For eight years I had believed my grandson’s world was locked behind his silence. For eight years I’d watched Nyla perform the role of the devoted mother of a special-needs child. For eight years I’d trusted the doctors, the reports, the tests.
Now, with one sentence, everything I thought I knew about my family shattered as completely as that mug on the floor.
“Tell me about the tea,” I managed, my throat tight. “What did your mother put in it?”
Damian eased back and looked me directly in the eye.
“Medicine,” he said. “The kind that makes you sleepy and confused. She’s been doing it for a long time, Grandma. That’s why you’ve been so tired and forgetting stuff lately.”
The room swayed around me.
For the past two years, I’d been fighting a fog that didn’t feel like normal aging. I’d misplaced my car keys and found them in strange places. I’d forgotten words mid-sentence and lost track of conversations. I’d chalked it up to family history—my own mother had slipped into dementia in her seventies.
Continue reading…
