Total pages in book: 79
Estimated words: 78329 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 392(@200wpm)___ 313(@250wpm)___ 261(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 78329 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 392(@200wpm)___ 313(@250wpm)___ 261(@300wpm)
My chest feels like it’s splitting open. Tears stream down my face unchecked.
“You’re not a burden,” I say.
“I know you feel that way,” he replies. “But, you’re not only my nurse. You’re my granddaughter. And you are my granddaughter first and always.”
That undoes me completely.
I press my face into his hands and sob. He strokes my hair the way he did when I was five and scraped my knee. “I raised you to be strong,” he says quietly. “Not to chain yourself to me.”
Miles steps closer then. He kneels beside me, one hand settling on my back.
Grandpa states firmly, “Danae, this is us choosing forward.”
The word hangs in the air. Forward.
My whole life has been structured around holding still. Around maintaining. Around surviving.
Forward feels terrifying.
But it also feels like breathing. I look at Grandpa.
“You really want this?” I ask.
He nods without hesitation. “I want to see you living,” he says. “Not just caring.”
I turn to Miles. “And you’re sure?” I whisper. “You’re sure you don’t want to think about this?”
He cuts me off gently, cupping my face. “I missed yesterday,” he says quietly. “I felt the fear. I experienced the unease of fighting the men who thought they could take you.” His thumb brushes my cheek. “I don’t want another day with anything preventing me from fully loving you.”
My heart feels too big for my chest.
“I don’t need to give up my family,” he continues. “I just need to build one with you.”
A sob-laugh escapes me. Grandpa smiles.
“That’s the kind of talk I like,” he says.
I wipe my eyes, trying to steady myself.
“So we’re really talking about moving?” I ask weakly.
Josie nods. “We’re talking about options. We’re talking about not living in fear.”
Grandpa squeezes my hand. “I don’t know how long I’ve got,” he says gently. “But I know I don’t want to spend it watching you shrink your world.”
Silence settles over us, heavy but not hopeless. I look at Miles again.
His eyes are steady. He’s not pushing. He’s not demanding. He’s just there. Waiting. Choosing. And for the first time, I let myself imagine it.
A house somewhere new. Miles’ bike in the driveway. Grandpa next door with caregivers and neighbors and Josie.
Me coming home from work not feeling like I’m carrying the entire weight of someone else’s survival alone.
It’s overwhelming.
It’s terrifying.
It’s beautiful.
I take a shaky breath.
“Okay,” I whisper.
Grandpa leans forward slightly. “Okay what?”
“Okay,” I repeat, stronger this time. “We look at the house next door to Josie. We talk to Dean. We figure out the numbers.”
Josie exhales a relieved breath. Miles closes his eyes briefly like he just won something he didn’t dare hope for. Grandpa smiles wider than I’ve seen in months. “That’s my girl,” he says.
I laugh through tears. Miles leans in and kisses my temple gently.
And for the first time since the road went dark and my world tilted, the future doesn’t feel like something I have to survive.
It feels like something I get to choose.
Twenty-One
Danae
One month later, I’m standing in the middle of a living room that smells like fresh paint and cardboard and new beginnings, and I don’t know what to do with my hands.
Boxes are everywhere—stacked like uneven towers, labeled in black marker with words that feel too small for what they contain.
KITCHEN. PAPA’S ROOM. BATHROOM. MY CLOTHES. /BOOKS.
My whole life has been reduced to ink and tape and the sound of packing paper crinkling under my fingers.
Outside, I can hear Miles’ bike in the driveway cooling down, the ticking of metal settling after a ride. The late afternoon sun pours through tall windows I’m still not used to. They are bigger than any window in my Arkansas house, bigger than the one above Papa’s hospital bed where he used to watch the neighbor kids ride their bikes past.
This place is different.
Not just the state. Not just the air that smells like pine and something faintly salty when the wind turns.
Different like the world somehow widened.
I stand there, barefoot on hardwood floors that don’t creak yet, and I stare at the staircase like it might ask me who I think I am walking into a home like this.
Miles’ home.
No.
Our home.
The words make my throat tighten.
I still keep expecting the universe to shove me back, to remind me I don’t get things this easy.
But Miles he keeps rearranging the world like ease is something he can buy and hand to me with both hands.
I bend and slice open another box with the little pocket knife Josie insisted I pack in my purse—for the boxes on the first night, just get into the ones important she’d said, like she knew there would be a first night and a second and a hundred more.
Inside is a stack of framed photos, wrapped in towels.
Papa’s picture of Nanny is on top, the one in the oval frame that always sat on his side table. I hold it carefully, like it’s fragile, like it’s an heirloom of breath and memory.