Page 80 of When Lemons Give You Life

I kiss the crown of his head, my mouth pressed to his hair so he can’t see my face or the tears that have begun to form. “You are always good, Beau. Always. I’ve got to go to the bathroom now, hon. I’ll be back before you know it.” I whisper the line I’ve used more times than I can count.

“Oh, okay. Promise you’ll come back?”

“I promise.” I turn before I can say more.

At the end of the hallway, I glance back. He’s on his feet, searching. “Griff? Griffy? Where are you?”

Dayna enters, voice low and steady with the measured rhythm she uses every night. It does nothing.

He twists away from her touch, panic sparking in his eyes as he backs off. “No—no, I’m not supposed to stay. He said he’d come back—he said—” Beau’s voice catches. “Please,” he cries, “I don’t know where I am. I don’t understand. I need him. He’s my person.” The young nurse kneels beside Beau, trying to calm him, but he curls in on himself, sinking to the floor. Loud gulping sobs rip through the air. “He left. He left, and he didn’t come back. Griffy!” The sound carries the sorrow of every goodbye we’ll have to endure.

I stop dead in my tracks, ready to run to him.

A hand clamps on my arm: Allison. “No. You have to go.”

“He’s falling apart—”

“They all do.”

“He’s terrified.”

“And he will be again tomorrow. This is how it is. You want to help him? Don’t make it worse.” Her gaze is sharp enough to cut. I shift to move past her but she blocks me. “You’re not his carer anymore. We are. Go. You’ll get used to it.” She’s said that many times before, and every time it’s a lie.

His cries follow me down the corridor, my footsteps trying and failing to drown them out. The automatic doors hiss shut behind me, locking him in his prison and me in mine.

The loneliness greets me as I enter our home, as suffocating as it has been every night since he moved into care. As always, I head straight to the bathroom, even though I don’t need to go, so I can keep telling myself I’m not technically lying to Beau. I wash my hands, turn out the light, and go to bed in a house that still smells faintly of him, where every room feels like it’s waiting for someone who is never coming back.

The morning can’t come quick enough. I arrive five minutes before visiting hours, the early sun doing nothing to thaw me. The smell hits first: bleach, boiled cabbage, and something sweet gone sour. My shoes squeak on the lino as I walk toward the dementia ward.

I hear him before I see him. “Griff? Griff, where are you? Where have I parked the car?” The words tumble over each other, raw and frantic.

I stop dead in the doorway to his room.

He sits hunched by the window, his stubbled face stained with tears, hair matted in damp clumps, a smear of dried food on his T-shirt. He can’t see me yet, but his head jerks toward every sound in the corridor, eyes wild and wet. “Griff, please.” My name fractures on his tongue.

Three steps, and I’m in front of him.

For a heartbeat he just stares, like I might be a trick of the light. And then it breaks over him—the relief so fierce it’s almost dizzying to watch. His whole body slackens, the tremor in his shoulders stilling. “Griff,” he says, like my name alone could hold the world together. I drop to my knees, and he reaches for me, both hands fisting in my sleeves, dragging me down until his forehead rests against mine. “I thought you’d left me.”

“I’m here, Beau.”

He tucks his head into my neck, and I hold him, hard, bury my face in his hair, and breathe him in. The familiar scent of his shampoo, even dulled by stale air, unravels me. Tears come without warning. Hot. Relentless. I let them soak into his hair. “Don’t ever leave again,” he whispers.

The words land heavy, threading themselves into every raw place I’ve tried to seal. I just hold him tighter, because I know if I open my mouth, I’ll break, and right now he needs my arms more than my false promises.

47

Griff

“That must have been torture,” Scotty breathes, his brown eyes full of compassion. “Was it like that every time?”

I nod. “Some days, he raged, yelling and thrashing—which wasn’t like him at all. Other days, he just sat by the window, weeping, doped up on whatever they gave him to keep him quiet. I never knew which was worse. Every time, he’d call my name over and over—like I was the one part of him that hadn’t disappeared. The only thing he still knew how to hold on to.” I pick up the photo again and brush my thumb over his face. “But the moment he saw me? Everything changed. I was his calm. And even then, even broken, he was mine.

“One day as I was leaving, one of the nurses said, ‘If only you could be with him all the time.’”

Scotty nods. “And that’s when you thought of it.”

“Not right away. I mean who in their right mind would fake dementia? But the more I thought about it . . . the less crazy it seemed. Beau was the one with friends, with community, even though they found it very hard to visit after he deteriorated. But you have to understand that Beau was my community. The sole person who truly made me feel safe and seen. I’d given up my job, and my relationship with my remaining family—Lisa—was fractured. This was the only way to be near him. I wasn’t old enough for aged care. I considered faking a physical disability, but that’d be easier to disprove. And it wouldn’t have got me into Beau’s room. I’m not proud of it, but feigning Alzheimer’s was my ticket in.”