Page 113 of Come Back to Me

Considering how long I’ve been home, that’s a bullshit answer, but I let it go because it’s the first time he’s called me that in eighteen months.

“Where was she?” he asks as he straightens, stepping aside so that Jamie can swoop in and pick his mom up while Tee, gracefully, wipes her mouth with her hand.

I pass her a paper napkin from the glove compartment so she can drop the pill into it.

“Would you keep on singing until we get her to her room?” Jamie asks Tee.

“Of course,” she murmurs, and I watch her go, both grateful and a little lost, wishing I could go with her but knowing nothing’s changed between us.

“She was at The General Store,” I tell Bast. “Remember that day when I came here after Clyde beat the fuck out of me?”

“The one where he told you about the custody agreement? Or the day you told him you were enlisting?”

“Enlisting.”

He whistles. “Your face was a fucking mess that day.”

“She thought I still worked at the store.”

He scrubs his chin. “Since Grandma fell, shit’s gotten worse around here. Dad’s driving a fucking tractor to your place to be able to call out. Don’t ask me how, but she cut all our goddamn lines.

“One of us is almost always with her, apart from at night, but she takes drugs for sleeping so she should be safe on her own. Yet today, the household phone line was cut, as was the one in the office, and all our phones had been smashed to shit. I don’t know how she fucking does it.”

“You need help,” I insert.

His mouth works but he surprises me by nodding. “Either that or we’re going to have to put her in a home, and fuck, I don’t want to, Code. It’ll kill Dad.”

“Let me help, Bast. Please.”

Again, he surprises me by leaning on the car and sagging. “I don’t want to, but fuck if we don’t have a choice.”

“She always like that? Mean to you?”

“Y-Yeah.” His voice hitches. And I get it.

Elena was a wonderful mom. Kind and loving.

That life has made her this way isn’t fair.

“We had the social services around recently. She told her doctor we were mistreating her. Thankfully, that came to nothing, but we almost lost her anyway.”

“I’ll talk to the doc. See what he thinks we should do with her care.”

He swallows, aware what I’m offering even though I don’t say it out loud. “Thank you, Cody.”

“You don’t have to thank me. If I’d known... hell, I’d have come sooner. The last I heard she was organizing the music festival!”

“She did a great job too. But...”

“Shit went from bad to worse fast?”

“Yeah.” He rubs his brow. “She’ll like it if you visit more.”

“I’m welcome?”

His toe scuffs in the dirt-packed ground. “Meant it when I said I didn’t tell you because you were over fighting the fucking Russians. Didn’t want you distracted and coming home to us in a box. Might have been pissed at you, but I didn’t want that.”

“I’ve been home for ages.”

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