All They Need

Her marriage had been unhappy for a long time and very ugly toward the end. Her husband’s constant criticism had shaped her days and her nights. She’d bent over backward trying to please him—but it had never been enough. In hindsight, she’d come to understand that it never would have been.

Her chin came up as she entered the kitchen. She regretted the failure of her marriage, but she knew she’d done her damnedest to save it and she wouldn’t go back if her life depended on it.

So, no, she didn’t miss her ex. A fairly important realization to acknowledge on this, of all days. A realization that surely called for a celebration.

She walked to the fridge and opened the freezer door. A box of her favorite Drumstick sundae cones was on top and she grabbed one and tore off the wrapper.

If she were still married, Owen would have warned her that she risked getting fat if she ate ice cream full stop, let alone for breakfast. She took a big, defiant bite.

After all, she only had to please herself now. And what a glorious thing that was.

ROSINA ANSWERED THE DOOR, her face a mask of worry.

“Any change?” Flynn asked as he entered his parents’ house.

The housekeeper shook her head. “Nothing.”

Flynn nodded tightly and strode down the hallway. His father’s study was at the rear of the house, at the end of a short hall. The door was almost always open because, even when his father was hard at work, he always made time to talk. Today it was closed and his mother, Patricia, sat in a chair beside it, her usually stylish salt-and-pepper hair a disheveled mess, her face streaked with tears.

She stood the moment she saw him and walked into his open arms. “I’m so sorry for calling you over,” she said, her voice muffled by his shirt.

“We talked about this. We’re all in it together.”

“I didn’t know what else to do. I’ve begged, I’ve bullied, but he won’t unlock the door. I keep talking to him, making him answer because I’m so scared he’s going to do something…?.”

He kissed her temple. “I’ll break the door down if I have to, don’t worry. But Dad wouldn’t do anything to hurt himself.”

“You don’t know that. He’s never locked himself in his study before, either. My God, this disease… If it was a person, I would hunt it down and kill it with my bare hands.”

Flynn could feel the grief and anger and fear coursing through her and he pressed another kiss to her temple. “We’ll sort this out.”

She nodded, then stepped back from his embrace. He watched her visibly pack away her emotions as she pulled a scrunched-up tissue from the cuff of her turtleneck sweater and blew her nose. By the time she’d finished she was once again in control.

That was the really great thing about Alzheimer’s disease—it affected entire families, not just individuals. It killed slowly, over years, and it wore loved ones down with its relentless attack. In the twelve months since his father had been formally diagnosed with early-stage Alzheimer’s, Flynn had watched his parents grapple to come to terms with what the future would hold. He’d seen them both rise to the occasion with humbling dignity, even while Flynn had quietly freaked out in private over the imminent loss of the man who was such an integral part of his life.

Somehow, they’d all hung in there. It wasn’t as though any of them had a choice, after all. Least of all his father.

Giving his mother a reassuring squeeze on the shoulder, Flynn rapped lightly on the study door. “Dad, it’s me. Can I come in?”

There was a short pause. “No.”

“Can I ask why?”

“No.”

“Mom’s worried about you. We all are. Talk to us, Dad.”

Silence. His mother shook her head helplessly.

“Dad, if you don’t let me in, I’m going to have to break the door down.”

More silence. Flynn eyed the frame. The house was over a hundred years old, the doorjambs solid. It was going to take some effort, but it was doable.

“For God’s sake, just leave me alone.” There was so much despair and anguish in his father’s words.

Flynn exchanged glances with his mother. “Stand back from the door, Dad.”

His mother pressed her fingers to her mouth. Flynn stepped away far enough to give himself a run-up. He’d never kicked a door in before, but he figured that if he aimed his foot at the latch, something would have to give. Eventually.

He tensed his muscles, ready to power forward.

“Wait.” His father’s voice was resigned. Weary.

The key turned in the lock and the door opened an inch or two. Only a strip of his father’s face was visible through the opening.

“Just Flynn.”

Flynn’s mother swallowed audibly and Flynn squeezed her shoulder again. She gave him a watery half smile.

“You got him to open the door. That’s the important bit,” she said quietly. She sank onto her chair as Flynn entered the study.

“Shut the door,” his father barked the moment Flynn crossed the threshold.

Flynn complied and turned to regard his father. The older man stood behind his desk chair, both hands gripping the high leather backrest. His steel-gray hair was rumpled, his face pale with fatigue and anxiety. His blue eyes watched Flynn almost resentfully.

“What’s going on, Dad?”

“Nothing. I want to be left alone. Is that too much to ask? Aren’t I entitled to privacy anymore? Do I have to lose that, too, as well as everything else?”

The gruff anger in his father’s voice was alien to Flynn. Adam Randall had always had high standards and he didn’t suffer fools gladly, but he’d never been a bully and he’d certainly never been a man who let his emotions rule him.

“No one wants to take anything away from you, Dad. We love you. We were worried about you. Can you understand that?”

“I’m not an imbecile!”

“I’m sorry. I wasn’t trying to be patronizing. I want you to understand our point of view.”

His father stared at him, his eyes filling with tears. His chin wobbled and he took a quick, agitated breath.

“What’s going on, Dad?”

His father continued to stare at him for a long moment. Then he stepped out from behind the chair. The crotch of his navy trousers was dark with moisture.

Bone-deep empathy washed through Flynn as he lifted his gaze to his father’s anguished face.

“I was checking my email. I needed to go, but I wanted to check on something first. Then I just…lost track of things.”

Flynn could hear the shame in his father’s voice, but he didn’t know what to say. He knew how unmanly this must be, how terrified his father must feel to have lost control of his own body. He closed the distance between them and wrapped his arms around his father.