Little Things by Amy Fillion

Author:Amy Fillion
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Amy Fillion

“Absolutely not.”

“Sam, I really think this needs to be done. I really do.”

“Caroline, I cannot ask you to move in. I can’t ask you to uproot your life so completely.”

They were seated at the kitchen table once the kids had gone to bed. Annie was watching television. Ben and Hannah knew that their mother had had an appointment at the neurologist, and they had seen the grave faces of both their father and grandmother when they had returned home from school. Caroline had asked Sam if he’d like for her to take Annie back outside so he could converse with the children, and he had gratefully accepted her offer. She walked with Annie around the neighborhood, stopping when her daughter had seen Pumpkin, her neighbor’s Yorkshire terrier whom Annie still adored.

She had actually knocked on the front door of her daughter’s home when they returned approximately an hour later just to be sure Sam was ready for her to enter. She wanted to ensure her son-in-law had sufficient time to speak with the children. When he called for her to come in, she did so, Annie following behind. Hannah had taken one look at her mother and run upstairs sobbing. Ben stared at Annie. His eyes were red-rimmed, but if he had cried, those tears had since dissipated. His face was expressionless, his lips pursed. Eventually, he turned, shoulders dropping slightly, and walked out the back door onto the deck and into the yard. Caroline watched him from the bay window in the kitchen as he made his way to the distant water’s edge and sat down.

For the better part of the day, her heart had been breaking for Annie and for Sam. It had been breaking for herself.

Now it was shattering for her grandchildren, who would never again have the mother they’d had the privilege of knowing until this point, the mother who loved them unconditionally and who had shown it every day prior to the onset of FTD symptoms.

And if Dr. Barnard was correct, Annie would be physically gone from their lives in just a couple of short years. How would this family be affected then? How could they stand by and watch her deteriorate even further?

Caroline inhaled deeply, held the air inside her lungs, and slowly blew it out as she walked toward Sam. Annie had found her way to the couch and had the television set on, flipping through the channels.

“Are you okay?” she asked as she approached his side. She saw the affliction on his face, saw the puffiness of skin below his watery eyes. The green of his irises was strikingly illuminated through the moisture. She held them intensely with her own.

Sam ran his hands through his disheveled dark brown graying hair, rubbed his temples with his fingertips. “I don’t even know how to answer that, Caroline. Am I okay? I just found out my wife’s brain is mush. I just found out it’s not depression that’s making her this way. At least with depression, we could have continued to see Dr.

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