Page 15 of Delay of Game
Unless my mom decided otherwise.
Rifling in her purse, she pulled out her phone. “I’ll just send you both a text.”
My phone buzzed in my pocket, and I groaned. “It’s really not enough that you’re giving her a key?”
“She’s Mila’s teacher. And Mercy’s grandniece.” She emphasized the last bit as though that meant anything to me and then shrugged. “She probably has your contact information, anyway.”
I opened my mouth to argue, but Mom was right. She already had my contact information, somewhere among the other paperwork she received when I enrolled Mila in school. I just wish I didn’t like how much I liked the idea of her having my number.
SIX
GRACIE
June’s Dinerdidn’t bother with a paved parking lot or a clear sign or friendly servers. The meat-and-three restaurant had been open for as long as I could remember, and Aunt Mercy dragged me there every weekend before she left for the memory care facility.
The woman behind the counter grunted a greeting, her name tag reading Jenny even though last week it said Alice and Norma the week before.
I ordered two country ham plates with mac and cheese, fried okra, and greens. Normally, I’d steal okra off Aunt Mercy’s plate and order peanut butter pie as my third side, but I opted to order a pie separately.
The food was cold by the time I pulled put her new home. As I wrote my name into the visitor log, I asked for the directions to the kitchen. The nurse behind the front desk directed me down the hall before calling for Mercedes Fournier over the PA system.
I set the bag of food on an empty table, pulse racing as I waited for my aunt. When we lived together, I could chart Aunt Mercy’s moods like a map. I could tell in the morning if we’d have a good day or a difficult day. I could tell at a glance if she remembered me.
But when she shuffled into the dining hall, her watery blue eyes wide as she looked for someone familiar, I didn’t have a clue. I’d spoken to a nurse the day before, but he only gave me a rundown of her day: the games she’d played, the food she ate, how long she slept.
I sat still until her gaze drifted over mine, flitting away and then back again.
“Gracie!” she exclaimed.
I stood, biting back tears as her arms wrapped around me. I tucked my face into the crook of her neck, inhaling lavender under the antiseptic smell that permeated the place. “Aunt Mercy. I bought us dinner.”
“June’s?” she asked, pulling back and peeking into the bags. “You’re an angel.”
“I need to heat it up. I bought a whole peanut butter pie, too,” I gushed.
She gingerly pulled away. “I don’t like peanut butter pie.”
The almost imperceptible pacing of the statement caught my attention. Of course she didn’t like peanut butter pie. She hated peanut butter. She hated pies. She didn’t like the consistency of whipped cream, and she only ever bought it because otherwise, I stole her okra.
She smoothed out her skirt, nestling into her seat. Her attention stayed on the table, not me. I frowned. Had I misread her greeting? Maybe an aide had told her my name. Maybe she’d only had a glimmer of a memory, passing and now gone.
I shook off the worry. “I’m going to heat this food up and be right back, okay?”
She nodded with a faint smile. I squeezed her arm before gathering up the food and making my way to the kitchen. The cook directed me to a bank of microwaves and hot plates, a camera positioned overhead, the feed no doubt piped into thenursing station to make sure residents didn’t burn the place down.
I took two from a stack of plain white utilitarian plates stacked on the end of the table. The melamine plates were meant for durability, not aesthetics. They weren’t made of delicate bone china, decorated with intricate paintings of flowers.
I sighed, dropping my head as the meal heated and letting my cheerful facade fall away, just for a minute.
“Dinner is served!” I said with a flourish, placing a plate in front of my aunt and taking the seat next to her. “I would have taken you out but…”
But the nursing staff said an outing to the diner might agitate Aunt Mercy so late in the evening.
The words died on my lips.
“How was your day?” I asked instead.
“Oh!” She dropped her fork, her eyes lighting up. “I played bingo with a group of women this afternoon.”
