Secret: Abuela (Last Bluff)

 

Reuben insisted on holding Abuela’s hand as she drifted off, even as he was told by everyone it was probably of little comfort, for in those last few years dementia had made everyone a stranger to her.

 

They would never know – as he squeezed her creased, maplike hands – that Reuben was the only face she recognized in the room the night she died, the last memory fluttering through her frail mind of she and her favorite grandson playing poker on a moonlit patio for pennies.

 

She let him win every hand.

 

 

 

 

                   Swear never to tell

 

 

 

                   Make no promises