The Berry Grove Assisted Living Facility was a collection of bright buildings arranged in a close-knit square that housed about fifty seniors at a time. The walks were lined with flowers, and there was a pretty patch of yellow hyacinths on the way from my grandmother's apartment to the general recreation area. I thought about picking one every week as we ambled passed, but I never did.
          The recreation area had floral carpet, generally clean but stubbornly stained in a few places. A gold, hanging light fixture lit the TV area, which had a large flatscreen, a coffee table, and a white, patterned couch with two matching chairs. The TV area was an alcove off the main area, which had wooden tables and two large shelves with books and games. The wallpaper was subtle and faded, in some places covered by generic paintings of fruit, people, and nature. Grandma liked coming in here for our weekly visits because they had a nice mancala set, and that was the game we'd played together since I was a little girl.
            The board was solid wood, stained dark and rounded on the edges. The beads were white, blue, green, and what I knew was bright red but looked muted to me. I liked to hold them in my hands, toss them back and forth, rub them between my fingers until they started to feel heavy. I had some beads gathered in my hand to count, trying to figure out which basin to pick for my turn. Grandma was beating me, but I thought I could come back from her stealing seven beads from my side. Probably.
            I glanced up at her, but she wasn't looking at me or the game. I followed her gaze instead to the TV and saw the two men sitting over there watching Hogan's Heroes. It was my grandpa's favorite show. He had me watch it with him sometimes when I was little. All I could remember was wondering what the thing on Klink's eye was, how he kept it there, and why Hogan was always kissing different woman. Grandma didn't care for it but watched it with him, but after he died, she couldn't watch it anymore. It was too painful, she said.
            I counted ten beads in my hand and figured it was good a play as any; I was screwed no matter what I did. So, I let the beads fall from my hand, into one basin after the other, until I made it back to my side of the board. As I sat back in my chair, the muscles in my left leg spasmed and I winced, clenching my teeth. That was the fourth spasm that day. Grandma, eyes still on the TV, didn't notice – the spasm or my finished turn.
            "Okay," I said.
            She blinked. "Okay, what?"
            "It's your turn."
            "Oh, well, I wouldn't know. You take forever." She leaned forward, surveying her options. Loose hair from her bun fell over her forehead, but she left it there. It was white for as long as I could remember, but, according to my grandpa, when she was in her twenties – my age when she moved in to Berry Grove – it was the same auburn as mine.
            I turned back to the TV; I hadn't seen Hogan's Heroes in ages. It was about a group of Allies operating a secret organization in a German POW camp during World War II. When I tuned in, Hogan was arguing with Klink. I could just hear it if I focused.
"I merely wanted to see him for a moment, to pass on some encouraging words, perhaps send a letter to his mother!" Hogan, I guessed, was lying through his perfect teeth. "The Colonel Klink I once knew wouldn't deny that to any man."
            "I'm not gonna let you see the prisoner," Klink, wearing his monocle, argued.
            "Yeah, the Colonel Klink I knew was quite a guy. Let me tell you some of the things my boys used to say about this grand human being."
            "Your turn," Grandma said. I tore my eyes away from the screen and looked back at the losing game as she went on. "I will never understand why your grandpa loved that show so much."
            I shrugged, counting beads. "It was funny."
            "Sure, it was funny. The war was funny, too – and he lived that." She shook her head, fiddling with her locket. It had picture of grandpa inside, in full, wrinkled uniform. "Over there getting shot at, killing people, and the man couldn't even legally drink beer back home. Probably why he wanted to go to Europe in the first place, to get drunk."
            I laughed; I'd heard several stories of my grandpa's wilder days. He sounded like a funny drunk. I could only imagine him drunk in Europe – at nineteen or twenty no less. Those stories he'd never tell me. In fact, he didn't tell me anything about the war – except for the story about the little French girl. It was after the Allies had won the war, but Grandpa's regiment was still in France. There was a little French girl, maybe six or seven, that was interested in the soldiers. I couldn't remember how he first met her, but I remembered that he always gave her his candy rations. The others teased him, too, said, "Vern, your girlfriend's here." He didn't care, though. He'd talk to her in his broken French, and she'd share his candy with him. He had her picture, but I don't think he ever went back to find her again. I wondered where she was, if she remembered him. If she wondered about him or somehow knew that he was gone. It would be awful if she suddenly came looking and we had to tell her, "Sorry, he had dementia, he's gone now." Not only did he die, he forgot about you before he did.
            Beads clinked together as I dropped them into the basins, the game about to end in a bitter defeat. A few more turns and Grandma would have it – nothing I could do. My leg spasmed again, and she glanced up at me as I winced. "Spasm?" she asked, making sure my leg hadn't locked up.
            "Yeah."
            She hummed in response, pulling on her peach-colored sweater before taking her turn. That was one of my favorite parts of spending time with her – the normalcy of it. The lack of reaction. Even my father would make a big deal out of everything when he didn't need to, ask what new treatment or walker or whatever he needed to buy. The moment I got diagnosed – or cursed, as I liked to say – with MS, almost right out of high school, he started throwing money around.
            And Charlie – Charlie overreacted to everything. The slightest wince brought him running with the walker I'd rather keep in the closet. Every tremor turned into me not lifting another finger for the next hour at least. I should've known; I met him about three years before when I was trying to carry all my groceries by myself and he insisted on helping me. It was a wonder he still let me visit Grandma alone but he usually had work on the days I could go see her. He couldn't argue with me about Grandma, though he did tag along whenever he could. And Dad may have paid for her to live there, but he certainly wasn't going to come visit; money, to him, made up for actually being there. So, I usually rode the bus alone.
           Grandma won her game and gloated, and I rode the bus home – not because she won, but because I was getting tired. She was, too, even if she wouldn't admit it. I didn't want to leave – didn't want to return to that empty house with Charlie written all over it, but I didn't have much choice.
           I stumbled into the house and made my way around the kitchen just to make myself a microwave dinner, and all the while the pictures on the fridge stared me in the face. Charlie and me at his family reunion, Charlie, Grandma, and me at a movie night at Berry Grove, Charlie, me, and Barney, the old dog we used to have before he got out of the fence and got ran over. It'd been a year and a half and I still wasn't ready for another dog. How would I ever be ready for another Charlie?
           I didn't think I deserved one.

          The next week, I rode the bus back to Berry Grove. I met Grandma in her apartment, full of pictures of Grandpa, Dad, and me – and naturally some of those included Charlie. I tried not to look at them, wonder what he was doing just then. Probably at work, at the hospital. Taking orders from doctors and helping other people like he was born to do.
           Grandma and I made our way to the recreation area, got out the mancala board, and began setting up our game. There were a few people around, talking quietly. The TV was on, playing some black and white western. Two men, the same from last week, were watching it. I found myself disappointed that Hogan's Heroes wasn't on.
            "You see that man over there?" Grandma asked, gesturing to the other two men sitting a couple tables away, playing checkers.
            "Which one?"
            "The one in the plaid shirt."
            "They're both wearing plaid."
            "No, they're not; the other one's in gingham."
            "What's the difference?"
            She rolled her eyes. "The blue shirt, the blue shirt. Stop staring or he'll see you. Goodness sakes."
            I chuckled, turning back around. "What about him?"
            She groaned. "Shameless flirt – will not leave me alone. Poor Vern not eight years in his grave and he chases me like a dog."
            I finished my starting turn and glanced back at the unassuming man. "Is he nice?"
            "Too nice." Grandma shook her head, picking up beads. "Not like the one you got. That Charlie. Now that's a real man."
            A knot of guilt formed in my chest. "We don't- We don't need to talk about Charlie... right now."
            Grandma looked up, eyes big through her thick glasses. "Why not? Did you have another fight?"
            "Sort of. Let's just-"
            "Oh, I'm sure you'll work it out." She turned back to the mancala board, no longer concerned.
            I almost wanted to laugh. "I don't think so."
            "Oh, come on, Ellie, it can't be that bad-"
            "I cheated on him, Grandma."
            She dropped a muted red bead as the guilt sank right into my stomach, waiting for what she would say. For an expression of shock, a reprimand, a confirmation of what a horrible person I was.
            Grandma shrugged. "I cheated on your grandpa Vern once."
            My eyes widened. "I'm sorry, you what?"
            She sighed, looking up from the game and leaning forward. "It was during the war, okay? Your grandpa and I got engaged right after he got drafted, before they shipped him off to Europe, right? So, he's in Europe and here's a boy down the street – Robert Prichard. He was a year younger than me, and I played with him a little bit when we were kids, saw him at school and around the neighborhood. He was nice as can be, but he was as nervous as a long-tailed cat in a room full of rocking chairs. 

            "Well, he got drafted like every other breathing man between the ages of eighteen and forty-five, and shortly after he came to the house to see me. So, we stood there on the front porch and he didn't say anything for ages, so I finally asked him what he wanted. And he said that he'd never kissed anyone in his life and he didn't want to die without knowing what it was like, so he asked me to please kiss him so he'd know. I was only the girl in the whole world he could ask. So, I kissed him."

            "Then?"
            "Then what? He went to war, like everybody else."
            "But did he make it?"
            She shook her head. "Poor thing was shot down in France."
            "Sounds like you did him a favor, then. I'm sure Grandpa wasn't all that mad-"
            "Oh, no, I never told him." She gestured to the mancala board. "It's your turn, by the way. Has been for a while."
            "You never told Grandpa?"
            "What for? To upset him? No, I never told him. Now take your turn, slowpoke; I'd like to finish one game before supper time."
            I rolled my eyes but did as she said. "In any case, Grandma, my story involves much less heroism than that. I didn't do it as a man's dying wish."
            "So why'd you do it then?"
            I never went to parties after I was diagnosed. I probably shouldn't've been going before, as a teenager, but I did. I snuck out, met up with my friends, had a good time, and got chewed out and regretted it in the morning. It was never as fun as I thought it was going to be, but the mere fact that I was doing something I wasn't supposed to was enough. That night, though, I'd been invited to a party. A real house party, hosted by a friend of a friend I hadn't seen in a while, but it got sent to me on Snapchat, and I knew, immediately, that Charlie would never let me go. I had practically passed out on the kitchen floor after making breakfast that morning due to sheer fatigue so bad I couldn't make it to the couch. It was the beginning of a relapse, and that always made him and the symptoms ten times worse than at the end. But every fiber of my being, every bewitched nerve in my body, wanted to go to that party. Charlie went to the movies with some friends – some horror thing I didn't want to see – and he got a ride from a friend. The car was at the house, and I wasn't supposed to drive it, hadn't driven since I started dating Charlie, really. Even when I still could drive, he wouldn't let me. It took me ages to finally give it up, but I had to face that it was too dangerous. That night though, I didn't think about consequences. I drove myself to that party, and by the grace of God, I got there.
            It was a normal house party. Horrible music, questionable drinks, and a bunch of people I didn't know and didn't know me. I found a few people I had met before, talked to them as best I could over the music, but eventually I had to sit down and found a mostly empty sitting room away from everything. All I'd had to drink was water, but I was so dizzy it was like I'd had too much. My legs were starting to go numb, and panic hit me just for a moment when I realized Charlie wasn't there and didn't know where I was. That was when Darcy sat down next to me, and I was bewitched in a whole new way.
            His name wasn't Darcy – I don't know what it was, but every time I thought of him I called him Darcy. Ever since I read Pride and Prejudice, that was what I wanted. My very own Darcy, the epitome of true love. Sure, my name wasn't Elizabeth, but Elinor was close enough.
            Darcy, with his deep brown eyes and charming smile, said something to me about the party, and I said something back. I could smell alcohol on his breath, but he was cute and I thought he was flirting with me, and for a moment I didn't care. I don't know how we ended up kissing – if I kissed him or he kissed me – but even though it hit me, that it was wrong, I stayed right where I was and let it happen. Because he didn't know.
            He didn't know about the tremors when I tried to do something as easy as picking up a fork. He didn't know about the weakness in my muscles, the fatigue that could take over my body. He didn't know about the spasms or the sudden pain, the numbness. How I went colorblind, how I get dizzy, how my vision goes double. How I have to get up a hundred times a night to go to the bathroom. How I forget things, how I can barely walk on my own anymore without stumbling. How, one day, I probably won't be able to walk at all. He didn't know about the lesions of white matter in my brain, caused by the immune system bewitched to betray me. He didn't treat me like I needed help to do absolutely everything because he didn't know I needed help to do anything at all. To him, I was just a normal girl at a party.
            "As my own wish, I suppose," I said.
            Grandma shrugged. "Maybe you can call him."
            "He doesn't want to talk to me."
            "You don't know that-"
            "I'm not gonna call him. I've done enough."
            Grandma sighed as she finished her turn, taking six beads from my side. "Well... Charlie was a momma's boy anyways."
            Despite it all, I laughed. That was true enough. Still didn't change the fact that I'd hurt him, or the look of utter betrayal on his face when I broke down and told him. Or even the selfish fear that I would have no one to take care of me anymore when he walked out the door – though him caring for me too much was what we fought about most. But it was true enough.
            I sighed, seeing how screwed I already was. "How do you always manage to do that so quickly?"
            "Because you still use the same strategy you used when you were ten," she replied. "How about we start again and I'll go easy on you this time?"
            "I don't need your pity, thank you."
            "You don't need pity, you need serious help." Grandma gathered the beads and started setting up her side for a new game, so I reached over to start setting up mine, hands shaking as I did so. I pushed through the tremors anyway, and Grandma and I managed to finish setting up at about the same time.
            "Alright, I'll let you go first so you might have a- Harvey, don't you dare change that channel!" Grandma shouted, hurrying to get out of her chair. The man in the blue plaid shirt jumped up to help her. I turned to look at the TV and saw a show I only vaguely recognized. The two men on the couch, one of them Harvey, turned to my grandma.
            "I ain't changing it," he said.
            Grandma was out of her chair by then and, ignoring the man in the blue plaid shirt, gestured to me while she booked it to the TV with her walker, the same one I had at home due to her recommendation. "Come on, come on over here. Hurry."
            I got up and started to follow her, my swaying gait not helping matters – not that it ever did. I started to grab onto the chairs around me for support, but the man in the plaid shirt turned to me and held out his arm with a smile. Whether it was an attempt to get my grandma to like him or not, I decided to take it instead of struggle and listen to her hurry me over. We made our way across the soft carpet as the sunlight shifted through the windows.
            When I got to the couch, I sat next to Grandma, who had just plunked herself next to Harvey. The other man had already moved to a chair. The man in the blue plaid shirt sat in the other chair, and Grandma ignored them all as the theme song came on, revealing the title of the show to be Bewitched.
            "This," Grandma said, "was my favorite show."
            "What's it about?" I asked, though I guessed a few things based on the broom, the hat, and the fact that the cartoon woman was turning into a cat before my eyes.
            Grandma, shockingly, didn't point out that it should be obvious; she was too excited. "It's about this husband and wife – Darrin and Samantha. Samantha's a witch and Darrin's a regular human. They get up to all kinds of crazy things. Oh, I haven't seen this in ages." A short commercial passed and the show continued with real life people. The wife, Samantha, was pouring a cup of coffee as the husband, Darrin, came in. Grandma leaned over to me. "Wasn't she just gorgeous? I always wanted a small little nose like hers – magic powers or not." I chuckled and watched as, with only the wave of a hand, Samantha turned the hands of their wall clock forward when Darrin wasn't looking. I marveled as she convinced him he was late and rushed him out the door.
            How simple would it be to do things with just the wave of a hand?
            There was banging on the back door, so Samantha turned the clock back before answering it. But it was actually the cellar door, and out of it came her Aunt Clara, covered in soot. "Do you know that one of your chimneys leads to the furnace?" she asked.
            Samantha laughed and took her bag and umbrella. "Here, give me this. I'll clean you up, then you'll feel better."
            "Oh, good."
            Samantha snapped her fingers, and Aunt Clara was completely clean – coat and hat gone, face shiny and new. Like she'd never been dirty in the first place, just like that.
            They moved to the kitchen table, and Aunt Clara told her about her weekend at Lady Montague's, where they went hunting and she shot one of Lady Montague's dogs because she didn't realize they were hunting birds. Then, she mentioned something about being earth-bound and a woman in a purple and green witch outfit showed up talking about a trial.
            "That's Samantha's mother, Endora," Grandma explained, still not taking her eyes from the TV. "I think this is the one where they try to take Clara's magic, poor thing."
            Samantha said she'd clear Aunt Clara of the charges, then Aunt Clara got up. "Well, I think I'll go to the den and rest before the trial."
            "Clara," Endora said, "why don't you pop into the den? Like a witch?'
            Aunt Clara lifted her arms, and instantly she was gone. I marveled again – to get somewhere in a flash, without even walking! Samantha smiled. "Well, there certainly wasn't anything wrong with the way she did that, was there?"
            "Wasn't there?" Endora pointed, and there lay Aunt Clara's shoes on the floor, left behind.
            As the laugh track rang out, my stomach sank.