Free Only You by Denise Grover Swank

then you’ll probably wonder if it’s worth it.”
    Holly sighed as she hung up the phone. Had just made a deal with the devil?
    ###
    By five thirty, Holly had finished working up her proposal. She locked up the office and headed to the retirement center, her stomach twisting into knots. Seeing her grandmother agitated and confused the day before had upset Holly more than she’d cared to admit. The doctors and nurses had warned her the day was coming when her grandmother wouldn’t know her at all, but last night had been the first time Holly had seen it for herself. And it was only the beginning. But she had high hopes that today would be a good day, and she had brought her leatherbound scrapbook.
    “Good evening, Holly,” one of the nurses greeted her, squatting next to an elderly man in a wheelchair.
    “Hey, Betty. How’s Grandma today?”
    The silver-haired nurse offered her a warm smile. “Better today. She’s been asking for you. You can find her in the dining room.”
    “Thanks.”
    “How’s that that wedding coming?” Betty stood, moving behind the chair and grabbing the handles. “The one with the bride who’d been sick.”
    “Oh. The Murphy wedding.” One of Holly’s brides had had a cancer scare, but everything had worked out in the end. The couple had turned the ceremony and reception into a celebration of life as well as the beginning of their new life together. “The wedding is next weekend. Everything’s coming along perfectly. She picked the strawberry cake.”
    “Ooh! I want to see photos!”
    Holly smiled. “I’ll make sure to bring them.”
    She found her grandmother at her usual table, sitting next to several of her friends. Grandma Barb looked up and smiled, her eyes lighting up with happiness. “There’s my Sunshine!”
    This was the woman who had mothered her. Who had been the rock she’d clung to almost her entire life. Tears filled Holly’s eyes as it fully hit her all that she’d be losing when Grandma Barb would no longer recognize her.
    But she blinked them back, offering her grandmother a bright smile as she sat in an empty chair at the six-person table. “Hey, Grandma. How’s the Jell-O today?”
    “They put oranges in it today. Delilah hates oranges, don’t you, dear?” she asked the woman next to her.
    The woman wrinkled her nose. “Can’t stand them.” She patted Grandma Barb’s arm. “Is this your granddaughter? She’s lovely.”
    Delilah must be new. The ever-changing resident roster was more depressing than usual today. Holly forced a smile. “Thank you. I’ve been told I look just like my grandma when she was young.”
    Her grandmother laughed. “I had hair just as blonde and eyes just as bright green. But you should she her cousin, Melanie. She’s the spitting image of her mother with her coal-black hair. No one ever mistook these two for sisters. They were as different as night and day in both looks and spirit.”
    “I can’t wait to meet her,” Delilah said. “When will she be by?”
    Grandma looked down at her plate, so Holly jumped in. “Melanie has a new boyfriend and she had a date tonight.”
    “You don’t say,” her grandmother responded. “You hadn’t told me that.”
    Holly forced herself to stay calm. She’d told her grandmother several days ago.
    “Maybe she’ll bring him by,” Delilah volunteered. “Do you have a boyfriend…what was your name?”
    “I’m Holly, and no, no boyfriend.” She set her leather binder on the table. “But I get to plan weddings, so I’m perfectly content living vicariously though other people’s love lives.” She laughed. “Even if it makes me sound a bit like a stalker.”
    “You brought your notebook,” her grandmother said.
    Holly smiled. “You’d been asking and I hadn’t brought it in in ages. There’s quite a few more weddings in it now.”
    Grandma Barb turned to Delilah. “She’s been planning weddings since she was a little girl. She used to cut photos out of magazines