80 Years

"Could you repeat that?" Jackie whispered, the damp tissue useless in her shaking hand.

“How much?”

“Twenty thousand.” said the lawyer sitting on the other side of the desk. “She also wanted you to have this...”

He extended his reach to hand her a manila envelope. She took it gingerly and stared at it for what felt like far too long. Opening it carefully, she slid the contents out on the desk. One small black notebook. Written on the inside of the cover in frail cursive was one short paragraph that swelled a lump in her throat.

“Jacks,

Our time together was everything to me, so I want you to have my everything.

It’s not a lot, but I hope you use the money to live one of your fantasy lives.

Use this book to document it.

I always loved you best, kiddo.

Xoxo,

Grandma”

Monsoon tear drops began to fall on the page. Oh no. This was it, the last thing grandma said to her, and here she is nearly destroying it by weeping.

She wiped her eyes with the mascara stained sleeve of her oversized hoodie, thanked the lawyer, and sat quietly in her mind as he went over what to do next.

361 Days Ago:

“HAPPY BIRTHDAY!” exclaimed a room full of relatives in unison.

A frail old woman leans over to blow out candles that formed the number ‘80’ atop a vibrant pink birthday cake. Jackie, standing in the crowd of her extended family, looked around the room. Every wall was covered floor to ceiling in pictures. Every surface in her grandmother’s home was smothered by 80 years of memories, and a story behind each one.

“Jacks, come give me a kiss, would ya?” Her grandma’s lighthearted demand sent Jackie shuffling across the room for one of those classic grandmother embraces. They had been thick as thieves since the day Jackie was born.

Jackie had gotten certified as a Personal Care Assistant so she could ensure her grandmother was getting the best care possible. She simply couldn’t trust a stranger to do it. Ever since Jackie moved into the house last year, the two had been bound at the hip to one another. The job didn’t make much money, but all she really cared about was getting to see her grandma every day.

“Best friends for life!” her grandma exclaimed before planting a kiss on Jackie's cheek for a picture.

Eighty years old. Eight decades on the planet, and it still didn’t feel like even remotely enough time to Jackie.

With the exception of the party, every day for Jackie was rather routine. She took care of everything her grandma needed. Jackie felt like her mind was a vault for all her grandmother’s stories and secrets, things she could never lose. Every time she would pick something up or dust something off, her grandmother would tell her the story behind it.

Every other day or so, someone from the family would stop by the house to make small talk with grandma. Since Jackie lived in the house, she wanted everyone who visited to have their own special time with grandma. So she would wait to run errands till people came over to visit.

Her grandmother lived in a small town with old storefronts and run down houses speckling the 4 block neighborhood radius. She would ride her bike into town for groceries and usually stop by the library on the way home. She loved the library, with its big antique beveled glass windows that made all the light inside dance.

Lately though, she had begun to notice that there were fewer and fewer books on the shelves. It almost seemed as if every day, another shelf would be empty. Although curious, she was far too scandinavian to inquire about perplexities.

With each bike ride through town, she noticed windows being boarded up, “FOR SALE” signs in front of houses, and darkening storefronts. She thought this was peculiar, but her grandmother didn’t seem to want to be bothered with information regarding the town.

“Oh hush now, none of that matters.” she would say with a casual wave of her hand.

Jackie wondered why her grandma wasn’t listening to her, but she didn’t want to push the subject, so she shrugged it off.

Whenever Jackie went out, she’d come back to find not only the visitors gone, but items missing from her grandmother’s vast inventory. When she would ask about the missing items, her grandma became agitated as if she had no idea what Jackie was talking about. Jackie couldn’t bring herself to believe her family would be stealing from her grandmother, but she decided it might be best to stay home while people were visiting - just in case.

Despite her hawklike vigilance, Jackie started noticing that things would go missing overnight as they both slept. Every morning, she came downstairs to find fewer pictures on the walls, fewer trinkets on the shelves, and even missing furniture! She felt like she was losing her mind.

But her grandmother didn’t notice, nor did she care when Jackie brought it up.

“They’re just things, dear, none of that matters,” she would say softly as she concentrated on her knitting.

With each sunrise came more confusion for Jackie and more agitation for her grandmother. Jackie could not understand why no one else seemed to notice that things were disappearing around them. She couldn’t help but feel isolated. How could her grandmother not see the peculiarity of the situation? Her words felt vague, and she seemed entirely disinterested in what felt to Jackie like something very bizarre.

Jackie left early one morning in a flurry of thought and confusion about the things happening around her. In an attempt to clear her head, she mounted her bike and rode down the street toward the grocery market. Enjoying that lovely smell that seems to always accompany the dawn, She stopped outside the grocery market, leaned her bike against a tree, and walked up to the automatic doors. They didn’t open.

“Strange.” She put her hands around her eyes to see through the glass. Empty. No people inside, just an empty room full of barren shelves. Getting back on her bike to head home, she stopped at the library to admire the books glowing in the sunrise through the glass as they do every morning.

Empty.

All but a single book had vanished. Jackie felt the panic tighten her chest. Peering through the glass, she saw a single black notebook laying all alone on a shelf. “What is going on?!” she yelled to no one.

Jackie raced home. Skidding into the driveway, she felt a bitter chill run through her. The house was a different color - or rather, the house was void of color. Grayscale and disheveled, it looked the same and completely different simultaneously.

Heart racing, she burst through the door.

Sitting in a wheelchair at the bottom of the stairs was her grandmother, silent, staring, and confused.

“Grandma something really really scary is happening, we have to go right now.” she said, trying to stay calm. But the next words out of her grandmother’s mouth made her heart drop into her stomach and the blood drain from her face.

“Who are you?”

Jackie opened her eyes. The lights blinded her and she covered her eyes. The whirring from the machines made her dizzy.

“Jackie?” a voice nearby said softly.

Jackie opened her eyes again to find a doctor sitting beside the table where she lay. Everything came back to her. The experiment she’d been waiting years to try. When her grandma began showing signs of dementia, Jackie’s family had her memory archived. A brand new technology that was intended to preserve loved ones after they’re gone.

“I’m just going to get this off you, hold still.” The doctor gently pulled what looked like a large cable plug out of the back of Jackie’s neck and slipped the wired helmet off her head.

Jackie’s eyes dilated and she winced.

“So, how was it?” the doctor asked earnestly.

Jackie was incredulous. She had just experienced what she now knows was the torment that her grandmother went through in the last months of her life. What felt like a never-ending loop of confusion and disarray had been encapsulated in this technology. She wanted to experience first hand the 80 years of stories her grandmother had told her, to interact with the memories projected into her own mind. That is, after all, what this technology was designed to do.

Enraged with grief and disappointment, Jackie shouted at the doctor through her sobs. “You charged me $5,000 and that’s all I got?”

The doctor looked surprised by Jackie’s reaction. “I’m sorry Jackie, I really am, but by the time we were able to download her memories, she was pretty far gone…”

“Seriously?!” Jackie snapped. “I wanted to play with her as a child, I wanted to walk with her down her childhood street, experience first hand all the stories she told me, and all the ones she didn’t. That’s what I paid for! Why didn’t you disclose that you failed to backup her memory before I signed up to do this?” Jackie, hysterical and hyperventilating, accepted the glass of water the doctor offered.

“I’m sorry,” the doctor said with an empathy that Jackie could not appreciate. “But when your family signed her up for the download, the terms and conditions did mention that not every download is successful, especially in dementia patients.”

Jackie laughed sarcastically. “Terms and conditions?” she scoffed, “Nobody reads those! You knew what I wanted when I booked the appointment and you failed to mention that all you got out of her was the end…” Jackie paused. “Deep breath,” she sighed.

“I’m sorry. This isn’t your fault,” Jackie’s tone softened. “I’m just rattled. That was a lot to process all at once but I shouldn’t be yelling at you. If that’s all, though, I need to get going. I’m flying to Norway tomorrow.” Her expression lightened as she hopped down from the table. She grabbed her purse off the chair beside her, shook the doctor’s hand, and left the office.

Outside, she lit a cigarette and pulled the little black notebook out of her purse. Blotting the wet spots from her tears, she read the note over and over.

“Use the money to live one of your fantasy lives.”

She sniffled and composed herself, putting the cigarette between her lips to hold it as she dug in her purse for a pen.

As she flipped through the pages, she thought of all the things she had written for her grandmother since it was given to her. The book was nearly full now, with letters and sketches of where she’d traveled, journal entries of her stock investments, ticket stubs, and polaroids.

On a page titled ‘Bucket List,’ she ran her finger down the lines, passing dozens of checked off items. She struck a line through ‘Live the memories’ and beside it she wrote ‘I always loved you best.’

The End.