Page 8 of The Beach Trap

“Max!”Zachary shouts, delighted as they start to wrestle. Usually, I’d break it up because Mrs.Vanderhaaven hates when Zachary gets his clothes all wrinkly, but Charlotte is now weeping quietly in the bathroom.

I rush in to find her flat on her back on the tile floor, tears sliding down her face.

“I tried and tried but it was just so hard for my fingers,” she says, sniffing.

“No big deal!” I keep my voice sunny; Charlotte is known for dissolving into tears, and Mrs.Vanderhaaven doesn’t like that, either. I lift her onto her feet. “Up you go. Let’s do that button... there. You look lovely.”

Even though we don’t have much time, I can’t help smiling. She really is a beautiful little girl, with soft golden curls and big blue eyes.

“I will miss you, Blakey,” she says, throwing her arms around my neck.

I squeeze her little body and inhale; she smells like syrup from the whole wheat waffles I made for breakfast. “I’ll miss you too, baby cakes. Now let’s go—your mother is waiting.”

I take her hand in one of mine and heft her suitcase with the other, and we head across the hall. I tie Zachary’s shoelaces—he thanks me with a sloppy kiss on the cheek—then send them both down the stairs. The dog lumbers after them, blissfully unaware that the children he adores are leaving and he’ll be stuck with me all summer.

Mr.Vanderhaaven rushes down the hall from his room, red-faced and bumbling, and grabs the kids’ suitcases, one in each hand.

“Thanks, Blake,” he calls over his shoulder. “You’re a wonder.”

I pick up the children’s carry-on bags—two-hundred-dollar backpacks made by some designer Swedish brand—and follow him downstairs.

Outside, a driver is loading suitcases into a sleek black SUV. The next few minutes are a flurry of commotion: the children shouting their goodbyes to me and the dog (“Miss you, Blake! Miss you, Max!”); Mrs.Vanderhaaven checking her handbag for the passports (“Blake, where are the—oh”); Mr.Vanderhaaven reminding me that the lawn care service will come tomorrow (“Make sure they weed the flower beds this time”). And then they all load up, the doors shut, and they’re off.

I stand on the sidewalk in front of their house, holding the dog’s collar so he doesn’t follow them. When the SUV rolls out of sight, I release the dog’s collar. He looks up at me, like,Now what?

I have no idea, dog.

As we head back into the kitchen, my phone rings again, and I pull it out of my pocket.Shaky Oaks Assisted Living. My heart skips a beat; have they been calling all this time?

“Hello?” I say, answering.

“Hi, Blake, it’s Martina. Your grandfather is missing.”

•••

“It’s going tobe okay,” Martina reassures me through the phone. “I’m on my way to get him. The manager at Dee’s called me—you remember Shawn? He’s making him a milkshake right now.”

I’m pacing in the Vanderhaavens’ massive living room, next to a gleaming grand piano that no one plays. My heart gives a guilty squeeze at the thought of Granddad walking to the diner where he used to take me for a burger and fries after a long day working on the house. I wonder if he’s lonely, if he misses me.

Thank goodness my oldest friend is a nurse at his facility—Martina Rojas has known me since middle school and remembers Granddad from before he started to change. Even more important, he remembers her. Usually.

“Thank you so much,” I say. “But how did he get all the way there? It’s what, like, two miles away?”

“I don’t know—it happened before I came on shift.” Martina’s voice is serious, as is the situation. “He’s going to be fine, okay? I’m almost there. Once I get him home, I’ll check on him as much as I can today.”

Granddad has been at Shaky Oaks for two years, and despite the fact that the name of the facility seems to be a direct insult to its inhabitants, he seems happy there. However, his memory continues to worsen. His side of the facility isn’t set up for taking care of someone who needs a high level of supervision—which is exactly what Vincent, the director of the place, told me a month ago.

“I don’t worry about him when you’re there,” I tell Martina, “but the days you’re not... and if Vincent found out...”

“He won’t find out,” she promises. “I’ll make sure of that. But, Blake, if things get worse, he’ll need to move to the memory care unit.”

My stomach twists in a tight knot. We can afford Granddad’s current place with his social security payments plus the better part of my nanny salary, but the memory care building is four times more expensive. There’s no way I can afford that.

“Maybe he won’t get worse,” I say, even though that’s wishful thinking. Alzheimer’s always gets worse.

“I’m pulling into the parking lot,” Martina says. “I can see him through the window. I’ll call you in a bit, okay?”

Relief rushes through me. “Thank you,” I say again.

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