Unthinkable (Unstoppable 2)

But… I did.

FIFTEEN

LISS

Being home for the holidays after experiencing the sweet freedom of college was probably like escaping prison, then being dragged back in handcuffs kicking and screaming a few days later. Christmas had been quiet, just the three of us, but Riley came home for a few days, so I visited with her and her mom.

By New Year’s Eve, I was about ready to ditch the whole scene. My mom had been acting strange the whole time I’d been home. My Aunt Bree and her husband Jim were coming in from West Virginia. Their flight had arrived ahead of time, and my mom was running around the kitchen like a basket case, putting some kind of feast together. Bella, who was the same as ever, except even more of an asshole, had gone to a friend’s house for a birthday party for a couple of hours and I was glad for the reprieve. She’d be back with her sunny personality and pleasant conversation soon enough.

And I’d holed up inside the house and refused to leave, lest I bump into anyone I didn’t want to see; someone I might accidentally throat punch for being a philandering man whore and mind invader. Since violence wasn’t in keeping with the season, I’d decided to remove temptation.

I glanced up from the kitchen table, cereal spoon halfway to my lips, when my mom made a low sound of frustration. “Everything okay, Mom? Do you need my help?”

She stood with her back to me, her blonde hair swaying around her neck as she shook her head and stared down at an open binder laying on the counter.

“I can’t find the recipe for Grams’ oatmeal cookies. I know I wrote it down. I know I did. I wrote them all down and put them in this binder.” She dropped her hands and snatched up the binder, rifling through the collection of papers again, her movements agitated. Then she spun to face me, her delicate features drawn tight. “Did you take it out? Did you move it?”

My eyebrows descended over my eyes as I placed my spoon back into the bowl with a soft clink. “No.” I rose to my feet. “I didn’t move it. What even is that?”

I frowned and stepped toward her, taking the folder from her hands. My confusion mounted as I flicked through the pages. Recipes. Dozens of them. Mixed Bean Chilli. Red Velvet Cake. Spaghetti and Meatballs. She’d been making this stuff for years without a recipe. She knew them by heart. Her grandmother taught her when she was a kid.

My narrowed gaze travelled back to my mom. “Why are you so worked up about this? Why do you even need these?”

Pale blue eyes cut to mine, and my mom blinked a few times. The motion seemed to clear her gaze, and she ran the tips of her fingers over her forehead. “Just in case I forget.”

The crease between my brows deepened. “Why do you need it now, though? You know how to make Grandma’s cookies.”

She gave a heavy sigh, gaze shifting. “Liss. There’s something I’ve been wanting to talk to you about. Bree will be here soon; it’ll be better if we wait for her.”

My heart gave a strange jolt at the look in her eyes, unease trickling up my spine. Whatever it was, it wasn’t easy for her to say. I ran the tip of my tongue between my lips before tucking it back inside. “What do you want to talk about, Mom?”

“Bree will be—”

“I don’t want to wait for Bree,” I cut her off, only noticing that the edges of the binder were cutting into my palm when a sharp pain shot up my arm. “Just tell me now.”

She inhaled and exhaled slowly, then lowered herself into a chair. “A while ago, I started forgetting things. Words, names. Routine tasks. Simple things that I did day in, day out without thought.” She dropped her eyes to the table-top and swiped a hand over the small collection of crumbs that had accumulated. “I’d put things away in random places and not remember where. Struggle to keep up with conversations. I brushed it off, put it down to stress, tiredness, getting older. But then I made a pretty big error at work and a customer filed a complaint. When the manager brought it up, she mentioned that a few colleagues had raised concerns about my work.”

My chest vibrated with each rapid thud of my heart as little incidents came back to me. Bella’s dance class, the post-it note pinned by the washing machine, Mom repeating questions she’d already said. My eyes trailed to the large notice board above the table, with its array of lists, schedules, reminders, letters; dates highlighted in yellow. The binder in my hand, with its recipes.

“So, I saw some doctors. They initially dismissed it, the same way I had. But it got worse, to the point I knew something was wrong. Eventually, they ran some tests, and I underwent screening.” She cleared her throat. “They finally diagnosed—”

“Diagnosed?” The word wheezed from me, my brain spinning. A diagnosis meant an illness. It meant something was wrong with her. A heavy weight settled on my chest, my lungs stalling as I blinked at her.

She tipped her head to the side with a small nod. “I have Alzheimer’s disease, Liss.”

“Alzheimer’s?” I parroted, frowning. “That’s…” I shook my head. “Isn’t that something that affects elderly people?”

“It’s much more common in older people, but it can affect younger people, too.” She held my gaze, hers somber.

“That’s crazy,” I scoffed, jerking my head side to side, convinced there’d been some kind of mistake. She was only forty-six years old. She couldn’t have Alzheimer’s disease.

“It’s known as young onset when it affects people under sixty-five.”

Young onset? I stared at her, trying to wrap my mind around what she was telling me. “So, what does that mean for you? What happens now?”

She placed her palm to her chest, her fingers rubbing the soft fabric of her cornflower blue sweater. “I’ve learned to live with it for now, Liss. I’ve been able to modify my role at work, so I can continue working for a while longer. I’ll keep to my usual routine as much as possible until—”

She paused, looking away, and a dull ache formed between my brows. I reached up and pressed two fingertips into the space to try to ease it. “Until?”