Total pages in book: 96
Estimated words: 89666 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 448(@200wpm)___ 359(@250wpm)___ 299(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 89666 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 448(@200wpm)___ 359(@250wpm)___ 299(@300wpm)
But a heartbeat later, his face split into a wide grin and he threw out his arms. “Byron!”
When I hugged him, he pulled me in tight, nearly cracking two of my ribs and lifting me off my feet, but I didn’t fucking care. He remembered me and loved me. That was enough. He could break all the ribs he wanted so long as he remembered me.
“Byron! I have a puzzle! Help me do the puzzle!”
With a smile spreading from ear to ear, I grabbed an empty chair and pulled it over so that I was right beside him. It was the same puzzle I’d helped him put together a few dozen times, of a boy sitting in a boat fishing while some ducks swam by. It was only a hundred pieces, and I’d tried to get him some other ones, but this was his favorite. If he was happy, what did it matter?
My job was to find the next piece that he wanted, and he would fit it into place, then lock it with a slam of his fist. It was the same process we always used, and I loved it. As we worked, he told me about his breakfast and what he watched on TV yesterday, and a bunch of other rambling stories. I couldn’t follow it completely. Since his accident, Ronnie had developed a way of speaking where everything sort of ran together. It was like reading a book with no punctuation or paragraph breaks. He would slam two different stories together, and it was on me to realize that he’d changed subjects.
Thankfully, he just needed me to make occasional noises of agreement or sometimes ask a question to prod him along.
The moment the puzzle was done at last, we threw our hands up in the air and cheered. For a time, I forgot about my pain and frustration on Ronnie’s behalf and just enjoyed our time together. Even if his life hadn’t worked out how we’d all thought it would, Ronnie was still happy. He was still alive and enjoying the things around him. He had friends in the hospital. Nurses and doctors he cared about. I needed to stop being so brokenhearted for him and embrace his life the way it was.
“Byron, when is Dad gonna come take me fishing again?” Ronnie suddenly inquired, demolishing the positive thoughts I’d cobbled together.
A knot formed in my throat, and my brain scrambled for something to say. Our father had died of a heart attack more than five years ago. He’d been living at home with my parents at the time. He knew Dad was dead, but for some reason, it seemed to slip away from him constantly. Not that I could blame him. Dad had been a lot of the glue that held our family together. He was the one who’d kept my mother’s drinking under control and had corralled Ronnie while I was attending undergraduate and then graduate school. Dad had kept us feeling like a family.
Oddly enough, he almost never asked about our mother. As if he’d swapped in his mind which of them had passed away.
“I don’t know,” I forced out while desperately holding on to my smile. “I’ll have to talk to him about it.” My voice cracked, but I didn’t think he noticed. “Have you drawn anything new in art class?”
“Yes! Come see!” Ronnie jumped to his feet and pulled me along with him.
“Wait, we need to clean up the puzzle first.”
“Did you take a picture of it? You have to take a picture on your phone.”
It was our tradition. I always took a picture of the finished puzzle with my phone, which was why I now had over a hundred pictures of this same puzzle on my phone. I’d tried to take some with Ronnie in the frame, but he always demanded that I erase those. The picture could be only the puzzle.
Once it was taken, Ronnie pulled my phone close so he could double-check it. From there, I showed him some new filters that changed his face or put bunny ears on our heads. We passed a solid hour that way, laughing and staring at the little screen on my phone.
When the nurses called lunchtime, I said my good-byes. It was always easier to leave then because he had the distraction of food. A planned activity always followed lunch, helped him forget that I’d left for the day. We hugged, and he tried to crack another rib.
I stood alone, watching as Ronnie walked with a nurse, excitedly chatting her up about how he’d had floppy dog ears in a picture on my phone. The world had a bittersweet sharpness to it now, as I desperately clung to the reminder that he was happy. That was all that mattered. Ronnie was happy.
Except I needed to move him from Holy Mother, because Ronnie wasn’t always happy and he was a strain on their system. Ronnie was comfortable here, and the staff loved him. They took great care of him, but the extra time and care needed to handle him meant time they were spending away from other patients who needed their attention.