Tessa loved her family. But the sight of them hurt her so much. Watching them all grow older and frailer. Watching the mortality on them all and fearing having to bury someone else.
That thought always crosses her mind when the Herondale-eyes look back at her.
Sometimes she believed the loss of her loved ones would drive her mind insane. That was the reason for her memory difficulties, the grief and fears that took over her so much.
For this reason, too, she kept her visits to the family short and not too frequent. She didn't want them to notice what was happening to her.
Lately she has been able to go to her workdays in the hospital less and less often. She'd only gone on good days, and she'd left again when she found her brain starting to play tricks.
She also knew that soon there would be no days when she would be of help.
She could feel it getting worse. How she lost herself more and more every day.
It had never been as bad as this morning. She often thought she saw a person from her past in the wrong face, that she momentarily lost her bearings, or forgot what year it was. She stayed away from any correspondence because she could never be sure to put down on paper the same thing that she was thinking.
On bad days, she even found it difficult to read a book.
But she had never been so lost in the times as she was in the morning. Whole decades had been erased from her memory. She remembered neither her marriage to Will nor their children. The small apartment she shared with Catarina looked to her like Jem's old room at the Institute.
And the lines and age in his eyes were blurred into his youthful self.
She had not seen what was really there but how she had remembered him for so long.
The thought of forgetting about Will completely frightened her. Even more than having to find out over and over again that he had died.
Sometimes she cried because she believed the opposite. Wouldn't it be better to forget him completely and not have to experience the pain over and over again?
Those were just her weak moments, of course. Then she remembered his laughter again, how even in the most difficult of situations he found the possibility of a joke to make her laugh. She remembered how they sat together in the library and discussed a book for hours. These discussions got loud enough that strangers thought they were arguing. But Tessa loved it. During these times, they could insult each other without getting personal.
She remembered the first time he held James, when he was teaching Lucie to defend herself. She recalled how when their grandchildren were born, he beamed with such happiness that she could feel it in her heart. She remembered him sitting in the music room, Jem's old violin in front of him, writing to his friend. Who seemed lost to everyone but Will.
She always realized that the pain of his loss was a small price to pay for those memories.
That the moment she forgot all those things would be sadder than the day of his funeral.
It would be the day she didn't want to live anymore.
But she wouldn't even know because all the memories would already be gone.
"Tessa? Everything okay?"
She pushed her worries aside and smiled at Jem.
It was a happy day. A day she and Will had been waiting for their whole lives. "Everything is great."
His brow furrowed suspiciously, but he said nothing more.
He gave her time.
And that was good, she would tell him. Tonight, when the meeting with her family was over.
Jem had never had a family of his own so she could give him this one easy day to meet her family. A family that Jem had never seen but knew he was a part of.
"I suppose we'll find the others in the dining room. Bridget will be serving lunch soon and she doesn't like it when people are late."
Jem paused. "Bridget? Is she still here?"
Yes, she and Jem were old. They were of an impressive age, but Bridget was already the institute's cook when Jem lived here. She was in her nineties, working just as hard as she had when she was young, with no assistant or any memory problems. "Believe me Jem; Bridget will outlive us all."
He shook his head in astonishment. "And I thought someone would give her an early grave because of that horrible singing."
Tessa had to laugh. "You remember that?"
"Is that a joke? I don't think even I was averse at the time to assisting Will in a murder."
That was an idea. Jem couldn't even harm a fly, let alone kill someone from nerve strain.
What Tessa didn't doubt was that after the kill, he would have helped Will cover up the murder. He might not have approved, but he would have helped. He would have done anything for his loved ones. Once he let someone in his heart, they stayed there forever.
"I saw him, I saw him!"
Startled, Tessa and Jem turned at the same time to see the boy running towards them.
"The ghost! The ghost, I saw him!" The boy clung to Jem's coat, terror in his eyes.
His boyish face looked familiar to her. He wasn't one of her family, but one of the orphans who lived here. But Tessa couldn't remember his name.
She laughed. "Find another victim, my boy." The good thing about being a senior, she could call anyone my boy or my love if she couldn't remember the name. Nobody would get the idea that she was forgetful.
The boy grinned and distanced himself from Jem. He shrugged his shoulders. "It was worth a try, Grandma."
Tessa didn't know when the orphans started calling her Grandma, but she liked it. She and Will tried to treat everyone as part of the family. They believed it took more than a good education to do their job here.
Will came from a good family, he could have been educated anywhere, but what drew him to this place was the family he found here. That's exactly what they wanted to give to future generations.
"Better go to the dining room or you'll get in trouble."
The boy laughed again and ran ahead of them.
And by the time Jem and Tessa reached the dining room, everyone was already waiting for them.