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“I didn’t want to worry you,” she says. Believe it or not, since Lisbeth is only a couple of years older than me, we’ve become friends. Not good friends, but I text her often to ask about my grandmother, and we end up talking about our lives. Or at least her life. My life is pretty damn boring these days, and I’m not really keen to open up about deeper things.
She continues as we walk. “She woke up from her nap and just started screaming. She thought she was young again. In some ways I think she thought I was your mother. Funny how the wires get crossed. We couldn’t calm her down, no matter what we did. We ended up having to sedate her.”
My heart sinks, the sorrow spreading inside me like ink in water. “You should have told me.”
“There’s nothing you could have done.”
“I could have come here sooner.”
She gives me a sympathetic smile. “It wouldn’t have made a difference, Laila. You’re here now.” We pause outside her door. “Just, take it easy on her, and yourself. She most likely won’t recognize you.”
I stare down at the box of cake in my hands.
“She might not eat either,” she says. “She hasn’t yet. But maybe that will change. Do you want me to go in with you?”
I shake my head, trying to whip up the courage. How quickly things change. One moment you can’t wait to see someone, the next you’re so terribly afraid that they won’t know who you are and will never remember you again.
The grief has my heart in a chokehold.
“I’ll be nearby if you need me,” she says before opening the door.
My grandmother is sitting by the window, staring out at the view. I don’t know how it’s possible, but she seems to have aged several years in a week.
“Grandma?” I call out softly, shutting the door behind me. “Helge?”
She doesn’t look at me, but she bundles her shawl closer to her, her gaze fixed outside. The shawl is an old heritage piece that her own mother made, pale blue wool with pink felt flowers. I filled her room here with as many heirlooms and personal items as possible to try to jog her memory, to keep her connected to past and future, but I’m not sure how much pull they have.
I slowly walk in, like I’m afraid she’s a wild animal I might spook, and I hate that I have to behave this way. I hate that I can’t just run in here, burst into her room like I did as a child, throw my arms around her neck, and ask her to make my favorite cookies. Or stomp into the room, tears in my eyes, crying over a boy at school. She was always able to solve everything.
I carefully sit down on the chair across from her. “Hello,” I say. “It’s Laila.”
She nods but doesn’t look my way, and doesn’t really seem to hear me either. Her frail hands are speckled with age spots, looking so skinny, the veins thick and raised. Her fingers grasp one another, squeezing and releasing. She’s nervous. Afraid.
I feel tears rush to my eyes, and I swallow them down, do everything I can to keep from feeling what I’m feeling. She won’t understand why I’m crying.
“I brought you something, in case you get hungry.” I hold out the cake and then slowly open the top, trying to keep my hands steady. “Cloudberry cake.” I refrain from telling her it’s her favorite, because if I wasn’t sure of who I was, or when I was, I don’t think I’d appreciate hearing things like that. It would make me feel more lost.
She finally steals a glance at the cake and nods. Then looks at me. For a moment I think I see recognition in her blue eyes. Then she frowns and mutters, “No, you aren’t her,” and looks back to the window.
I take in a deep breath until my lungs feel like they might burst, the pain nearly impossible to ignore.
“We don’t have to eat it,” I say after a moment. “You can eat it later. Anytime you want. And we don’t have to talk. Just know that I’m Laila, and I care for you a lot, and that I’m here.”
We sit like that for thirty minutes until she falls asleep in her chair.
The moment I’m outside in the sunshine, I start to cry.
Nine
LAILA
Two years ago
I can’t sleep.
I’ve been staring up at the ceiling for hours, doing that annoying thing where I try to make myself feel better for getting only seven hours of sleep, for getting only six hours of sleep, for getting only five hours of sleep, the hours counting down while my mind winds up.
I’m stressed. And it’s not just the usual anxiety that comes with being a nanny for a literal princess—it’s Grandma I’m worried about. I got a call from my cousin Peter, who lives near her, that put me on edge. Seems she’s been acting a little erratic lately, going for walks along the fjord in the night. Strange behavior that frightens me, makes me want to ask for the first available days off so that I can go and check on her.
