Total pages in book: 79
Estimated words: 78329 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 392(@200wpm)___ 313(@250wpm)___ 261(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 78329 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 392(@200wpm)___ 313(@250wpm)___ 261(@300wpm)
He chuckles, unfazed. “Just checking in.” Without another word, he walks off and I am left uneasy.
After he leaves, my hands shake with a familiar mix of anger and helplessness. I breathe through it, grounding myself the way I always do, naming objects, sounds, sensations until the edge dulls. I can’t explain why the man makes my skin crawl, but he does. My gut is always screaming get away when he comes around.
That night, I text Miles about it. I gave him a brief rundown about things previously, but my frustration with Dr. Reeves is at an all-time high and I need to get this off my chest to someone.
Me: Work reminder, some men are still exhausting.
Miles: You want me to have a chat with him?
I laugh quietly thinking about when I lied about Miles and he still fell in line with the play like it was real. My mind wonders, what are we doing? But I don’t ask because defining this feels like it might curse it.
Me: Tempting. But no.
Miles: Good. Orange isn’t my color. And to have the good visits we gotta get married. Might be a bit too soon for you on that one.
I laugh. This is us, casual. We talk every day. We text throughout the days and nights as time allows. Sometimes it’s short—check-ins between meetings, work, or errands. Sometimes it stretches late into the night, voices low, sharing pieces of ourselves that don’t fit neatly into texts.
I learn his laugh better. The quiet pauses he leaves when he’s thinking. The way he says my name like it means something specific.
Distance is strange like that. It forces honesty. There’s no room for half-attention when all you have is words.
Still, doubt creeps in during the quiet moments. What are we building? How does this work when our lives are rooted in different places?
Some nights, after Papa falls asleep and the house settles, I lay in bed wondering if we’re chasing something impossible—or if this is just what something real feels like before it’s had time to solidify. I don’t ask and Miles doesn’t push. There isn’t a demand for answers I don’t have.
That might be what scares me most. Because for the first time, I’m not running ahead to manage the outcome. I’m letting it unfold. Things are working out however they are meant to and I’m not going to push it.
Taking care of Papa holds me steady again. The routines return, familiar and heavy. Some days are better than others. Some days he remembers my name all day long. Other days, he asks for my Nanny like she might walk in any minute. They had over fifty years of marriage together, good times and bad, she was his person and he was hers. I can only hope to find a love and loyalty like theirs.
I hold his hand through it all. At night, when I’m bone-tired and emotionally wrung out, my phone lights up with Miles’s name, and the weight eases just enough to let me breathe.
I don’t know what this is yet. But I know this, I didn’t leave Salemburg behind. I carried it with me. And somehow, across all this distance, something is still growing.
Three weeks later, my world tilts sideways.
It happens on a Tuesday morning, the kind that’s supposed to be boring. Coffee half-finished and a full day of tasks ahead of me. Grandpa sitting up in his bed, having just finished breakfast. He didn’t eat much compared to usual.
He coughs.
At first, I don’t panic. He coughs a lot sometimes it’s to help him spit up mucus or saliva. Other times, it’s from swallowing wrong, forgetting to chew, getting impatient with food the way he gets impatient with everything now. I move automatically, hand on his back, murmuring his name. Normal, casual reassurance that he is not alone and to get up whatever is choking him up. Then he coughs again.
Wet this time not in the usual way. Deep. Wrong.
His face goes pale, then gray, and something cold and sharp cuts straight through my chest.
“Grandpa,” I say, louder now. “Hey. Look at me.”
He tries. He really does. But his breathing turns ragged, eyes glassy with fear he doesn’t have words for anymore.
I call 911 with shaking hands as I continue to provide care, focusing on his airway.
The ambulance ride is a blur of sirens and clipped voices and oxygen masks. I hold his hand the entire time, pressing my thumb into the thin skin of his knuckles like I can anchor him to me through sheer will.
At the hospital, they move fast. X-rays. Bloodwork. Doctors speaking in calm, measured tones that don’t fool me for a second.
Aspiration pneumonia.
I hear the words like they’re being spoken underwater. This shouldn’t rattle me. It’s not uncommon for someone with Parkinson’s, but alarming for me because he isn’t a patient, he’s my Papa. As hard as it is to watch the once strong, fearless man slowly lose functions and eventually his ability to even walk or feed himself, I can’t imagine a day without him.