I barrel down the country road as I dial Mo.

“Where to next?” I bark when Mo answers my call.

I take a sharp turn right at her response. Today, I plan on leaving no stone unturned.

The afternoon flies by in a blur, and dusk looms with still no sign of Sarge. I scrub my hands over my face, and my forehead hits the steering wheel.

“Where the hell could he be?”

Celia brushes a hand up my back and squeezes my shoulder. “We’ll keep looking.”

I huff in frustration and face her. “I’m all out of ideas, Celia. I don’t know where else to turn.”

Her eyes soften, and her lips turn down just as my phone rings. When I see Kimberly’s name on the screen, I groan.

“Fuuuuuuuck,” I growl, and then hit the TALK key. “Hey, there’s a little change of plans tonight. I won’t be able to make dinner.”

Celia stiffens and shifts to the far end of the truck. As crazy as it sounds, I feel like I’m betraying Celia by picking up the phone and talking to Kimberly.

“Oh, no you don’t, Cain Bennett. Tonight is our night. You aren’t backing out on me.” Kimberly skipped whiny today and moved on to downright hostile.

“My grandfather took off this afternoon, and we can’t find him. We’ve torn the town apart with no luck. I don’t know what else to do … or where else to go.” It stings to say the words out loud, but the truth is, I’m beginning to lose hope. After hours with no sign of him, I’m starting to believe the worst.

Kimberly expels a loud huff. “Look, he’s gonna turn up, and everything will be fine. Old people do things like this, Cain. And didn’t you mention he has Alzheimer’s? He’ll snap out of it and show up at home like nothing happened.” Just when I think her version of a pep talk is over she starts up again. “He’ll turn up, and our night will be ruined for nothing. We made these plans over a week ago, and I’m not canceling them.”

What. The. Fuck?

I fling open the truck door and slam it with enough force to shake the cab. I pace the length of the truck in an attempt to rein in my temper, which is dangerously close to boiling over. Kimberly’s selfishness and complete lack of concern floors me.

“I’m pretty damn sure my night is already ruined, Kimberly, since my grandfather is fucking missing!” I roar into the phone. “I’m going to pretend you didn’t dismiss my feelings and my family crisis and get back to it. I’ll be sure to phone you when we find him. It’s fucking obvious how concerned you are for him and for me.”

I hang up before she responds. It’s for the best. No words will make up for her callousness. I spend a few extra moments outside to calm down. When I open the truck door and see Celia’s wide eyes, it’s obvious she heard every word I said.

“Don’t,” I warn, and she nods in response. I need to clear my head of the bullshit and focus on Sarge. I’m not interested in Celia’s commentary on Kimberly, now or ever. “How did you end up at Granny and Sarge’s house anyway?”

She jerks at my question, her spine stiffening in defense. I have a right to know, whether she agrees or not. They’re my family, and excuse me if I’m feeling a little protective of them right now.

“Granny and Lila both called me,” she explains, wringing her hands in her lap. “Sarge and I … well, we spend a lot of time together.”

“Is that right?”

“He’s my friend,” she whispers softly.

“Don’t you think it’s odd that you’ve welcomed every one of my family members into your life, except me?” The question, its implication and the harshness of my tone, fly out of my mouth before I have a chance to censor it.

“You don’t like my terms.” A shuddered breath releases from her lips, and her watery eyes meet mine. “For someone like me, with no family left, they’ve come to mean so much to me. I never want to lose them, but I understand if you want me to stay away.”

I shake my head as I dial the phone. She cuts me down to size with one sentence. God, I feel like such an asshole. “They love you as much as you love them. I’d never ask that of you.”

Her shoulders relax as I call Mo and place the phone on speaker. The ringing fills the cab, and Mo picks up right away.

“Any luck?”

It’s clear by her tone she’s come up empty, too.

“None. It’s time for a fresh start. We need to comb Granny’s brain for more places to look.” I rub my burning eyes, feeling as if I’ve aged ten years today.

“Where would you go?” Mo asks. “Where is the first place you’d go, Cain?”

“That’s easy. The pond. It always clears my head, and I have so many good memories of the place. That’s where Sarge taught me to fish, where I had my first kiss … we’ve already looked there, Mo.”

“Wait, has anyone checked Highway 88?” Celia asks with wide eyes.

“What the hell is on Highway 88?” Mo shouts through the phone.

“The oak tree where he proposed to Granny … among other things. Not the point—he mentioned to me he goes there when things get rough. It’s his thinking place.”

“I’m calling Granny,” I say.

“Hurry,” Mo says before I end the call and start dialing.

For the first time this afternoon, I feel a spark of hope.

The gravel and dirt crunch under the tires as I turn off the main road. Sugarcane towers over us on both sides as we drive forward. The red glint of a truck tailgate is barely visible next to the sprawling branches of the imposing oak tree. It stands regally in the back corner of the field, far away from the road.

I never would have found it on my own.

“Thank God,” Celia breathes when she notices his truck.

I park behind him and kill the engine. He’s sitting on a large rock, head hung low and shoulders slumped. I shoot off a text to Mom before getting out of the truck.

We got him.

He never looks up as we approach. He slices the outer layer of the cane stalk in his fingers and hands a piece to Celia when he cuts off a chunk. She sidles up next to him and pops the cane into her mouth.

“Thank you,” she mumbles while gnawing on the sweet stalk.

“Lots of people worried about you, old man.” I reach out and take a chunk of cane from his outstretched hand. The sweet juice bursts in my mouth as I chew.

“Yeah, I’m sorry about that.” He continues to cut at the stalk. “I needed a minute—just me and the memories. I feel them slowly slipping away.”

His voice cracks with emotion, and it’s a knife to my gut. This is my tough as nails grandfather. Cross him, and he’d just as soon punch you as look at you. But today, he’s all out of fight, and it hurts.

Emotion clogs my throat, strangling any words of encouragement I may have. I give Celia a helpless glance. She smiles at me as she fiddles with the pendant around her neck. If anyone needs St. Jude’s help today, it’s Sarge.

Celia bends down to meet Sarge’s lowered eyes. “Memories get me through the hard times. They anchor me … keep me grounded to this life. Sometimes, it seems memories are all I have left. I can’t imagine how it must feel to lose them. They seem to be written in chalk, slowly washing away over time, don’t they?”

Her words remind me of her truth—her insistence that we can never be. No matter how many times I hear it, it still hurts.

“It feels like I’m wasting away, like this body of mine is an empty shell. It’s a sick joke. My body is in perfect health, and my brain is rotting from the inside out. The fog in my mind keeps getting thicker every day, my words and thoughts sitting just out of my grasp,” Sarge says, outstretching his trembling hand.

“Your mind is your enemy, and time is mine. As the years pass, memories lose their color,” Celia says. She lays a soft hand on Sarge’s leg and giggles. “I’ll never forget the dog my Grams had when I was a little girl. She was the fattest rat terrier I’ve ever seen. In the evenings, Grams and I would sit on the porch swing, listening to the wind chimes and feeding the fat hound caramels. Her butt would drag the ground.”