She tucks a lock of hair behind her ear. “Are you nervous?”
My fingers tighten on the steering wheel. “That’s not the right word.”
“Then what is?”
“Trepidation.” I shrug. “Dementia is not kind, and I don’t want to subject you to that.”
She waves a hand. “I can handle it; you forget I have a niece with a disability.”
“Natalie is a lovely child, though, with a killer personality.” No, she can’t walk, and her body tilts at an awkward angle, and sometimes she has seizures, but she’s the kind of kid that makes the room light up just because she’s in it.
My mom is not in that kind of shape.
“True,” Cat says, interrupting my train of thought. “But if I didn’t go, you’d put it off… So here we are.”
“You think you know me, huh?” I make sure the words are light, teasing even, but I’m surprised by her accuracy.
“Am I wrong?”
“I’d have gotten there eventually.”
“Well, my way you won’t be too late.”
I cast a sidelong glance in her direction. She’s staring out the window, watching the trees go past.
“Too late for what?”
She shoots me a look before turning back to study the road. “You never really know when it will be the last time you see someone, you know?”
“True. Was your mom sick a long time?”
“Long enough to make it painful. Long enough to wish she’d find peace.”
We turn onto the highway, and the signs for New Orleans are like an omen for what’s ahead.
“When you need a break, pull over and we can have a little picnic,” she says.
I shake my head.
“What?” she asks.
“You.”
“What about me?”
“Last thing I expected that first day in your office, with you glaring at me like you were willing daggers to fly from your eyes, was to be having a picnic with you and going to visit my mother.”
“Life’s funny that way.”
We fall silent, and I flip on the radio, letting some sad country song fill the cabin.
We go about fifty miles that way before she points to a sign that signals a lake up ahead. “Let’s stop there.”
I don’t argue with her. The closer we get, the more I want to prolong the part before I have to walk into the nursing home. I follow the road signs and pull into the lot. We busy ourselves with getting out of the car and finding a picnic table that overlooks the small lake before she starts taking stuff out of her bag: a fresh baguette wrapped in paper, a jar of something that’s white at the bottom and red at the top, a container filled with cut-up cheese, and another filled with fruit, bottles of water.
I stare down at the spread, a little disbelieving. “I’d never have thought to put this together.”
She takes napkins out of the bag, which finally seems to be empty. “My brother is a chef. Food’s kinda a big deal.”