Exit Strategy. Jen J. Danna

      CHAPTER 1

      “How’s your mom?”

      “I swear she’s worse almost every time I see her.”

      Gemma Capello studied her best friend with concern. She loved Frankie like a sister, and watching her mother’s illness eat away at her tore Gemma apart. “Did she know you?”

      “She doesn’t know any of us anymore. She held on to Dad the longest—now he’s a stranger too. It’s killing him. It’s killing all of us, but mostly him.”

      Gemma reached across the restaurant table to squeeze Frankie’s hand. “He’s a good man and they’ve been married for nearly forty years. His life as he knew it is over. It was already changing while she was in the house, but now she’s in hospice. . . .”

      “He’s mourning her while she’s still alive because the inevitable is coming. He can’t stand to rattle around the apartment alone, so if he’s not with her at the hospice, he’s in the bakery working himself into the ground. I get tired just watching him.”

      “And I get tired just watching you. Like father, like daughter.”

      “I’m hardly doing that mu—”

      “Francesca Russo, don’t give me that. Every time I’ve been in the bakery lately, it’s the two of you, shoulder to shoulder. You work just as many hours as he does, possibly more. You let him slip away to visit your mom knowing the bakery’s in good hands. You are doing that much. Now, tell me about your latest visit with her, so I’m up to speed when I stop by this week.”

      “She’s slipping downhill. I think back to the days a few months ago when she was aggressive with the nurses because she was scared when she didn’t recognize people and places. Then she had life. Now she’s ... not there.”

      “Alzheimer’s is always hardest on loved ones. At this point, she’s probably unaware of her decline. Maybe that’s a blessing.”

      “We’ve brought stuff in for her—her favorite perfume and blanket, a portable CD player and stacks of CDs, photos of the family—so her room feels like home.” Frankie’s voice caught on the last word. Bracing her elbows on the table and weaving her fingers together, she dropped her forehead onto her knuckles, her long blond hair falling forward to shade her face.

      Gemma gave Frankie a moment to gather herself. Friends for as long as she could remember, they’d grown up together in the Little Italy neighborhood of Lower Manhattan, running in and out of each other’s kitchens on weekends with a familiarity that spoke of kinship. Both taking after their mothers, Gemma’s Sicilian brown eyes, olive complexion, and curly hair so unruly it never looked the same two days running complemented Frankie’s classic northern Italian fair skin, blue eyes, and blond waves. But sisters didn’t have to look alike to be two parts of a whole. They didn’t even need to belong to the same bloodline.

      Frankie tipped her face up. “I’m such a killjoy. This is