Total pages in book: 116
Estimated words: 112249 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 561(@200wpm)___ 449(@250wpm)___ 374(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 112249 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 561(@200wpm)___ 449(@250wpm)___ 374(@300wpm)
Malachi snatched the keys out of her hand the second she offered them, only compounding the new ache in her constricting throat. It was enough to make her want to cry, but Gracen had the kind of nerves that wouldn’t allow her to do so in front of the person hurting her.
Then, he tossed the keys in her purse at his feet. Gracen’s surprise came out in a gasp.
“We’re here to see your grandmother,” he told her, his tone leaving no room for argument. “I said I wanted to, and I do.”
“So, what’s the problem?”
Malachi’s steely gaze wandered to the front entrance of Valleyview Manor. He flapped the mask with an annoyed sound. “I don’t know if this thing is enough to keep someone from noticing me, or—”
“Stop it, nobody who might recognize you is going to make a big deal about you visiting a resident in their home,” Gracen said. “Because at the end of the day, that’s what this place is. Their home.”
The very same thing she’d already explained to him when the topic of visiting Mimi first came up. She’d only been concerned with making sure her grandmother saw her like usual on Sundays, but Malachi brought up a couple of things Gracen couldn’t ignore.
Like his sister working there.
Other church members who were also employees.
Guests were required to sign in and out to keep a record of who was inside the facility at any given time or day should something arise that manor had to look back on. Malachi even fretted about putting his name to a paper as if anybody ever really looked at it and not like it just got filed away for a rainy day.
Of course, it was impossible for Gracen to know Alora’s work schedule—let alone anyone else’s in the manor—unless she made it a point to break the facility’s code of conduct for all employees to breach the girl’s privacy and check her posted schedule. That wouldn’t happen, but also, Gracen hadn’t thought that far ahead.
She shouldn’t need to make an entire plan to visit her grandmother just so she could introduce her to a new person in her life. That was supposed to be most important. It had nothing to do with a church—of which Gracen had never once seen the inside—filled to the brim with its own issues or the people who chose to attend it.
Simple as that.
“We might talk to the girl who works the front desk while we sign in,” Gracen told Malachi, “and one or two support workers in Mimi’s wing. Well, I’ll talk. You can find an excuse to do something else. Keep the mask on and nobody will see your face—lots of visitors wear them to keep viruses down. You’re overthinking it.”
“I’m not,” he insisted, his gaze swinging back to hers immediately.
Gracen shrugged in the driver’s seat. “Feels like it to me. That’s why I thought something else was the problem. Like you didn’t want to meet—”
“Jesus.”
That was all Malachi muttered before shoving the passenger side door wide open. After unbuckling, he stepped out of the car with a shake of his head before slamming the door closed behind him. Gracen tried to hold back her smile while she took her time getting her bag and exiting the Civic as well.
Across the hood of the car, Malachi stared hard at Gracen. “I want to meet your grandmother.”
“Yeah?”
Her question came off defensive, but she didn’t mean for it to.
Malachi sighed. “Yeah. You spend at least two hours a week telling me about your visits with her, so it kind of feels like I already know her. It’s not about your Mimi, Gracen.”
Her shoulders loosened.
Barely.
Something else worried her instead.
“Okay, but just a heads up?” she asked carefully.
“What?”
“I haven’t exactly told her about you. She forgets a lot when it’s mostly conversation, you know what I mean? So, having you here is making a physical memory. She’ll be able to draw back on it. Maybe not after the first time you visit, but—”
He waved the news off. “I get it—her strokes, right?”
Gracen let out a breath she’d been holding. “Mostly. Her primary doctor thinks there’s some Alzheimer’s going on, too, but—” She couldn’t finish the sentence; the idea of Mimi someday forgetting Gracen was devastating. She pushed beyond that to say, “She struggles a bit—like a stutter—with sounding out the letter N, but on a good day, if it weren’t for her scooter, she almost seems okay.”
“On the good days,” he echoed.
Gracen shifted back and forth on her feet. “Well, yeah. As it stands, her memory isn’t getting better as time goes on, so the best way to get her to retain the important stuff is with repetition.”
Rounding the front of the car, Malachi held a hand out to Gracen. “Okay, so today’s day one of however many she needs to know my face. No worries.”