I half expected to see my brother pulling up in his beater Ford truck when I heard tires crunching on the gravel road behind me.

He never could get it straight that I plain liked walking home from work—the wind blowing in the trees on the sides of the road shushed the nagging voices in my head. Every needy customer at Claire’s Diner sent my shoulders into knots so tight I could barely lift the empty coffee pot to clean it at the end of my shift.

Walking the two miles home reset all the twisted-up parts of me. I turned around to wave him off, but it wasn’t JR. It was some old geezer in a white van. He had a death-grip on his steering wheel and sped up to pull alongside me.

The geezer rolled down the passenger window. His face looked all bunched up like he wanted to cry. “Excuse me. Can you help me find 2254 Terrydale Road?”

“Mister, that’s my house.” My brain went fizzy with worry.

“I’m a doctor. Got a call that JR is doing poorly. Can you show me the way?”

I jumped right in. JR might be an annoying cuss, but I’d do anything for my little brother. In the car, it seemed to me the doc looked familiar, but I was so tired, I just couldn’t place him.

We pulled into my driveway and a lady dressed like a nurse met us at the car. “Well Miss Rose, we sure are glad to see you. Thank you so much for bringing her back to us, JR.”

I looked up at the house, only it wasn’t our house, it said “Shady Trees Memory Care.”

That old geezer still looked like he was making to cry when I went inside.