Earlier, a part of me desired to kick Isaiah in the head for how he talked about Abby, but now I respect him. He doesn’t ignore the parts of Abby he can’t stand, he accepts her and still has her back. And he was being her friend because he was questioning me—questioning my allegiance.

I fall back on my ass. “Why do you do this, Abby?”

Besides the air conditioner kicking on, there’s no response. I snatch the envelope, ignore how thick it is, and work to put everything back in place. Abby said I’d know what to do with the envelope. I don’t. I understand nothing of her world.

Rage pushes out any confusion or hurt. Isaiah has her back, not me. He should be the one doing this, and then my face heats. I am a fool. Isaiah would have refused. He won’t cross over into her world, but she knew she could play me. Well, fuck that.

I bound down the stairs, angry at Abby, angry at myself. Hate pulsating through my veins. I cut into the living room and as I open my mouth to tell this woman that Abby can fix her own damn problems, I whiplash as if I’d smacked headfirst into a wall.

Cold. I go cold and I slightly bend over to wash away the shock.

The woman with the long hair is settling an elderly lady into a chair that’s next to a hospital bed. She’s old. Very old. Almost like she’d dissolved into dust with a touch. White hair pinned into a bun on the top of her head. She wears a sweater and a long nightgown and she has this vacant stare that causes an ache.

I know that stare. After Grandpa broke his hip, he wore that stare. For months. For too many months. And then he died.

“Are you cold, Ms. Lynn?” The woman places a blanket over her lap. “I can get another blanket for you.”

“I need to pick Abby up from school.” Ms. Lynn’s voice is weak. Fragile. As if she’s talking from a memory rather than the present. She grabs the woman’s hand and there’s a bit of recognition in her eyes as she makes eye contact with her caretaker. “Can you pick Abby up from school, Nadia? Abby doesn’t like to be forgotten and I’m always the first one in line to pick her up. She’ll get scared and cry if I’m not there to pick her up.”

Pain strikes my heart hard and fast and I jerk with the impact.

“It’s summer,” Nadia replies. “Abby’s not in school.”

And Abby’s too old to be picked up and, if she wasn’t, it’s hard to imagine an Abby that’s not hell on wheels and independent.

Ms. Lynn’s forehead wrinkles. “Then where is she? It’s three. Abby should be home.”

Her voice is gaining strength, picking up speed, and the worry that causes my own mother’s voice to go higher in pitch is recognizable in her tone. Nadia looks over at me and the grandfather clock on the other side of the room begins to chime.

One.

Two.

Three.

Three p.m.—Abby said I needed to give the envelope at three.

My feet feel like they’re cemented in concrete as I force them forward. I hold out the envelope and hope to God this is right. “This yours?”

She lightly bows her head, but then returns her attention to Ms. Lynn as the older woman grows more restless. “It’s three. Abby should be home by three.”

Nadia tucks the blanket tighter to Ms. Lynn. “Abby’ll be home later, but she sent a friend of hers in her place. Isn’t that nice of her?”

Ms. Lynn blinks and looks me over for the first time and there’s not much kindness there. “Are you the boy who made her cry?”

A weight in my chest. Possibly. I don’t know who Abby is anymore. I don’t know a person who could make her cry. Yesterday, I would have claimed that Abby didn’t have emotions or tear ducts. “No, ma’am.”

Ms. Lynn scans the room as if she’s waking up or maybe she’s searching for the guy who made Abby cry. “Abby reads to me...”

At three. I can finish the thought for her. A book is next to her on an end table as well as a picture of her and Abby. The woman is in the same chair she’s in now and Abby is leaning over with her arm around Ms. Lynn. They’re both smiling. Real smiles. Genuine smiles. The type I didn’t think Abby owned. That picture presents Abby was a whole other person.

“I’ll read to you,” I say. “Abby asked me to do it while she...” My mouth dries out as I search for the words.

“Plays with friends?” offers Nadia, and by the look in her eye, she understands how deep of a lie that is.

“Yeah. That. I’ll be right back, Ms. Lynn. I need to talk to Nadia first.”

She briefly sighs like she’s disappointed and pats the blanket over her knees. “Abby says that, too.”

Nadia inclines her head toward the back of the house and when she leads, I follow. Once in the kitchen, Nadia accepts the envelope from me and drops it in her purse.

“Do you need to count it?” I ask.

“I’ve been working for Abby for three years and she’s never once shorted me.” She opens a cabinet and pulls out a bag of those Pepperidge Farm cookies. The type with chocolate lining the bottom. Other than the bag, there’s nothing else in the cabinet.

“Abby gives her two of these and a glass of milk. She’d read to Ms. Lynn for the next hour, even if Ms. Lynn is lost in her own mind again. I’ll stay an extra half hour, and I’ll call Peggy, she’s the next nurse on shift, to come in a half hour early. You don’t hit me as the type that wants to take an old woman into the bathroom to pee and then clean her up.”

“Do you need more money for that?”

She shakes her head. “Abby will compensate us when it’s time.”

I’m lost. In a fog. A lot like I imagine Ms. Lynn must be. “So when other people show, like me, when Abby’s caught up doing things, will other people show to help at night or...”

Nadia holds up her hand to cut off my question then opens the fridge to find the milk. Like the cabinet, the fridge is stark. Milk. Orange juice. A few condiments. “You’re the first person besides Abby, me, Peggy, and Nate to walk into this house in over three years. I don’t know how Abby gets the money to pay for three full-time nurses, but she does. We don’t ask, she doesn’t tell. We make nice tax-free money in a great work environment with a wonderful old woman and a granddaughter who would cut off her right arm for the woman in that room.”

My eyes briefly shut. Her grandmother. Abby’s caring for her grandmother. Damn it all to hell, Abby, why didn’t you tell any of us?

Nadia offers the cookies and milk to me. “Abby always comes home though. Every day from three to four. After that, she comes and goes as she pleases. Sometimes she’s here, sometimes she’s not. We get paid to care for this house and Ms. Lynn and not to ask questions so I’m going to be very careful with the following inquiry—do I need to make sure the afternoon hours between three and four are covered for a while? That’s Abby’s alone time with her grandmother.”

I nod several times then accept the cookies. “But I’ll show. To check on things.” My mind races with all the millions of unknowns, all the questions that I should ask. “Do I need to pay the others? What about food?”

“I pay everyone out. We get paid again next month. Same day. Same time. We prepare Ms. Lynn’s meals at home and bring them here. Abby doesn’t stock the kitchen. Just so you know, there are three shifts—seven to three which is me, four to eleven which is Peggy, and then eleven to seven with is Nate.”

“What if one of you is sick—”

Nadia holds up her hand again. “Abby pays us to take care of that among ourselves. She doesn’t worry about us and you shouldn’t, either. Now go, Ms. Lynn functions better off routine and it’ll be tough enough on her that you’re not Abby, but for now, you’ll do.”

Dismissing me, she scrapes the uneaten food into the garbage and pours dish soap into the sink.

This time, as I walk through the dining room and into the living room, I can’t decide if this place is a home, a nursing home or a tomb. Maybe it’s all three.

I set the milk and cookies on the end table and pull up a folding chair to sit across from Ms. Lynn. Her fingers trace the pattern of the knitted afghan. Alzheimer’s. Has to be. And Abby is selling her soul, endangering her life to care for this woman.

How did it come to this, Abby? “What are we reading?”

“Pride and Prejudice,” she says. “I always read Pride and Prejudice to Abby.”

Which means Abby now reads it to her.

Abby

Sleep is restless, and I have a hard time deciphering what’s real and what’s not. Dreams feel real. The ones where my father is there, sitting by my side, telling me he’ll take over again. In them, Dad’s strong. He’s a towering man who intimidates others not just with his words, but with his strength.

In other dreams, I’m with Grams. I’m on her bed, sitting cross-legged with my army of stuffed animals I had dragged from my room all staring at me as she brushes my hair after she had blow-dried it.

“You should never go to bed with wet hair. My mother said that will give you a cold.”

“Okay,” I said as I picked up the bear Dad had recently got me. He was black with a pink nose and I imagined the bear growling like Daddy had done with a smile on his face when he handed the bear to me.