Page 192 of Smoke and Fire
Who guided Bastian?
Who showed up for him?
No wonder his text messages had been so awkward when he found out that I’d taken the day off to help with the launch.
“Your father's dementia must be hard to watch,” I whispered.
He snorted. The sound was half derisive scoff, half vulnerable child.
“Torture,” he said. “My strong, indomitable father became a shell of a man. He wanders around all day looking for his wallet. His hands shake. Mumbles are almost all I can hear from him, when he speaks at all. He doesn’t know me anymore, and when I stare into his eyes, it’s like he sees all the way through me.”
His impassioned response sounded pressured, like he’d been waiting for it to come out for years but hadn’t had the opportunity. Had no one asked him this?
Had heletanyone ask?
“I couldn’t just let Dad and Inessa live anywhere. I wouldn’t let either of them be neglected, or in a place that I couldn’t trust. Which meant I had to be able to pay a lot of money every month.”
“Were the books making enough?"
He shrugged. "With wildland fire work, I squeaked by. The big numbers hadn’t hit at that point. Jess continued to grow steadily, but it was last summer that the influencers came in and Jess’s name grew.”
“And now,” I murmured when he stopped, “you’re trying to save for the future?”
With what he must be making on royalties, I had little doubt that what debt had once existed was likely caught up. I’d wager that he could meet the financial demands of both places for now.
But a middle aged man with dementia might live far longer than an older one. When the mind aged, but the body didn’t, what kind of longevity did that mean? Bastian might have to pay for full-time care for years, or maybe not. No one would have a crystal ball for that kind of situation.
And Inessa?
Both stories explained why Bastian strove to keep Jess’s financial system alive and well.
“I don’t know why I keep returning to fire work when Jess clearly makes so much money now.” He spoke more to himself than to me, but I listened intently all the same. “I think . . . I’m worried that Jess’s fame will just dry up one day. Or it’ll start to die away and I could be left stranded. Fire is something I can do that guarantees money every summer. Money and . . . escape, I guess.”
Sensing that he needed a shift of attention after revealing so many heart-driven things, I let my hand fall away. My gaze returned to the building in front of me.
“In the meantime,” I drew in a deep breath. “Shall we go check on your sister?”
The haunted expression returned to his face. He nodded. “Yes, I always love to see Inessa, but I'm nervous. Nessa's nurse texted me just before I returned. She said that Inessa’s getting worse. They’ve started hospice.”
“What does that mean?”
He shrugged. “I don’t know, but she doesn’t have much longer left. With Inessa, it’s hard to tell.”
I reached over and squeezed his hand.
“All the more reason to see her now.”
BASTIAN LEDme past a reception counter, signed a clipboard, said hello to a few people, and then guided me through a maze of hallways.
We didn't touch, but I wanted to take his hand. Tension crackled off him like a force field, so I stayed back. Revealing so much about himself had been hard. The signs were there.
Eventually he slowed, then knocked on a door marked with Inessa’s name. After a call that I barely heard, he twisted the handle and stepped inside.
A woman lay on top of a bed, an oxygen tube strapped to her face. Her eyes fluttered open as we stepped inside, then brightened. A wide smile spread across her face. Dark, black hair laced with gray lay in a braid on her left shoulder, silky strands sliding out of it. Her slanted eyes crinkled from the width of her smile. Bastian illuminated like a candle bouncing to life.
“Hey!” he said softly. “There’s my favorite sister.”
She beamed.
