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And, by the way… Sully? Gross.” I walked past the nurses’ station towards room 124 before she could say much more.  
    Rebecca was hitting on nerves that I was barely starting to realize existed. It scared me because I was becoming extremely aware that Sully did exist in volatile new ways. I told everyone that he was simply my best friend, but lately, that didn’t feel true. I couldn’t help notice how girls looked at him in the hallway. Muscles were sprouting everywhere off of him, as if he had a secret stash of steroids that he mixed in with his Frosted Flakes every morning, and his voice was growing into this soft, deep growl that tickled the hairs on the back of my neck. I hated it, because it meant that things were changing.  
    “Suit yourself, hon, but boys like that don’t stick around forever. Sooner or later, some hot little blonde is gonna scoop him up, and you’ll be sorry.”  
    I looked back to see Rebecca fluffing up a lackluster blonde curl and laughed. I wasn’t sure when she decided my love life was her business, but she was determined to live vicariously through me. Not many young people entered the nursing home, and I think she appreciated the opportunity to talk to someone under the age of ancient. Luckily, I’d already reached the door and could escape the rest of the uncomfortable conversation.  
    “Papa?” I peeked into the door to make sure he was decent. Seeing him in an open bathrobe once was traumatizing enough, but lucky for me, today he was fully clothed in his khakis and an old man shirt. Papa loved wearing wool button-ups that were close to being plaid but were never actually plaid. He sat near the window, and he didn’t say anything in return which meant it was one of his silent days.  
    “Papa?” I tried again.  
    I was asked all the time why I called my father Ringo and my grandfather Papa. I’ll admit it was a strange habit, but as a toddler, I kept hearing Ringo call my grandfather Papa, and Papa calling my father Ringo. Those were the names that stuck in my head. They found it too endearing to correct, and eventually it was too late to even try.  
    I put my backpack down and sat in the chair next to him. A gift bag was on the windowsill with “Texi” written in Papa’s big, shaky letters. When he was lucid, he always talked Rebecca into helping him find a gift for me when I visited. Torn our pages from musty books with highlighted passages, Internet printouts of obscure poetry, mismatched chess pieces with letters on them, magazine clippings about a new species found in the rainforest or some other scientific discovery. It was always a something small, and I had a box hidden under the floorboards of my bed where I collected them like soft memories at the back of my mind. The little box put tangibility to the intangible. It reminded me that every once in a while, my grandfather was still himself—a thoughtful, kind, old man—even if by the time my visit came around, he’d already forgotten all about the gift he worked so hard to find for me.  
    Rebecca always set the gift on the windowsill by the fern. “I’d give it to you as you walk in,” she explained once, “but this way, it comes from him completely. It’s a dignity thing, you know?” Things like that made Rebecca the best person for this type of job. I couldn’t imagine spending every day watching people move in and out of lucidity, but she always found a way to remember the person trapped inside the fading mind.  
    I pulled the bag into my lap and reached in to find a small box. “What’s this?” I asked without expecting an answer. I knew that on his silent days, I talked more for my comfort than for his. I opened the lid to find an orbed, blue pendant hung from a silver chain. It looked liquid in texture, like an ocean wave had been rolled up into a marble. When I lifted it, I learned that it was dainty but sturdy. I wasn’t much for jewelry, and the only piece I wore constantly was a