Love Always (NG4)

52 - Willow

Sam sat on his single bed and looked around the room. Even though he had slept in the tiny room every night for five months, it didn't feel like his. Running his fingers through his hair, he sighed. He missed a lot more than his room.

Standing and stretching, he avoided the mirror behind the door. Needing a haircut was the least of his concern. If the shadows under his eyes looked any worse, he would look like the football players with the black grease they used to reduce glare.

No matter how bad he looked his nonna looked a hundred times worse. The cancer had slowly eaten away at her insides. She hardly had the strength to get herself to the bathroom. Sam dreaded the day it would strip her last dignity from her. She cared for his mother, and he would care for her. Her vigor was gone, and he was afraid she wouldn't put up a fuss which would break him more than helping her use the toilet.

The day dinnertime came and went without insisting she cook for him, he let tears fall. Quietly eating a sandwich in the kitchen while nonna dozed on the couch, he picked up his phone and hovered his finger over Rory's face. He jumped when his phone vibrated in his hand. Willow.

His heart rate slowed as he answered quietly. "Hey."

"How was your day?"

"The same." He didn't have the strength or the desire to explain the significance of no dinner. Rory would understand because she knew him. She understood grieving.

Every day, Sam grieved a little more. His last meal cooked by his nonna had been weeks before. She spent most of her time sleeping in front of the television. Every afternoon the soap operas played, but he doubted she knew the storyline any longer. He did and feared he might get hooked. Cole would never let him live it down.

Sam left his bedroom and went to Nonna's. Every time he saw how small she looked in the bed, his heart constricted. "Good morning, Sleeping Beauty, are you ready to get up?"

"Do I have to?"

Sam hid his shock. She had never not wanted to start her day. He walked a tightrope of timing. As much as he didn't want to lose her too quickly, he had to get back on the road. NSPN had agreed to some flexibility, but it was a tight schedule. There was no way he could leave his dying grandmother.

"Okay. Let's get you up. Joy will be here soon. Do you want to be in bed?"

"Eh, what kind of a name is that?"

Sam smiled. A touch of the nonna he knew was still there. He held it back, but it was an ironic name for a hospice nurse. The day he called hospice was another day he needed Rory. It had been his father who encouraged him. "It's time, son."

An emotional sentence coming from Bryan Keller. Just under the surface laid the past when his father called hospice for his mother and his nonna helped care for her dying daughter.

Sam helped his grandmother get out of bed and settled her on the sofa. He rushed into the kitchen at the sound of the knock at the back door. Joy breezed with the warm spring air.

"How is she?"

"She complained about getting up for the first time today."

"I can order a hospital bed. It will be easier when she's bedridden."

Sam shut his eyes. He remembered his mother's bed took over the living room. Nonna's bedroom was on the first floor. He cleared his throat. "Can I let you know?"

She put her hand on his arm. "Of course. Why don't you get some fresh air? I'll be here for at least an hour."

Sam needed a walk. He grabbed his camera and slipped into his Nikes. The air was warm for April. A year ago, he had been antsy to graduate and spend the summer at the beach with Rory. That didn't go as planned. A year later, he was waiting again, but it wasn't for a commencement.