Page 101 of Bottles & Blades
“I—”
I cup her jaw. “Stop.”
“No, Jean-Mi?—”
Christ, even when she’s pissed, she still uses that name for me.
I fucking love it.
I could fucking loveher.
Dolove her.
“—they’remyresponsibility and?—”
“Stop, baby.”
She opens her mouth.
But I beat her to the punch, tilt her head up, and kiss her, cutting off her protests.
I kiss her until the stiffness leaves her frame.
I kiss her until her hand isn’t pushing against me.
I kiss her until her body has melted against mine.
Only then do I lift my head and hold her gaze, willing her to read the truth in my eyes.
“You’re not alone anymore.”
Thirty-One
Tiff
“Go home, baby girl,”my dad says as he settles back against the mattress, “we’ll be fine.”
I blink because even though I’m in his room, sitting next to his bed, a repeat of a cop show on his TV, I haven’t been absorbing anything of the mystery theLaw and Ordercrew are solving.
“Nancy isn’t here yet,” I remind him.
Nancy is the night shift caregiver, and normally I would be okay with leaving because she’ll be in within an hour.
But after today…
That seems less than wise.
“We’ll be okay, peanut. You said your mom is sleeping, right? You know once she’s out, she’s out for the count.”
God, it’s really shit that his mind is intact but his body is an asshat, fading away, losing strength and vibrancy.
He loved being active—going for walks every day, never less than three miles.
And now he struggles to make it to the mailbox.
My mom, on the other hand, finds it difficult to remember everything except for the fact that she hates me, the dementia causing her to fixate on that, to amplify it.
Bad enough.
