Page 10 of Delay of Game
"Fine," I said. Not like I could stop my mom when she got an idea into her head, anyway.
"She needs some friends right now." Mom's voice sank low, turning to serious.
"I'm sure she has lots of friends."
Mom's mouth twisted into a frown, her fingers playing on the bottle of honey in her hand. "I'm not sure she does. She's been living with Mercy for years now, and we all knew that Mercy wasn't well."
My stomach dropped.
"But we've all been a little forgetful. It's part of aging. You forget where you put your glasses when they're on your head or misplace the car keys. Hell, Bonnie missed book club last week because she thought it was Tuesday. How were we supposed to know?"
"So, what happened with Mercy?" I asked.
Mom frowned, pulling the boiling kettle off the stove and pouring us both a cup. "Memory loss. Alzheimer's. Early onset,all things considered. She’s only sixty. We all missed it until it was too late."
I turned over the idea of missing Alzheimer's until it was too late. "Too late for what?"
"To keep her at home. With Gracie."
The waterworks made a lot more sense, framed that way. "Shit."
"Shit," Mom echoed.
"What about the rest of her family?"
She shrugged. "Her parents live up north. Mercy’s sister, Gracie's grandmother, passed years ago. Gracie moved back to help Mercy out around the house and now she's in that big, old house all on her own."
"Sounds like a dream." I wrung out the tea bag and threw it in the trash.
"You're awful," Mom sighed, sipping her tea. "She's young."
"Very young."
"Not that young,” she snapped. “And smart. She's got a master's degree."
“She got a master’s degree for teaching six-year-olds?”
“In Elementary Education and if you don’t want hot water thrown at you, you better take that snarkiness out of your voice.”
“There’s no snark,” I grinned. Alright, a little snark.
“She’s more educated than you.”
“That’s easy enough.”
I had a bachelor’s degree in communications and absolutely no clue what I would have done with it if I hadn’t been drafted.
“You could always go back and get your master’s,” Mom tutted.
“Yeah, with my boatloads of free time. I’m sure any program would be happy to work around my schedule.”
“You can get a degree online now. Never even set foot in a classroom.” She poured water into both cups, cupping hers as she walked into the dining room.
I added honey to mine before joining her at the table.
“Or you could retire and go back to school, find your passion.”
I snorted hot water back into the cup. “My passion. Seriously?”
