“You brought me here. Now you want me to disappear?”
“I don’t want to watch you break every time he forgets.”
His voice tightened.
“My mother is gone. My father is dying. I can’t carry your grief too.”
His expression filled with guilt, and suddenly I understood.
He wasn’t pushing me away.
He was frightened of losing another person he cared about.
“I’m not asking you to carry me,” I said gently. “I’ve carried myself for 80 years.”
“I only want to protect him.”
I placed my hand over his.
“I won’t force his memories. I won’t ask him to choose between your mother and me. I only want to sit beside him while I still can.”
Edward slowly nodded.
“All right.”
“But you don’t have to carry everything alone either.”
A few weeks later, Edward arranged a short trip outside the care home.
He brought Benjamin back to the willow tree.
Wren stayed several steps away while Edward pushed the wheelchair beneath the familiar branches before quietly giving us privacy.
I knelt in the grass and placed a red carnation into Benjamin’s hand.
He gently rubbed one of the petals between his fingers.
“We sat here until sunrise once,” I said softly.
He stared at the flower for a long moment.
Then his eyes lifted toward mine.
“You promised you’d come home.”
His breathing suddenly changed.
He reached up and touched the dimple in his chin before looking directly into my eyes.
“Belle?”
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