MY TRUCK CRUNCHED up the gravel drive of my aunt’s place on Mayne Island just before lunch. Trees loomed over the small rancher. A tiny Yorkie dog ran out to greet me.
“Well, look who it is.” Aunt Bea leaned against the doorframe with a cocky smile, salt and pepper hair tied up in a ponytail. She looked like my mom.
I waved. “Sorry I didn’t call.”
She shrugged me off and stepped forward with her arms out. She wrapped me in a tight hug. “Hi, honey.”
“Hey, Auntie Bea.”
Half an hour later, we sat in the sunroom at the back of the house with sandwiches while her dog, Cooper, watched for crumbs dropped on the floor. My aunt tilted her chin at me. “Out with it.”
My gaze cut to hers and I lifted my eyebrows in question.
“As thrilled as I am to see my favorite nephew, I know you didn’t drive three hours and take a ferry to come for lunch.” Her mouth quirked.
I nodded and put my sandwich down. Deep breath, in and out. Courage. All that good stuff I tried to teach Hannah. “I wanted to talk to you about Aunt Rebecca.”
She smiled. “Mhm.”
Another deep breath. I chose my words carefully. “If you had known about her illness…” My words broke off.
“Would I have still married her?”
I nodded.
“I did know about it. She told me when we first started dating that there was a history of early-onset Alzheimer’s in her family. Her mom had it, her grandfather had it, and she knew she might have it as well.”
“And it didn’t bother you?”
She scoffed. “Of course it bothered me. I thought about it every day. Every time she forgot something at the grocery store or couldn’t remember some celebrity’s name, I thought it was starting.” She made a noise of regret in her throat. “I let it weigh me down for years.”
I didn’t say anything, just stared at my sandwich.
Auntie Bea sighed and leaned her chin on her palm. “I thought that by telling myself, here we go, she’s starting to forget you, I could manage my own expectations. If I reminded myself constantly about her illness, it wouldn’t be a surprise when it happened. It wouldn’t hurt so much.” Her gaze dimmed and she blinked at her mug, eyebrows pinching together.
“And then it started happening for real. She forgot how to put toothpaste on a toothbrush one morning. She forgot my name for ten minutes and laughed it off while I hid in the bathroom and cried into a hand towel. She forgot her own name. She became someone different and even though I had been preparing myself for it, it ripped my fucking heart out.”
I glanced up at her and she shot me a rueful, twisted smile.
“And instead of figuring it out then, I was so deep in fear and confusion that I started preparing myself for the next stage. I held myself back from enjoying things too much with her when she was lucid because I knew it was temporary.”
Temporary.
The word pierced my heart like a bullet.
She rubbed her own chest. “Wyatt, when you love someone like I loved Rebecca, it’s terrifying, because it’s like suddenly your heart is outside your body and you can’t protect it. My heart floated beside me in a red balloon and every time it floated too high, every time I got too happy or felt joy with her, I pulled it back down to safety so it wouldn’t pop.”
She slapped the table and barked a laugh. “And then the damn thing popped anyway.”
My chest hurt. I had been telling Hannah that everything was temporary, and I’d been telling myself that everything was temporary, but I had been spewing that shit as a way to hold the good things at arm’s length. If I didn’t expect to keep anything, I couldn’t be upset when it was gone.
Except I was upset. How could I move on from someone like Hannah?
Bea gave me a wistful smile. “I should have let it fly, Wy. I should have let myself lean into those good moments because when Rebecca left us, none of those preparations made any difference in how hard it was.” She sighed. “Do I regret holding myself back? Yes. Do I regret marrying her, or a single second spent around her? Never.”
A vision of Hannah appeared in my head, singing in that sparkling dress, letting her red balloon fly. I thought I was so smart, teaching her how to fail, embarrass herself, and not care, but the whole time, I wasn’t even practicing what I preached. I told myself all things came to an end as a way to hold myself back from enjoying time with her, from falling in love with her, and now we were over and none of that helped.
Tomorrow was her birthday. I blew a breath out and raked a hand through my hair.
“What’s going on, Wy?” Her hand came to my arm.
I exhaled a sigh through my nose. “I met someone.”
She nodded, not surprised at all.
“I think I screwed it up.”
“You lay it all out on the line?”
I shook my head. I had held back. The big stuff, the forever stuff, I kept it hidden.
Be brave with me, bookworm.
How could I expect her to be brave when I wasn’t?
I should have told her that I loved her. That I wanted her forever. That she never needed to change a single thing about herself to make anyone proud or to find true love because she was perfect as she was. She always had been.
Maybe she didn’t want out of the shell she used to hide in. Maybe she wanted to stay in the dusty bookstore under the shadow of her parents. I couldn’t make those decisions for her; I could only encourage and support her.
It wasn’t too late. My aunt was right. I had to lay it out on the line and pray to the universe that she felt the same way.
My aunt slanted a curious look at me. “Who is it?”
“Hannah Nielsen.” Her name felt funny in my mouth. Bittersweet.
She hummed and smiled down at her lap. “I knew her mom, Claire.” She tapped her mouth and narrowed her eyes. “You know what, I have some old photos of her.”
Ten minutes later, she handed me a photo that made my heart dip in my chest.
This was the missing component of Hannah’s birthday gift. My throat was thick as I swallowed, studying the photo. I glanced up at Aunt Bea. “Can I take this?”
She smiled softly at me. “Of course, honey.”
