“Oh my God, Aiden,” I wept with tears streaming down my face. “I’m so sorry.”
When he said it was time for me to know their love story, I never imagined he would bring me here.
To her gravesite.
Bailey Ashlyn Pierce
A loving mother and wife
It’s me and you against the world, Beauty.
“I had no idea. I can’t imagine what you went through. What the kids went through.”
Hearing him tell me about the last moments with his wife was probably the hardest thing I’ve ever gone through. There was so much I wanted to say to him, but I knew it wouldn’t matter. Nothing I said would take away the pain that would forever live in his heart.
His memory of her.
Where she didn’t even know who he was in the end.
For a man who prided himself on what he provided for people, this must have killed him. It all made sense now.
Jackson’s anger.
Jagger’s reclusiveness.
Journey’s desire to bond with a mother.
Even Aiden pulling away from his family. He went with her the day she took her last breath on earth.
He stared at me the entire time he told me what happened, but now he was staring at her gravesite with his hands in the pockets of his slacks. Lost in the memories, in the demons, in the past he could never change.
I waited for him to continue, yet I was still startled when he shared, “At first it was little things like her forgetting something at the grocery store, or her forgetting what day of the week it was, or her forgetting where she left her phone, her purse, her keys. Small things like that. Bailey took her role in our marriage like it was her sole purpose to be a mother and wife. She was a perfectionist in anything with the kids and me. So, when she started forgetting to pick them up from school, or their activities of the week, it was extremely hard on her. She felt like she was failing at her job.”
I swallowed hard, listening to everything he was saying. Teetering on the edge of losing my shit all together, but I stayed strong for him.
Somebody needed to in that moment, and I could provide him at least that.
“I told her it was from the pressure of trying to have Journey and be the perfect mom and wife. That she was just taking on too much. Though she was adamant that our family wasn’t complete, that our dreams weren’t met until we had a baby girl. She got pregnant with the boys so easily, and she couldn’t understand why Journey hadn’t come yet. Every month was another disappointment for her, and little by little, those small things turned into bigger things. Forgetting the name of the hospital I worked at, forgetting the address where we lived, forgetting the day we got married… The first time she stared at Jackson knowing who he was, her son, but stumbling to say his name. Like she remembered it, like she could see it in her mind, but she couldn’t form the words. That was one of the worst days of my life.”
He took a deep breath, pushing through the chaos of his mind. His eyes shifted over to me with so much emotion, I could feel it under my skin.
“I’m a doctor, Camila. I knew immediately it could be Dementia,” he admitted, getting choked up. “The life I fought so hard to give her, the one we prayed for time after time, she forgot it all in the end. When she was first diagnosed five years ago, I still didn’t believe it. I couldn’t. Not Bailey. Not her. Anyone but her. We flew to all the best Neurologists. Every single one of them diagnosed her with Frontotemporal Dementia. Even after hearing all of them say those two words, I refused to believe it. I watched my wife leave me, her kids, her family, her entire world… little by little every day. She’d have these moments of complete clarity, only to forget it seconds later. That was probably the hardest part of watching her slip away, and unable to do anything about it. The night we conceived Journey, I hadn’t been with my wife in months… And she was there, right fuckin’ in front of me, and I couldn’t say no. We made love and six weeks later she told me she was pregnant. You want to know what my first reaction was? What kind of father