Jisoo sighed as she slowly walked back to her big recliner and threw herself down. Joonyoung sat on the couch with a frown on his face as he, his sisters, and his grandmother listened to the hateful words spuing out of their grandma's mouth. Day in, day out, Lisa would have at least a few tantrums that ended with her storming back to her room and swearing that she was going to live somewhere else with one of her other kids.
Jisoo's age weathered hands rubbed her face as another headache pounded at her temples. She felt bad that her daughter and her family had to hear the spiteful words of the woman they loved so much, but there was nothing any of them could do. And it wasn't like they could talk to her, it just set the elderly woman off, even more, sometimes making her cry. It was hell for everyone there but they couldn't leave for long, just in case something happened.
What if Lisa fell again? At eighty-seven, Jisoo couldn't pick her up, especially when her wife couldn't help her when it wasn't clicking. Joonyoung moved over to sit next to his grandmother and patted her wrinkly, soft hands. "How are you, Mimi?" Jisoo smiled wearily at him and shook her head.
"It's not getting any better," she told him truthfully. It was getting worse. Lisa's temper was out of control, her moods were unpredictable, and her disease was getting worse. No matter how much they slowed it, it would always press on, eating away at the tall woman's brain until there was nothing left.
"Is there anything I can do," her grandson asked quietly?
"Don't worry about me baby, I'm okay. You go do some school. I know you aren't caught up." Joonyoung sat for a moment, looking at the woman he loved so much and looked up to so much, sagging into her chair in exhaustion.
"Alright, Mimi. Let me know if you need anything," Joonyoung said. He got up, pecked his Mimi on the cheek, and walked back to his and his sisters' room. Yeonhee sat at her top bunk, playing with her dolls without a care in the world. At seven years old, she didn't understand why Granny got mad at her and yelled at everyone. She just thought Granny was mean, no matter how many times Joonyoung and Hyeok tried to tell her differently.
Hyeok sat on her bed, leafing through a notebook full of ideas and notes on culture, fantasy notes, magic systems, and anything else you could imagine about writing. The oldest Kim sibling listened to a podcast as she flipped through what she was looking at for the day. "Granny's mad," Joonyoung announced as he dropped onto his bed.
"What happened this time," Hyeok asked without looking up.
"Mimi told her not to steal any more water from the fridge. She got mad and went to their room."
"Alright," Hyeok said. At this point, a year and a half into being in the small town to take care of their grandparents, the angry yelling had become background noise that rarely roused outside intervention. The slightest thud though would have just about everyone in the house running.
And that was it. Yeonhee continued to play with her dolls, Hyeok listened to her podcast with a set frown on her long face, and Joonyoung stared at the ceiling with blank, lifeless eyes.
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At around eight o'clock that night, the power went out. Lisa sat in her rocking chair, laughing at the tv when someone was thrown into a trough of water after a fight in a saloon. Her laughter immediately died, turning to a tone of disapproval.
"Oh lord. The lights went out." Jisoo sat still in her chair for a moment, a fuzzy green blanket covering her entire frame.
Five phone flashlights were wiped out, providing a little bit of illumination in the room. "Did you pay the bill," Lisa asked her youngest daughter.
"Yes, mama, I did." Joonyoung sat in the living room with the rest of his family as his mom and Mimi set up carnosine lamps with Yeonhee sat in his lap, resting her head on his chest.
The silence was painful as a room full of people stayed completely silent.
"Joonyoung, I was your age when I meet your Mimi," Lisa said suddenly. Joonyoung moved Yeonhee on his lap so he could use his other arm to point the flashlight on his phone near his grandmother. "I was walking to Chongho's house down from Ryang Shiwoo's house with my mama when I saw her back. I stopped and my mama said, 'What's wrong?' and I said, 'There's the one I love if I don't get her.'" Lisa laughed and leaned back in her chair, thinking back on the old days when she was young and still living at home with her massive family.
"And she said, 'I know,' and I asked how, and she said, 'Oh Lalisa, you're white as a sheet!'" Joonyoung settled in his chair, sitting in the dark surrounded by his family as his grandmothers talked and told stories, realizing something that made his heart warm.
No matter how back the Alzheimer's got, no matter how many versions she told, Lisa seeing Jisoo for the first time and falling in love with her just from looking at her back in her brother's army shirt, was the one story she always remembered. She remembered the core of the way she met the love of her life, the woman she had been with for 68 years. It was the one story she always remembered.
