It had been a long day. An exhausting one. One I didn’t care to repeat, but knew deep down there would be more of them. Too many more. It was heartbreaking to watch Noni, who was once sharp as a tack, decline so rapidly.

At first, it had been little things. Things like forgetting the teapot was on the stove, or what she had for lunch… or if she even had lunch. It was frustrating for us both. I found myself asking, “Don’t you remember?” more often than not.

With no rewind button on life, all I could do was keep slogging forward. Hold tight to the days where things seemed normal and use them to carry me through the ones where it felt like the world would crush me. I never should have went to Haiti. I lost so much time with Noni. Time I’d never get back.

I was all Noni had. Her own daughter couldn’t even be bothered to come home and help take care of her. It angered me. And try as I might to keep it away, the bitterness always crept up on me at night when I was able to collect my own thoughts. The days kept me busy. Noni kept me busy, so there was no time to dwell on any of it then. The importance of my own feelings and needs were shuffled to the side. What mattered was Noni.

It was like we played the role-reversal game. Where Noni once took care of me, I now took care of her. I’d come to think of our situation like it was—a reality show without the cameras.

The doctors couldn’t do anything. Nothing. Her memory would never get better. It would only get worse. Eventually, she’d forget everything, or live so far in the past that it would confuse her and put a strain on those caring for her. Especially family, since no one wanted to feel like they’d been forgotten.

I’d given the doctors my full attention, listening to the medical terms and then the options. And when they were done, I took Noni’s hand and we left before I completely lost it. After we made it to the parking lot, and I got us inside the car I’d borrowed from Mr. Lewis, we both cried.

Once the tears were mopped up, I vowed to Noni that, no matter what, I’d never drop her off and leave her like an abandoned puppy. I promised I’d take care of her and we’d manage, the two of us, no matter how hard it got, because I loved her and that was that.

That was six months ago. What would happen in another six months? Would she slip completely?

Turning over onto my side, I curled into myself. I told myself it did no good to cry over the things I couldn’t change, but it didn’t stop the tears that came when the house stilled around me, forcing me to accept our reality.

Eli showing up added more cars to the runaway train that was my life. A range of emotions threatened to derail me between the excitement of seeing him again, wondering what in the world would make him come all the way to Nome, and wariness that there was so much more he wasn’t telling me.

It’s only been two days since you ran into him, I thought, rubbing the sore spot on my head. We hadn’t had more than a moment or two to have any sort of in-depth conversation. The first day he’d run me all over the place so I could get my errands done, and then all hell broke loose with Noni before I could get ready to go to breakfast with him.

How long would he stick around with the craziness that had become my life? And better yet, who would saddle themselves with a problem that wasn’t theirs to carry?

I pinched my eyes closed as tightly as I could get them and tried my hardest to push everything out. I’d never get to sleep with everything on my mind. And I desperately needed the rest.

Counting sheep never worked. Focusing on my breathing never worked. I couldn’t take any sort of sleep aide for fear that I wouldn’t hear Noni if she needed me. Pretty soon, the bags under my eyes would need a cart to carry them.

I had no idea how long I lay staring across the room, fighting off each random thought as it popped its ugly head into the forefront of my mind, but I eventually felt myself drift. Felt the arms of sleep gather me close and relaxed into them.

Bleary eyed, and more than a little angry, I stumbled to the door ready to do permanent damage to whoever it was trying to knock it down.

“Who the devil is making all that noise?” Noni demanded, stepping into the kitchen.

Her .357 was gripped firmly in her hand as she strode toward the door.

“Noni, that better not be loaded,” I said, wondering if she’d hand it over to me if I asked her for it.

She huffed. “Well, of course it’s loaded. What kind of idiot would have a gun and not be prepared to use it?”

I beat her to the door and held my hand out to stall her. “I’ll get the door. You go put that away. And for God’s sake, Noni, make sure the safety is on.”

“No. Open the door, Nova, before whoever it is knocks it off the hinges,” she said, shouting over the insistent banging that rattled the door.

I whipped the door open, scowling. “What the hell are you—” Smoke filled my lungs, and I couldn’t finish my sentence.

“Fire,” Noni’s neighbor said, bending over and coughing hard enough to gag.

I ran past him through the thick smoke and caught sight of the house to our left belching ash and hot air into the night.

“Noni!” I rushed back inside, grabbed Noni by the arm, and led her out to safety. “Stay here!”

I rushed back inside long enough to grab our jackets and boots, chucking them out the front door before rushing off to grab the small lock box that held all the important documents, and then our purses.

I was back outside in under a minute, guiding Noni down the street as the fire department tried to contain the flames so they wouldn’t spread. The problem was that it had reached a point that nothing could be saved, and once the fire caught hold of the kerosene, a combustible hydrocarbon, it would burn like the pits of hell. Worse? The tank was next to Noni’s house. A recipe for disaster if I ever saw one.

Noni’s bony hand gripped mine in a death squeeze while we watched from the window of a neighboring house as the fire truck rolled away.

“What are we going to do, Nova?” she asked.

It wasn’t the question so much as the tone in her voice that broke my heart. She sounded childlike and scared.

As nice as the neighbors were, there was no way Noni and I could stay there, not with the way Noni’s memory was. She got confused enough in her own home. To have her wake up somewhere she’d never been before would surely throw her into one of the worst days ever.

I sat down, clutching my cell phone between my hands, and blew out a long breath. Where could we go? A hotel? No, that would be just as bad as staying with strangers. Noni did better with people she’d known for a long time. The problem was, there weren’t that many left in Nome.

“Call Stanley, Nova,” she said, resting her hand on my shoulder. “He’ll know what to do.”

As it turned out, calling Stanley wasn’t necessary. Not with the way the Nome network was. Apparently, he’d parked down the street and then went from person to person until someone could tell him where Noni and I were.

The relief in his eyes was hard to miss when he saw us. He took everything in hand. Before I knew it, Noni and I were sitting at his kitchen table having a hot toddy.

“Any idea how much damage there was to the house?” Stanley asked.

I shook my head. “No. But I plan to go by first thing tomorrow morning to check.”

I could have gone and checked after the fire trucks left, but Noni would have insisted that she come with me. And with all things considered, I thought it best to wait until the light of day to know just what had become of Noni’s house.

From where we’d watched, we could see the house still stood, but that didn’t mean much. And worrying over it was pointless until I knew exactly what to worry over.

After our toddies were tossed down our throats, Noni and I were shown to the guest room where a small twin bed sat against the wall. Stanley opened the closet, rolled out a cot, and then left us to go in search of extra bedding.

Noni, who had stayed quiet for the better part of the night, broke the silence.

“Flip ya for the real bed,” she said, lips pressed together on a smirk.

I rolled my eyes. “And then tell everyone how your granddaughter made you sleep on a lumpy cot while she hogged the comfortable bed? Ha, nice try, Noni.”

Stanley came back with a stack of blankets, along with a couple of his T-shirts and some sweatpants. “In case you want to change. If not, you’ll have them for tomorrow. Good night, ladies.”

“Thank you for this,” I said, following him out of the small room.

He gave me a slight smile before making his way down the hall.

The neighbors were out in full force the next morning when I rounded the street corner. They stood in groups facing the skeletal remains of what used to be the neighbor’s house.

Sarah, one of the neighbors down the street, caught sight of me. She called my name, jogging to catch up with me.

“How bad is it?” she asked.

“I don’t know. That’s what I came to find out. Any idea what started it?” If anyone knew the details of everything that happened on our street, it was Sarah. Not that she was a gossip, but everyone seemed to talk to her.

“Grease fire. From what I was told, the neighbor’s son came home drunk and tried to cook because he was hungry. They almost didn’t make it out of the house.”

It was going to be a cold day. I could feel it through the layers of clothing I wore. Thank God I’d had the insight to toss our jackets and bunny boots out or else my feet would have turned into twin blocks of ice.

“Let me know if you need anything,” Sarah said as she patted my back.

I nodded. “Thanks, Sarah.”

She left me then, and I made my way to the house. It didn’t look damaged, which brought a feeling of hope soaring up inside of me. But I knew better than to get ahead of myself. Just because the front looked okay didn’t mean the backside wasn’t burned completely off.

I made it to the front step, stopping long enough to shoot Eli a text asking if he could meet me at the house as soon as possible. After, I slipped the phone in my pocket, not waiting for his reply. He’d either show up or he wouldn’t.

The door creaked on its hinges as I pushed it in. The smell of wet smoke hit me in the face, and I curled my nose against it.

From where I stood, everything was accounted for, but covered in a thin layer of ice.

Maybe a side window had shattered due to the heat, or maybe the pressure of the water being pumped out of the fireman’s hose. Had it made it into the ceiling? Could the back of the house be missing? I shook my head and forced myself to keep moving further inside. “If that were the case, there would have been yellow tape on the door,” I chided myself. “Unless the wind took it.”

Outside, a car door slammed. Before I knew it, Eli was standing beside me.

“You should have called me last night,” he said, giving me a stern look. “Where’s Noni?”

“It was late. Noni’s at Stanley’s, hopefully still asleep,” I answered, feeling brave enough to venture past the front door. “Wait, how did you know it happened last night?”

“I was at the store and overheard someone talking about a house fire last night, but they didn’t say any names, so I didn’t think anything about it until you texted me,” he answered, putting his hand against my lower back. Together, we moved into the living room.

“Oh no, Noni loved that stupid recliner. And the pictures are ruined, too,” I said, biting my lip to keep from crying as my eyes met the stares of the neighbors between the charred two-by-fours of what used to be the back wall of the house. I imagined they’d gathered there for two reasons—to talk, and to keep watch over the house until someone came to clear out the valuables.

Halfheartedly, I waved to acknowledge their presence, and then turned my back on them so they wouldn’t think it safe to come in and chat. I wasn’t up for chatting. I wanted to sit down on the charred carpet and throw a child-sized fit.

“Nova?”

Dale, the man who lost everything because of his drunk of a son, stood on the outside of the wall looking in at me like a man waking from a nightmare.

I wanted to be mad at him, but I just couldn’t. It wasn’t his fault that his son was an alcoholic. He’d tried harder than any parent I knew to help him, but like most people with an addiction, his son didn’t want to be helped.

I nodded, gesturing for him to come over.

Eli caught me by the elbow. “I’ll let him in, Nova. Why don’t you start putting all the salvageable things into a pile?”

There wasn’t much that could be saved in the living room, not with the water damage and the soot covering everything.

Eli kept a running conversation with Dale as the two of them rounded the house. I could hear them plain as day since there wasn’t a wall to keep out the sound.

“And your wife? She’s okay as well?” Eli asked.

Dale grunted something that sounded like a yes as the front door opened and Eli led him inside.

He didn’t say anything as he walked up to me and held an envelope out.

“What’s that?” I asked.

“It’s for Noni, and for you. The wife and I are leaving as soon as we settle up with the insurance company. I wanted to make sure you got that before we left. I can’t tell you how sorry I am, Nova. I tried. I tried so hard, but…”

“None of this is your fault, Dale. Noni and I will be fine. All of this is either fixable, or replaceable. I’m just glad no one was injured,” I said, putting my hand out and pushing his arm down.

I had an idea what was in it. More than likely his entire life savings. It was the kind of man he was. And there was no way Noni would have accepted his money had she been there instead of me.

“Nova, I really want you to take it,” he said, trying again.

“Do you think Noni would take it if she were here?” I asked, quirking my brow at him.

A flicker of a smile came and went in the blink of an eye. “I’d still try, though.”

“I know you would. Take that and get the heck out of here. Go somewhere warm. Somewhere tropical,” I said, walking him to the door.

He sighed. “You’re so much like her.”

“I’ll take that as a compliment,” I answered as he stuffed the envelope inside his jacket.

“You’ll need some boxes. I’ll stop in a few places on my way to the sister-in-law’s and ask them to set some aside for you,” Dale said. “If you need anything else, please let me know.”

“I will. Thank you.”

He left with his head held a little higher even when the neighbors whispered and pointed at him. People could be cruel. He didn’t deserve that.

I raced down the steps, catching him by the jacket sleeve. When he turned, I hugged him.

“What?” He was caught off guard for a moment, but I didn’t let him go. When he returned my hug, I heard his breath hitch.

When I let him go, he put his hand on my shoulder and gave it a brief squeeze. “She’s lucky to have you.”

“Take care, Dale. Please give Lisa our best,” I said, making sure it was loud enough for everyone standing close to hear me.

He nodded before continuing on his way. I watched him for a few seconds, turned, then made my way back to the house.

Eli smiled at me from the front step. When I got within arm’s reach, he hugged me tight. After we broke apart, he put his arm around me. Together, we walked inside the house.

Noni’s house wasn’t big, but it was more than enough room for the two of us. She’d lived in it for most of her life, yet kept it from getting overly cluttered. She wasn’t materialistic, and she wasn’t one for keeping all sorts of junk packed away.

Eli’s first official load of the day had been to move Noni’s bed to Stanley’s. We hoped the short ride over aired the mattress out a bit since the heavy smell of smoke clung to everything, making it stink like an old campfire.

Once that was taken care of, the rest amounted to packing what could be stored and what needed to be brought last, like clothing and toiletries. It was a good thing Stanley had his own washer and dryer because I’d be doing laundry for a week between my clothes, Noni’s, and everything else from sheets to washcloths.

I never really realized how much we had until I had to face the prospect of washing it all.

It was nasty, dirty, backbreaking work to get Noni’s house cleaned out. Every muscle I had hurt by the time we’d finished.

Eli stayed right along with me. Each box went in the back of his truck. When the bed was full, he drove it over to Stanley’s and the two of them unloaded everything into the empty storage container Stanley had managed to get for us.

We worked until the sun dropped. Eli only took one break to run and get a few pieces of plywood to cover where the fire had burned through the living room wall. After that, he’d loaded and unloaded the back of his small pickup what seemed like a hundred times so that all the boxes were tucked away safe and sound at Stanley’s.

The rest of the furniture, along with my own bed, would get loaded the following morning. There would be nothing else to do until the insurance adjuster did his thing and the ball could get rolling on repairing the damage.

The problem was that we were closing in on winter fast.