Chapter Nineteen

Is that what I think it is?” Tucked into the pew at the helm, Zoe gripped the sides of the boat and stared at the charcoal-colored gator sunning along the side of a grassy hammock, not ten feet away.

Jocelyn just smiled. “Stay in the boat, Zoe. You can’t wrestle him.”

“I just want a picture,” Zoe said, patting her pockets.

From her perch in the center seat, controlling the oars despite her threats to Zoe, Jocelyn threw a glance at Guy, who sat on the aft bench, his face tilted toward the sunshine like a prisoner who’d just gotten an hour of freedom.

She tried to squash the guilt that image brought on, and the mess of memories churned up like the muck under the oars. Back in the earliest days of her childhood, long before his first “episode” ever turned Guy Bloom into a monster, Jocelyn and her father had spent entire days together on these canals, fishing, talking, spotting gators just like the one they’d just passed.

“I don’t have my phone,” Zoe said, reaching toward Jocelyn. “Give me yours, quick. I have to get a picture for Aunt Pasha! She’s never seen a gator, I don’t think.”

“Zoe, you went to the University of Florida. That’s our mascot and they were all over the lakes up there.”

“But my great-aunt hasn’t seen one. She may never get the chance. Phone, please.”

Jocelyn fished the phone from her pocket and handed it over, using the paddle to slow them down and turn so Zoe could get a good shot.

“You know you have your phone on silent?” Zoe asked as she looked at the screen to figure out the camera.

Because she didn’t want Will to call and find out where she was, and come after them. For all she knew he’d throw Guy to the gators. “Too peaceful out here for phone calls.”

“You missed a text.”

“Henry! Look, it’s Henry!” Guy called excitedly, leaning far enough to rock the boat slightly. “Henry the Heron!”

Jocelyn sucked in a gasp and Zoe laughed, automatically counterbalancing the weight by tilting to the port side to straighten them out. “Don’t worry, Joss. We’re not going to capsize.”

The boat wasn’t, but her heart had just tipped over and sunk.

Very slowly, as if she were afraid of what she’d see, she turned to look over her shoulder at Guy.

“Henry?” she asked, her voice thick with emotion. “You… remember him?”

He grinned, crinkling up his whole face, his eyes dancing behind his glasses. “Isn’t that a miracle?” He slapped his hands on his thighs and then tapped his temples. “Every once in a while, the old popcorn popper comes through with a kernel of goodness.”

“See?” Zoe said, wildly snapping pictures. “Fresh air and wildlife is good for him.”

“Darn right it is! Look at that big blue fellow. I’ve always loved him.”

Jocelyn stabbed both paddles into the water, digging deep.

How could he remember a blue heron they’d adopted on a fishing excursion—and this was probably the great-great-grandson of that heron—and not remember his own daughter?

Or what he’d done to her?

She stole another look at him. Maybe he did remember. Maybe this was all an act, so she’d forgive him. Oh, she hated that thought, but every once in a while it sneaked into her head.

“C’mere, Henry,” Guy called, making clicking noises that would no doubt spook the bird, who balanced on one long, skinny leg, his bright-orange beak aimed skyward in a regal pose. “Wish we had some bread crumbs. He loves those.”

And he remembered that? Pain squeezed her throat, making it almost impossible to breathe. Why did this disease work so randomly? Why did he conveniently remember the nickname of a bird, yet not remember his wife or child?

Because he never beat the bird.

“Hey,” Zoe said softly, balancing herself on two knees right in front of Jocelyn. “You okay, hon?”

She managed to nod. “I’m fine. It’s hot out here.”

“You want me to row for a little while? I think I could handle it.”

She shook her head. “Who was the text from?” Will. Say Will. Please, please say Will.

Zoe tapped the screen and read. “La Vista d’Or.”

An assisted-living facility in Naples. “What does it say?”

“Unexpected opening.” She spoke in a whisper, even though Jocelyn’s position in the middle of the boat blocked the conversation from Guy. “An unexpected opening is never good at those places.”

Someone had died, and made room for Guy. Guy and his superselective memory. Guy who really did deserve to go to jail and not some high-end home. Guy who—

“Good-bye, Henry!” he called out. “Next time we’ll bring bread, won’t we, uh… Missy?”

Guy who couldn’t remember her name.

Zoe leaned closer and read. “They want you to come for a tour today. You’re next on the waiting list, but if they don’t see you today, they give it to someone else.” She looked expectantly at Jocelyn. “Want me to text back that you can’t?”

She closed her eyes, trying to imagine what she wanted. Will. She’d always had Will when she needed to escape from her father. But it was fifteen years later, and she had to fix this problem herself. Now. This text was a sign, and she should follow it.

“No,” she said. “I’ll go this afternoon.”

“You will?”

But she couldn’t do it alone. And she couldn’t call Will. “Can you come with me?” she asked.

For a second she thought Zoe would say no because it looked as though everything in her expression was gearing up for an argument.

“Guy’ll be fine,” Jocelyn assured her. “We’ll tell him not to answer the door.”

“All right,” Zoe agreed, reluctant. “But I promised him we’d have a barbecue at his house tonight.”

Jocelyn gave a look of total disbelief. “You did what?”

“C’mon, Joss…” She peeked over Jocelyn’s shoulder, but Jocelyn didn’t turn to look at Guy. “Have a heart.”

That was just the problem. She did, and it was all torn up instead of nicely encased in its usual protective covering.

“Let’s go,” Jocelyn said loudly, digging the paddle in. “Party’s over. I have work to do this afternoon.”

“Me, too,” Guy said from the back.

“What are you going to do?” Zoe asked brightly, leaning around Jocelyn to smile at Guy.

“I’m going to clean out this boat and give ’er a paint job.”

“You are?” Zoe asked.

“I want to bring my boy William fishing like we did when he was little.”

Jocelyn felt her jaw drop, but Zoe grabbed her knee and shook her head. “Let it go,” she whispered. “Just let it go.”

The problem was Jocelyn had never let anything go in her whole life. Except the one thing she should have held on to.

An hour later, with Guy happily ensconced in front of a House Hunters International marathon, Jocelyn and Zoe climbed into the hefty Jeep Rubicon Zoe had rented.

Zoe tapped the steering wheel with love. “I am so glad Hertz had my baby available. Remember how much fun we had in this thing when we were here last year?”

“Fun?” Jocelyn choked. “I don’t remember any fun.”

“That’s ’cause you don’t know how to have it. God, I really need to work on you.”

“I had fun today,” she admitted, the words tasting like sand in her mouth. “Until Henry came along.”

“You know what you need, Joss?”

Oh, boy. “Ah, Dr. Zoe Tamarin doles out advice. I know this prescription. Sex, travel, and a cocktail.”

“God, I hate when I’m predictable. So just to throw you off, I’ll tell you I was going to say you need a life coach.”

“Very funny.”

Zoe wove her way through the light traffic and crossed over to the causeway, hitting the accelerator so more wind whipped through the open top.

“You do.”

“Stop it.” Jocelyn tugged her baseball cap and shades, holding them in place. “I’m fine.”

“Really? Let’s review, shall we?”

“No.”

Zoe settled deeper into the driver’s seat, one hand on the wheel, one tangled in her mess of hair that flew like a curly platinum flag behind her. “First, you have been falsely accused of single-handedly breaking up one of the most famous marriages in the world, and yet you refuse to clear your name.”

Jocelyn shifted in her seat. “I have my reasons.”

“So you are forced into hiding or wearing a disguise. That’s totally normal.”

“Extenuating circumstances.”

“Second, you hate your father—”

“For good reason.”

“And yet, you care enough to find him the right place to live, make sure he’s not alone for too long while you do so, and you kissed him good-bye when we left.”

Ugh. She’d hoped Zoe hadn’t noticed. “He kissed me. He does that now. Trust me, it’s a result of his disease.”

“His disease that makes him kind and affectionate, despite the fact that Alzheimer’s famously makes people nastier, not nicer.”

Damn it, she hated when Zoe got deep. Couldn’t she just stick to sex and booze jokes? “His case is unusual, I suppose. But I still hate how he treated my mother.” And me. And Will. “It was… bad.”

“But he’s forgotten it.”

“Has he? I don’t know. I certainly haven’t.”

“You think he’s faking it?” She stole a glance at Jocelyn. “ ’Cause I have to tell you, the thought occurred to me, too.”

“Would be convenient, don’t you think?”

Zoe puffed out a breath of disgust. “It would be so fucked up there are no words. But kind of brilliant, too.”

Jocelyn squeezed her hat brim against the wind. “I don’t know how sick you’d have to be to forget you took your wife’s favorite perfume and dumped it down the toilet because she forgot to call the plumber.”

“What kind of perfume?”

Jocelyn choked. “Chanel Number Five.”

“Ouch. The good stuff. But, seriously, you think the old guy is faking this?”

Jocelyn pulled the seat belt away from her chest; the pressure on her heart was making it hard to breathe. “I wouldn’t put anything past him. How could he remember Henry the Heron and not his own daughter?”

“I read somewhere that Alzheimer’s patients remember the most random things, like what shoes they wore in 1940 but not what underwear they put on that morning.”

“When were you reading about Alzheimer’s?”

“I read a lot of stuff about old people, Joss. The woman who raised me is damn near eighty. Maybe older, maybe younger, she won’t say.”

“Pasha is healthy as a horse.”

Zoe just looked out over the deep blue water of the Intracoastal. “So, what if this is all an act and he finds out his shenanigans are landing him in an old-age home? That would blow.”

“It’d blow his cover, is what it would blow.”

Zoe tapped on the brakes as the car in front of them slowed, using the chance to give Jocelyn a hard look. “Do you really think he’s faking it?”

“I don’t know. Maybe at times he is, maybe not. It wouldn’t change my decision either way.”

“But if he can take care of himself, why don’t you just let him be?”

“Because he can’t take care of himself,” she said, ire and frustration rising. “Will has to take care of him and that’s wrong. Will’s not his son, regardless of what Guy thinks. So he’s going, whether he wants it, knows it, or has an opinion about it.”

“That’s right,” Zoe said. “Plus you love shit like this. Organizing, managing, shoving bad people into their proper boxes.”

Jocelyn just closed her eyes and let the powerful gusts partially drown out the words she didn’t want to hear. Was she shoving Guy in a box? Well, what the hell, why not? He shoved her mother into a closet once.

“So where were we?” Zoe asked.

“On our way to Vista d’Or.”

“I mean where were we on the Jocelyn Bloom Life Management Track.”

“We came to the end.” She folded her arms and turned away, hoping that would end the conversation.

“Without taking a trip down Will Palmer Road?” Zoe asked.

“Dead end. Take a left at the next light.”

Zoe took the turn down a wide boulevard in the middle of Naples, taking in the designer stores and upscale restaurants as they passed. “Are we in the medical district?” she asked.

“I think the hospital is nearby.”

“Always is near those assisted-living facilities, isn’t it? And then the graveyard.”

“Nice, Zoe.”

“Don’t tell me you wouldn’t be good and happy if Guy dropped dead and made this simple for you.”

Jocelyn closed her mouth, unwilling to lie. Instead she squinted at the GPS on her phone. “Just keep going a few more blocks.”

“Okay, back to Will-I-Am. Did he pop your cherry?”

Oh, God. Jocelyn tsked. “ Remind me again why I’m friends with you.”

“Easy.” Zoe grinned. “I held your head when you got drunk and threw up after the Alabama game. Remember?”

Actually, she remembered next to nothing, but Zoe loved to remind her of that night their freshman year at Florida. “First, last, and only time I’ve ever been that drunk. And yet you will lord it over me forever.”

“That’s what friends are for. And for sharing secrets. Tell me about Will. I want to know if—” Zoe slammed on the brakes so hard Jocelyn smashed into her seat belt. Jocelyn scanned the road; no car or pedestrian or errant dog in sight.

“What the heck, Zoe?”

Zoe stared to her left, her jaw open.

Leaning forward, Jocelyn tried to see who or what had caused Zoe to nearly kill them. Dream shoes? A hot guy? No, a simple Spanish-style office building next to a frozen yogurt shop.

Following Zoe’s stunned gaze, Jocelyn read the elegant gold lettering on the undertstated building.

Dr. Oliver Bradbury

Oncology

For a long, silent moment, Jocelyn just stared at the words.

“He doesn’t need an oncologist,” Jocelyn said. “And, whether you want to believe it or not, I’m grateful for that.”

Very slowly, Jocelyn looked straight ahead, all color drained from her cheeks. “He must live here,” she whispered.

“Who?” Jocelyn looked at the name again and instantly a memory flashed. “That’s the same guy we saw in front of the Ritz in Naples last year, isn’t it? The one who freaked you out.”

“I didn’t freak out,” she said. Behind them, a car honked impatiently. Jocelyn expected a typical Zoe response, which could be anything from a friendly wave to the finger, but she just gently put her foot on the accelerator and drove about five miles an hour.

“You freaked out,” Jocelyn said. “You dove onto the floor of this very car—or one a lot like it from the same rental company—and…” Jocelyn snapped her fingers, the whole thing coming back now. “It was an oncology conference at the Ritz. And that guy, Oliver, was there with his wi—” She let the word fall away.

Zoe was biting a damn hole in the bottom of her lip.

“You okay?” Jocelyn asked gently.

“Fine,” she croaked. “Where’s my next turn?”

“Zoe, who is this guy? What happened?” Other than the obvious. Only, God, she hoped Zoe wasn’t stupid enough to get involved with a married man.

“Nothing. Ancient history.”

It was so tempting to tease, if for no other reason than to make Zoe laugh. But something about this Oliver wasn’t funny. Not to Zoe.

“Straight ahead, just a few more blocks,” Jocelyn said instead, and they drove in silence until they reached a two-story stucco building with meager landscaping and, oh Lord, bars on the windows.

“I thought you said this place was in high demand.”

“I got that impression from the marketing materials,” Jocelyn said. “Maybe it’s nicer in the back. Plus, the octogenarians probably don’t notice.”

“He’s in his sixties, Joss,” Zoe said as she threw open her door. “Not eighty, which, correct me if I’m wrong, is what an octogenarian is.”

Jocelyn didn’t answer, but came around the car and headed to the front door. As they got closer she saw chipped paint, a flowerless trellis, and rust on the giant doorknob. Inside, the reception area was dim, just two beige sofas and a plastic panel hiding the top of a woman’s head. Jocelyn approached her and waited. The woman didn’t look up.

“Excuse me,” Jocelyn said.

“Hang on.” The woman continued to write something. Finally, cold gray eyes met Jocelyn’s. “Yes?”

“I was contacted about an opening and came for the tour.”

“Patient’s name?”

“Um… well, I just really wanted to look around first.”

“Insurance?”

“Some, but I really don’t—”

“Hang on.” She pressed an earpiece Jocelyn hadn’t noticed earlier. “What is it, Mrs. Golgrath?” She closed her eyes and let out an impatient sigh. “Well, that’s the only channel you pay for, so you have to watch Singing in the Rain one more time, dear.” She paused, biting off the last word. “No, an aide cannot get to your room for at least two hours. So watch the movie. I’m sure it’ll seem like brand-new every time. Good-bye, now… What?” She shook her head, still focused on the voice in her ear, impatience rolling off her like body odor. “Mrs. Golgrath, you will get your lunch when you get your lunch. Have we ever forgotten? Ever since you’ve been here?” She waited a second, then looked back up to address Jocelyn. “We can have someone walk you around after lunch. Maybe three o’clock. We’re seriously shorthanded today.”

Jocelyn swallowed. “No, that’s all right.”

“We have a video you can watch in the waiting room.”

Jocelyn backed away, bumping into Zoe, who was right behind her. “I don’t…” Want to put even my worst enemy in this hellhole. “… have the time.”

The woman shrugged and returned to her work.

“Let’s get out of here,” she whispered to Zoe, practically dragging her back outside. “It looked a lot better on the Internet.”

“Most things do,” Zoe said drily.

They couldn’t get outside fast enough, both of them sucking in the fresh air after all that stale, miserable sadness.

“I’ll cross that one off the list,” Jocelyn said as they reached the parking lot.

She waited for a Zoe quip, but none came. Zoe just adjusted her sunglasses and Jocelyn could have sworn she reached behind one lens to wipe her eye.

“Maybe this is a bad idea,” Jocelyn said. “I should have come alone.”

“No, no. It’s just…”

“You’re thinking about your Aunt Pasha?” Or… Oliver Bradbury.

“No, that poor Mrs. Golgrath.” Her voice cracked. “I hate that stupid movie.”

Jocelyn sighed and nodded. “The first place I saw was better.”

“Really?”

“I swear it was.”

Zoe stopped in the middle of the parking lot and took off her sunglasses, looking right at Jocelyn, not hiding the moisture in her eyes. “Do you remember that night you got drunk?”

Seriously? “Jeez, how often are we going to relive it?”

“Do you remember it?” she insisted.

“Well, since I was pretty much pickled on Southern Comfort and orange juice, I’m going to say no, I don’t remember the details, just the fact that I never wanted to be that drunk again. And I haven’t been.”

“Then you probably don’t remember what you said to me. You told me that the only thing in the world that mattered was seeing your father go to hell.”

Jocelyn swallowed. “Did I?”

Zoe gave her a squeeze. “Guess some dreams die hard, don’t they?”