Winter's Destiny Read Online Free PDF

Grams, we need to do all we can for her.”
    “You go ahead. I figure if I hang around that place, I could end up in the next bed. Not good for a person’s health, getting too close to those places. Besides,” he cleared his throat noisily. His voice broke and he looked down, “I’d rather remember her the way she was.”
    Amy bent down and wrapped her arms around his frail frame, hugging him. “Want anything before I go?”
    He looked up. “How ‘bout a round of poker.”
    Amy laughed in spite of herself and stopped at the front door, looking back at him fondly. “Soon, Gramps. Take care.”
     
     

CHAPTER 5
     
     
    Amy swung the Jeep Cherokee onto the US101 for the ten-mile drive down the Oregon coast highway to the Summerset Meadows , the special care facility that had been her grandmother’s home for the past few years. The neurologist couldn’t be sure Cynthia Hadden had Alzheimer’s, as test results hadn’t proven it conclusively, but she had many of the symptoms. At the very least, he said it was dementia.
    As Amy drove, she reflected upon her grandfather’s reaction. She was sure it had been fear she’d seenin his eyes . But why? She considered the traumas he had suffered over the years. He’d lost his only daughter in a tragic car accident. Her death had almost broken him. He was close to his son-in-law, making it a double tragedy. Shortly after, Gramps had the fall at the cabin that had broken his right leg and crushed the left. Then, a few years ago, he’d lost Grams to Alzheimer’s. N ow, he’s probably afraid he’ll lose Jamie and me, and we’re all he’s got left. Still, there was more than fear in his eyes and in his voice. There had been something else, a flicker of recognition. Gramps knew something. And if he knows, then Grams knows. Or did.
    Still pondering this, Amy parked in the vast parking area in front of the sprawling facility. She hurried up the long walk, up the front steps, and through the busy lobby where she signed in before climbing the stairs to her grandmother’s floor. The private room was airy and bright with a large ocean view window that provided a distant vista of the rugged coastline. The older woman, her tiny frame clothed in sweats, sat in a chair staring blankly through the thick glass, a blanket draped across her lap, her eyes fixed on the horizon.
    Amy assessed her from the doorway, searching as always, for some sign of improvement. Cynthia Hadden’s sparkle and intelligence were gone. The essence that made her the special person she once was, had been stolen by the destructive process of the disease. Yet, her beauty remained, diminished only minimally by Mother Nature. Studying her profile, Amy could see that even though her grandmother was in her seventies, she was still attractive. She had passed those unusual features on to her daughter, and to Amy.
    And perhaps… to someone else.
    “Grams,” Amy called to her. The white head turned slowly; two gray eyes searched the room and found Amy, but they showed no sign of recognition. Amy pulled up an armchair and sat down opposite her grandmother. "Came by to talk, Grams.”
    The old woman dropped her chin and eyed her suspiciously. Amy waited for her grandmother to adjust to Amy’s presence, and then choosing her words with care, she began talking about her mother. Gently, Amy placed a photo of her mom on her grandmother’s lap blanket. The older woman stared at it blankly at first, and then with shaky fingers, she plucked it off the blanket and turned it to the light. A smile eased the tension from her face. “Sharalynn,“ she whispered.
    Another strange aspect of the disease was her Grandmother’s inability to remember who Amy was, but with a struggle, the older woman could often recall the years prior to Amy’s birth. Amy wasn’t sure where the line was drawn, or whether it was simply a foggy zone where memory fragments drifted in and out.
    “Sharalynn’s wedding day,” Amy reminded