Read Chapter 27: — THE LOST STREET

Winter came early.

Arthur began forgetting small things.

Keys. Names. Whether he had turned off the kettle.

Then one afternoon he failed to return from the performance school.

Margaret found him standing outside the old Ward house, now behind construction fencing.

“I knew where I was,” he insisted.

But Lily noticed more.

“Grandad keeps going to the old home,” she told Eleanor one night. “He says the new road is wrong.”

Eleanor felt fear move through her body like ice.

Medical appointments followed.

Cognitive testing. Blood tests. Scans. Questions about dates and memory and daily function.

The diagnosis was early-stage Alzheimer's disease.

The family met without Arthur first.

Daniel wanted the school closed.

Jamie agreed Arthur should not travel alone.

Margaret looked exhausted.

Eleanor said nothing for a long time.

Then she asked, “What does Dad actually want his remaining good years to contain?”

Daniel frowned. “Safety.”

“That's what we want.”

“He could get lost.”

“Yes.”

“He could forget students.”

“Yes.”

“So?”

“So we change the system, not erase his life.”

Eleanor decided to leave the hotel and run the performance school with him.

Daniel stared at her.

“You've just rebuilt your career.”

“I did. That's why I know I can build another version.”

“What about Adrian?”

Eleanor looked toward the study where he had deliberately left the siblings alone.

“He'll have an opinion. He doesn't have a veto.”

Adrian's opinion was simple.

“Do it properly.”

“You're not going to tell me I'm wasting my career?”

“No. I'm going to tell you to create safeguarding procedures, funding, paid administration and a plan for when your father can't teach.”

She laughed through tears.

“You're impossible.”

“So I've heard.”