Page 56 of When I Forgot Us
“Aunt Sarah?” Michelle released Chase and caught up with her aunt.
The woman turned, her eyes bright and shimmering with unshed tears.
Michelle hugged her tight. That familiar peppermint smell that reminded her of summertime and watermelon filled her head with memories. “Thank you.”
“For what, honey?” Aunt Sarah patted her back, her voice shaky.
Her heart quaked a bit at the sound. Aunt Sarah’s Parkinson’s symptoms were becoming more prevalent as the months in Blue River had passed by.
“Thank you for everything. You let me go even though you hated the idea of me leaving. You tried to keep in touch.” A quiver shook her shoulders and tore at her words. “You’ve been there for me every step of the way. I didn’t know you, and you loved me anyway.”
“That’s what family does.” It was a no-nonsense answer typical of the woman she’d come to remember. “I was happy to do what I could for you, no matter what that looked like.”
“I didn’t appreciate then, but I do now.” She slowly relaxed her frame and dropped her arms. “And if you ever want to leave the living facility, you have a home with me.”
Aunt Sarah swiped tears from her cheeks. “That’s a lovely thought. I’ll consider it.”
She’d consider it, but she’d never agree. The woman was too stubborn to let Michelle sacrifice for her.
Well. She had time and persistence on her side. Aunt Sarah remembered her as the young girl with a head full of dreams. She hadn’t fully met the stubborn woman Michelle had become.
“We’ll be home soon.” Chase reappeared at her side and took her hand, focusing on nothing but her. Them. “Where do you want to go?”
“Let’s see where our feet take us.” She had more on her mind than a physical destination.
They strolled to the end of the block and turned left, heading away from the center of town.
“My memories may never come back.” She broke into the quiet with her reality.
Chase nudged a rock off the sidewalk and back into a driveway. “I’m sure that worries you. Want to explain?”
“I used to worry that I’d suddenly have horrible memories of you. Of us. That was before I remembered why I left.” Better to get the worst of it out early. “Now I worry that I’ll never regain those last remnants, and I’ll always feel incomplete.”
He swung their hands between them, causing his knuckles to tangle in her skirt and send it flaring out. They walked beneath an oak tree that shaded a nearby house and part of the sidewalk.
Michelle chuckled at the traditional white picket fence, toys in the yard, and yellow shutters on the white two-story house. “Saying it out loud makes me realize it’s not true.”
“Oh?” He didn’t push or prod for her to continue.
Another thing she loved about him. “Are you upset that I didn’t respect your space? You asked for time, and I barged in and dumped my feelings in your lap.”
“I didn’t really need time.” He tipped his hat up and slowed his steps, so they stayed in the shade longer. “I was avoiding my feelings.”
“Can’t say I’m surprised.”
“Why not?”
“Because the last time we talked about feelings, I abandoned you. Kind of hard to give a second chance after that.” She leaned into his arm, wrapping her free hand around his elbow. “I wish I could take back the hurt.”
“It was necessary for both of us to grow into the people we are now.” His boots crunched a leftover acorn that a squirrel must have dropped from his winter stash. The cracking sound drew their eyes down, and they stopped at the fringe of light and dark, between sun and shade. “I was angry when you first came back. I thought it was unfair that you were allowed to forget me and all that we’d been to each other.”
Hurt flickered in his eyes but was replaced with a look so full of love she wanted to drown in it.
“But, I would have loved you no matter what.” He tugged her forward, bringing them into the light. “If your memories stayed lost forever, I was prepared to help you make new ones.”
“I loved you even before I remembered.” Some part of her had recognized that long-standing love within days of herarrival. “And that feeling has grown stronger than anything I felt for you before.”
“Seeing you again was a punch in the gut. I thought I’d never be able to breathe again. It wasn’t so much falling in love with you again as realizing that my love had grown even while you were away.”
