Rory grew alarmed as Erin’s eyes filled with tears. “Rory, that is possibly the most beautiful thing I’ve ever had someone say to me.” She brushed at her eyes, leaving smudges of dirt beneath her lashes. “The next time I’m feeling lonely and sorry for myself without Gavin here, I’m going to remember you said that.”
Rory sniffed, feeling a mixture of embarrassment and pride. “I guess, when you think about it, we’re both pretty lucky.”
“I think you’re right.”
Erin wrapped her arms around Rory, and the two embraced for a short moment before Rory pulled away.
“I better go. My shift starts in a half hour.”
They said their goodbyes, and Rory offered a wave as she headed for her truck. Erin had given her a lot to think about. Having Sawyer back was everything she’d wished for, but her friend was right—she didn’t want to lose herself, all the strength she’d gained, by committing to Sawyer once more. But she also knew she didn’t have to. She’d found herself, but Sawyer had found her again, too.
She was hoping, this time, it would be forever.
* * *
RORY THOUGHT SAWYER would be pleased with her suggestion, so his hesitation raised doubts within her.
“You want to just drop in on them?”
The question left her feeling a little embarrassed. “Well...yeah, I guess. Is that a problem?”
He paused longer than necessary, and she felt a twinge of awkwardness. They were on their way back from a romantic dinner, and she felt as if she’d suddenly cast a pall on their entire evening. She wasn’t sure what she’d done, though. Why would her suggestion to swing by his parents’ place cause him to frown as he was doing right now?
“My...parents?” he asked.
“Yes. The ones who raised you, gave you your first guitar, rented a billboard to advertise your first album when it was released? You remember them, right?”
Perhaps her sarcasm wasn’t necessary, but his reaction nettled at her. And the way he was looking at her, as if she’d said something horribly offensive...
“I’m sorry, Sawyer, it’s just that I haven’t talked to them in ages,” she went on. “And you said Chase is home for the summer, right? I was thinking it might be nice to see everyone again. I’ve been avoiding them since...you know, I moved back to town.” She drew a deep breath. “The truth is, I miss them. Olivia’s always been like a second mom to me, and after my dad passed away, Ford said that if I ever needed a fatherly shoulder to come to him. It’s time I paid them a visit.”
When he didn’t answer, she experienced another wave of doubt. “I mean...if that’s okay.”
Sawyer was almost too quick to respond this time. “Yeah, of course it’s okay. Why wouldn’t it be?”
She opened her mouth to reply, to point out that he didn’t seem too keen on the idea, but then she closed it again. What if Sawyer’s parents didn’t want to see her? Did they disapprove of his being back in a relationship with her? Maybe that’s why he’d reacted so strangely. But then, she’d always gotten on great with his family. She couldn’t imagine that having changed. Unless they were offended with her for avoiding them the last couple of years. She’d seen them on the rare occasion, offering a brief hello, and then moved on before things could become awkward. Perhaps her behavior had insulted them.
“If you think it’s better not to—”
“I said it was fine.”
She swallowed. His words weren’t exactly terse, but they were slightly clipped. Something was definitely agitating him. He’d been acting off for the last few days now, and more than once during their date, she’d had to say his name to get his attention. Whatever was on his mind, he didn’t seem inclined to share it with her, and that stung. Was he having second thoughts about the two of them? Did he regret coming back to town?
She remained silent so long, mulling over these questions, that he must have realized how his words sounded a moment before. His hand reached across the seat and touched hers. He offered up a smile.
“I know they’ll be thrilled to see you again. They’ve been asking about you.”
“Oh. Okay.” That seemed like a good sign.
Then why was Sawyer obviously so ill at ease?
Twenty minutes later, seated in the Landry living room, Rory was still trying to work out the answer to that question. But in addition to her concern over Sawyer, she felt a certain uneasiness around his mom, as well. She and Sawyer were exchanging looks every couple of minutes while Rory and Ford munched on cookies and chatted amicably. She didn’t understand where the tension was coming from, but something was definitely amiss. Did it have to do with her? She could only assume it did, which left her feeling embarrassed and slightly out of place in the home she’d once considered second to her own.
“Do you still have that guitar strap Sawyer got you?” Ford asked.
Rory nodded. “I do.” She didn’t add that she hadn’t used that particular strap in some time due to the painful memories associated with it.
“I hear you play at the Lighthouse Café every Friday night,” Olivia said, finally joining the conversation. “I would love to see you perform there sometime.”
Rory warmed at his mom’s interest, feeling some of her uncertainty melt. “That would be lovely. I’d enjoy seeing you in the crowd.”
Olivia smiled at her, and Rory relaxed a bit more. Perhaps she was imagining all this. Maybe it had just been so long since she’d visited with Sawyer’s family that she was seeing things that weren’t there.
There was a pause in conversation as Sawyer reached for another one of his mom’s cookies. She tried to convince herself she didn’t notice any rigidity to his shoulders as he leaned forward. Before the conversation could resume, she heard the front door open.
“Chase?” Olivia called.
“It’s me, Mom.”
Seconds later, Sawyer’s younger brother stepped into the living room. When he caught sight of Rory, his eyes widened. She assumed it was surprise, given that it had been a long time since she was last in the Landry home.
“There you are,” Ford said to his youngest son. “It’s about time you got home. Look who came to visit? Sawyer and Rory are home for a bit.”
Something about the words didn’t quite make sense, but Rory didn’t dwell on it. She was too busy watching Chase’s reaction, trying to see if the same strain his mother and brother exhibited would be evident in him.
“Hey, Rory. Long time, no see.”
“Hey, yourself,” she greeted. She stood and moved to give him a hug. Sawyer’s younger brother had grown up considerably in the last couple of years. He looked to be as tall as Sawyer now, but his physique lacked the definition his brother’s did. Likely because Chase had always been a bit more of a bookworm than Sawyer. But she could see where college girls would find him appealing. He was handsome, with an edge of intelligence in his eyes.
“How are your classes going?” she asked.
“Good,” he replied. “They’re going really well, actually.”
“That’s great.”
“Do you need help unloading the Christmas tree?”
Rory’s head snapped around at this completely unexpected question from Ford. She felt the rest of them staring, the feeling of shock nearly palpable in the room. Ford was looking at Chase, his expression completely relaxed, as if he had asked his son about the weather. Her gaze snapped back to Chase.
“The—the what?” Chase asked. His voice had dropped low, the color leaching out of his face.
Rory’s head swiveled back to Ford to see his response.
“The Christmas tree?” he placidly repeated. “Sawyer and I can help you bring it in.” He shifted his attention to Rory. “It’ll be so nice to have you and Sawyer home for the holidays this year.”
Rory blinked several t
imes, feeling as if she’d walked into the middle of a play and didn’t know the context of the scene.
“You guys got a Christmas tree?” Her words sounded ridiculous. Why would they be putting up a Christmas tree in May?
Ford looked slightly offended. “We always get a tree, Rory. It’s been too long since the two of you made it home for Christmas if you can’t remember that.”
Rory opened her mouth and then realized she couldn’t think of a thing to say. She closed it again and let her eyes survey the room, turning from Ford to Olivia to Chase, and then coming to rest on Sawyer. Her heart twisted at the pained expression on his face.
“Dad,” he murmured, “it’s May. Not December.”
Rory didn’t turn her attention from Sawyer. He looked incredibly uncomfortable, almost as if verging on tears. To her shock, Ford laughed.
“I think I know what month it is, son. Your mother’s been baking cookies all day for the Christmas Eve social at church.”
Something was terribly, terribly wrong.
“Sawyer?” she queried in uncertainty.
“Why do you all look like you just saw the Ghost of Christmas Past?” Ford chuckled at his own joke, which made the entire situation even more painful.
“Dad,” Chase said, his voice cracking with emotion. “It’s not December. It’s May. I’m home from college for the summer.”
For the first time, Ford seemed to hesitate. “College? You’re not even out of high school yet.”
“Oh, no,” Olivia whispered. “No, no, no.”
Rory wanted to help, but she didn’t know how. She could only look from one family member to the other. It was as if Ford was having a mental breakdown. Or else they’d found themselves in some sort of bizarre time vortex.
And then, unexpectedly, Chase took charge.
“Well, I don’t think it matters how old I get, I’ll never get tired of Mom’s cookies.”
He moved forward to snatch one off the plate and then sat down beside his father. “Want one, Dad?” He held out the plate, and Ford took one with a grin.
Olivia and Sawyer seemed flummoxed, but Ford was positively serene. Whatever emotions were going on beneath the surface, Chase now appeared calm.
Unable to keep the question to herself any longer, Rory asked, “What’s going on?”
Olivia didn’t appear to have even heard her. She was too busy watching Ford with an expression of loss and distress. Rory focused her attention on Sawyer.
“Sawyer?”
He met her eyes, and the emotions on his mother’s face were mirrored on his own.
“I think you and I better have a talk.”
CHAPTER ELEVEN
SAWYER RECOGNIZED THE confusion in Rory’s face. It looked to be a mirror of the emotions he’d experienced when his parents had told him the news. She paced the back porch while he forced himself to stand still, watching her.
“What do you mean, he has Alzheimer’s? He’s way too young for that, isn’t he?”
Sawyer shook his head. “It’s called early onset or younger onset. It’s when symptoms develop before the age of sixty-five. It happens in less than five percent of the population.”
He watched as she stuck her thumbnail in her mouth and chewed the tip of it thoughtfully. He’d seen that little quirk of hers on more than one occasion. It was an action she did whenever she was trying to work through something in her head. Her brow furrowed as if a thought occurred to her.
“Alzheimer’s is fatal, isn’t it? There’s no cure.”
“No.” Sawyer swallowed painfully, knowing there was still more to tell her. “There’s not. But you don’t die from the disease itself. It just weakens you so that the smallest infection ultimately ends your life.”
“So your dad is still going to die?”
“Eventually.”
“How long do they give him?”
Sawyer scratched the back of his neck. “It’s difficult to say. A few years. But it’s more than just a death sentence. It’s...” He closed his eyes, trying very hard not to think of this in terms of his own life. “It’s the loss of identity, of memories. Of losing the people you love, one by one, knowing you’ll forget them—that you’ll probably even reject them at some point because you don’t remember who they are. And not only that, but there’s also the loss of your dignity. You forget things, like where you live or how to do simple tasks, like tie your shoelaces. You start neglecting your hygiene. You forget where you put things.” He opened his eyes to find Rory staring at him with a mixture of horror and grief. “You lose yourself in addition to everything else. Honestly, Rory, I think death is probably the least of it. In fact, maybe it’s a blessing by the time it comes.”
His chest ached as he wondered how to reveal what he needed to say. How could he tell her? How did he tell the woman he loved, the one person he wanted to spend the rest of his life with, that this might be his sentence, too?
“Rory,” he whispered, his voice ragged with sorrow. “There’s more. And it’s worse.”
Her eyes widened, as if in disbelief.
“How much worse can it be?” she asked.
He swallowed, hard. “Maybe a lot,” he replied. Drawing a breath, he exhaled it slowly. He didn’t know how to voice the worst of it aloud.
“Will you sit with me?” He gestured to the porch steps and waited until she moved toward him. He took her hand, and together, they sat down. He wasn’t sure how long he sat there, running his thumb over the length of hers. She didn’t press, didn’t say a thing. She let him find his words in his own time. He was reminded, all over again, of why he loved her. Because she was patient. Supportive. Loving. Kind.
“The thing about early onset Alzheimer’s...” He drew in a breath and held it for several seconds. After he spoke the words, his relationship with Rory would change forever. “Well, it’s hereditary.”
“Hereditary? Like, you could pass it on to your children.”
He gave a short nod, waiting for the meaning to hit her. He felt it when she realized what this meant. She jerked slightly beside him, her hand twitching in his even though she didn’t pull it away.
“And you might get it, too,” she whispered. She swallowed hard. “Do you... Have you been diagnosed...?”
He shook his head. “There’s a chance I won’t have it. It all depends on these mutated genes and whether they were passed on in a person’s DNA.”
That was the moment she pulled free, stood up and stepped in front of him. “Sawyer.” He didn’t react, didn’t so much as breathe.
“Sawyer, look at me. Please.”
He met her eyes and experienced the full weight of her determination. “This does not mean you’ll get Alzheimer’s.”
He dropped his head again. “I might already have it,” he said. “There are three different gene mutations that cause the disease. Chase and I could have been born with any one of the three, and that would mean there’s a one-hundred-percent chance we’d develop Alzheimer’s.”
“You’re jumping to conclusions. You don’t know that you have these genes...do you?”
“No,” he admitted. “But, Rory, think about it. It’s familial. There are three spots in my DNA that might curse me with this. What are the odds I’m going to escape it?”
She kneeled in front of him, her hands wrapping around his. “Hey, don’t get ahead of yourself, cowboy. There’s no way to know what will happen in the future.”
“Actually...there is.”
She frowned. “What do you mean?”
“There’s this test.” He sat back, breaking the contact between them. “They can do a DNA test to find out if Chase and I have the mutated genes. It would tell us if we’re destined to end up like my dad.”
Rory rested on her heels, arms at her sides. He could see he
r working through this, trying to absorb what it meant.
“You’d be certain then, whether you’ll end up with it.”
He nodded, watching her carefully for some sign—something to tell him what he should do.
“Sawyer, that’s... I don’t know. It’s a lot to think about.”
“I know it is.”
She didn’t say anything else, and he could tell she was deep in thought.
“How long have you known about this?” she suddenly asked. He didn’t miss the suspicion in her tone. “Did you already know, when you came back here?”
“No,” he replied, his voice firm. “I just found out. Well, shortly after I came back anyway. But my parents have known for some time.”
“And they didn’t tell you?”
That familiar stirring of resentment coupled with guilt churned in his stomach. “No. Apparently, they wanted to give me time.” He couldn’t prevent the bitterness that leaked into his words. “I guess they thought they were doing me a favor, letting me pursue my career before I found out it might all have been for nothing.”
She clicked her tongue. “How is it for nothing? You’ve made your dreams come true.”
Something in her words set off a spark inside him. He jumped to his feet, brushing past her to pace the lawn in front of the steps.
“But for how long? If I have this—this disease inside of me, how long do I have to be a country music artist? How long before I start forgetting things—the lyrics to my songs, or how to play the guitar? What if I’m onstage someday, and the words suddenly leave me? Or I forget where I am and what I’m doing?” All the fears he’d built up in the days since his parents had shared the news with him began to spill out. “What if I’m doing an interview, and I can’t remember what I’m supposed to say? Or something crazy happens, like I wander off after a show and can’t find my way back to the tour bus?”
He began hyperventilating, his throat closing as he constructed more scenarios in his head.
“Sawyer, calm down.”
Rory was on her feet, trying to keep up with his frantic pacing. She finally stood in front of him and held out her arms, placing her hands on his chest to make him stop moving. Once he did, she wrapped her arms around him, and he, in turn, grabbed her in an embrace.
A Song for Rory Page 13
