Read Online Heartstrings by Sara Walter Ellwood - Free Book Online

swallowed hard. “Suzie was my mama, Granddad.”
    A deep frown pinched his wizened forehead, and he shook his head. “Not possible. She’s just a little girl. What kind of trickery is this?” He struggled against him. “Get away! Get away! You’re like the rest of ’em. Get away, I said!”
    “Granddad, it’s me, Seth. You taught me how to play guitar when I was ten. Don’t you remember?”
    “No!” The old man shook his head, and as tears came to his eyes, flailed at him. “Get away!”
    “Please, Granddad, calm down.”
    Afraid he’d fall out of bed, Seth held onto him, instantly worsening the situation. Over his shoulder, he called toward the open door, “Nurse! Nurse, I need help!”
    A middle-aged woman dressed in light green scrubs rushed into the room and pressed a button near the bed. She took over holding the hysterical, fragile man. “I’m sorry, Mr. Kendall, but you’ll have to leave.”
    He nodded, backed toward the door and stared at his grandfather as the nurse cooed soothing words. A moment later, Abby rushed past him with a hypodermic needle in her gloved hands.
    She glanced over her shoulder at Seth, then gave his grandpa an injection, speaking in a soft, calming voice and holding the old man’s hand.
    His grandfather calmed down, and Abby came to stand beside him. “I gave him a sedative. He’ll go to sleep now and will be back to what’s normal for him in a few hours.”
    He dragged his gaze from the bed to meet her brandy eyes as she washed her hands at the sink by the door. “He doesn’t even know who I am. The last time I saw him was about three years ago in Austin. He remembered me then.”
    She motioned for him to move through the door. When she took a breath, her smock top tightened over her breasts under her jacket. “Alzheimer’s is a difficult disease. It steals a person’s memories, his life, and confuses and saddens his family. Some days he remembers, but mostly he regresses into the past and is oblivious to anything current. Eventually, he won’t even remember the past.”
    “He was talking about wanting to go fishing with his brother George. What upset him was when I told him I was Suzie’s son. He thinks she’s still a little girl.”
    “I know it’s hard to understand, but when he’s stuck in the past, it’s better to go along with him.”
    “You mean pretend I’m someone else?” As they moved down the wide corridor, he looked around at the patients wandering the halls. None of them paid them much attention.
    “No, not exactly. Just don’t try to force who you are on him. That’s what upsets him. He feels like you’re trying to trick him.”
    They stopped at the nursing station, and she went behind the desk. She leaned over the keyboard and began typing. He stood on the other side of the counter and stared at her. He’d just witnessed a side of Abby he’d never seen before. She’d always been so shy and unsure when they were growing up–a byproduct of being called names until he and Mike put a stop to her tormenters. But now, she exuded take-charge confidence.
    “You’re very good. I couldn’t take care of people like this.”
    Without looking up at him, she said, “My first job after nursing school was in the ER. After a year there, I moved to the ICU.” She met his eyes and the corners of her lips turned upward. The sight of that first smile hit him in the chest and sent a jolt straight to places better left forgotten. “Mike calls me a freak because I enjoy high-stress jobs.”
    “Who took care of the ranch, your daddy, and Emily?”
    “What?”
    “While you went to nursing school? Wasn’t your father and the ranch the reasons you couldn’t go to Nashville with me?”
    “Not that it’s any of your damned business.” Abby looked at the computer screen. “I went to school after Daddy died. Emily was in preschool, and Mike had finished up with the police academy. We hired a manager to run both the Circle R and Crawford