanky burglars dressed in black with matching masks that only had holes for the eyes and mouth. They’d have massive bags of money slung over their shoulders, headed for their getaway car.
But they’d never see me coming. I’d be there to catch them—and I’d save the entire town and keep everyone safe in their homes.
