by Vi Keeland
Delilah: Me too.
***
It was after midnight when my phone buzzed again. I had just fallen asleep. Brody’s name flashed at me on the screen. I answered, smiling, grogginess in my voice. “Hey.”
“I woke you?”
“It’s okay. I must have just fallen asleep.”
“I shouldn’t have called so late. Sorry. I’ll call you in the morning.”
The tone of his voice made me sit up. I reached over and turned on the light. “What’s the matter?”
“I picked up my messages when we landed. Broadhollow Manor called. They took Marlene in an ambulance to the hospital.”
“What happened?”
“They’re not sure. She was a little out of it during the day. Then she took a nap, which isn’t like her, and never woke back up. Her vitals started slipping, so they called an ambulance.”
“Oh God. I’m sorry. Are you heading there now?”
“Yeah. They took her to St. Luke’s. I’m in a cab on my way.”
Brody barked orders at the cabby for the next five minutes, telling him not to take certain streets. The stress level in his voice rose as he got closer. “I’m gonna jump out and walk the last few blocks. Traffic is at a standstill on Eighth Avenue. At fucking midnight.” He pulled the phone away from his mouth and spoke to the driver. “Pull over, let me out here.” I heard the car door shut and muffled words as he exited the cab.
“I’ll get a flight first thing in the morning.”
“You have interviews to do. Your dipshit boss is already up your ass because of me. Stay. I don’t even know what’s going on yet.”
“But…”
“Get some sleep. I’ll text you when I know more.”
“Please do.”
“Yeah. All right. I’m gonna run. The hospital is only another block away, and I probably should call Willow and let her know what’s going on.”
I stayed up for a few hours hoping to hear from Brody again, but he still hadn’t texted before I fell asleep. I hated that I was so far away. I wanted to be there for him. Just sit by his side if he was going to hear bad news, to bring him comfort. And maybe, just maybe, there was a selfish part of me that wanted to make sure no one else was sitting in my seat offering him that comfort.
Chapter 28
Willow
The emergency rooms you see on television are a crock of shit. Doctors and nurses running down the hall with gurneys, one kneeling and performing CPR on a patient as others maneuver toward some big double doors that open on their own—yeah, right.
I looked around the depressing gray room, almost every seat taken as people waited. And waited. Three women dressed in blue uniforms sat behind thick plated-glass windows, chatting away and drinking coffee. Two security guards stood at the entrance door. It felt more like a prison waiting room than a hospital.
Two hours had passed with no updates. I walked to the reception window and waited, twisting my necklace nervously. The women continued to ignore me until one eventually looked up at me, annoyed.
“Can I help you?”
“My grandmother was brought in a few hours ago.”
“Did we call her name?”
“No.”
“We’ll call her name when the doctor is done examining her and give you a status update.”
The woman’s eyes stared above me, a non-verbal Next.
I went back to my seat and finished picking the nail polish off my nails, then went to the ladies’ room. I had been holding it in, not wanting to miss being called, but Mother Nature had grown impatient.
When I came back, Brody was at the reception counter speaking to the nurse. I wasn’t surprised he’d shown up. The nursing home had told me they’d left him a message. Yet seeing him standing there still stopped me in my tracks for a second. Even though he’d made it clear he wanted nothing to do with me, I walked to the window and joined him. He nodded at me in acknowledgment and continued his conversation with the same miserable nurse who had just turned me away. Except now, Miss Miserable was smiling. And she apparently could get up from her chair.
“Let me go back and check for you. The system still shows her in triage, but it’s been a few hours. I’m sure they can give me an update. Just give me a minute.”
Brody turned to me while we waited. “You just get here?”
“No. I was in the ladies’ room. I came in the ambulance with her about two hours ago.”
He nodded. “I just tried to call you. What did they find out so far?”
“I have no idea. They took her in and haven’t given me an update yet.”
The nurse came back to the glass a few minutes later. She pointed to the right. “I’ll buzz you in. Why don’t you come back?”
I followed Brody, even though I hadn’t been invited. The nurse led us to an empty examining room and told us to take a seat. A few minutes later, a doctor came in. He peeled off one glove and extended his hand to Brody first. “I’m Dr. Simon. You’re Ms. Garner’s grandson?”
“I’m her legal guardian. Willow is her granddaughter.” The doctor shook my hand. Until that moment, I had no idea Brody was her legal guardian.
“Why don’t we take a seat?”
I didn’t like the sound of things so far. We both sat, my hands wringing as the doctor spoke.
“Mrs. Garner has suffered a stroke. There are many different causes of strokes. We believe hers was a brain hemorrhage produced by an artery in the brain bursting.”
“Oh my God.” My hands flew to my mouth.
“Is she okay? Can it be treated? Fixed?” Brody asked.
“She’s having a CAT scan done now. That will tell us the location of the bleeding and the level of swelling. We’ll know more after we pinpoint the extent of the damage and the size of the hematoma I suspect has formed. Right now, we’re still working on stabilizing her blood pressure and breathing. We had to put her on a ventilator to help her breathe, and we’re treating her with medicine in her IV to try to regulate her pressure.”
“Then what? You perform surgery?”
The doctor looked at Brody, then at me, then back to Brody. “Mrs. Garner is very weak right now. I’m not ruling out anything. We will do everything we can to treat her. But right now, in the condition she’s in, she wouldn’t withstand cranial surgery.”
If the gravity of the doctor’s words hadn’t told me how serious it was, I knew things were dire from Brody’s actions. He reached over and covered my hands with his.
“She should be back from the CAT scan in a few minutes if you’d like to see her. Results should come back pretty quickly after that.”
“We’d like to see her. Thank you.”
The doctor stood. “I’m sorry I don’t have better news. Why don’t you stay in here, and I’ll have a nurse grab you when she’s back?”
The tiny room felt smaller with one less body. Brody ran his hands through his hair. “You okay?”
“I think so.” My delivery was less than convincing. It was hard to sound believable when you didn’t even believe your own words.
Two fingers slipped under my chin and tilted my head up. “Let’s not think the worst. We’re going to think positive. That’s what Marlene would be doing.”
***
I stared out the hospital window, watching the sun slowly rise on the horizon. So simple. So magnificent. Yet I’d spent years not even noticing it or paying any attention. Even in my darkest hours, I’d counted on the sun rising the next morning. Not unlike the two people sleeping in the room.
After a few minutes, I peeled my eyes away from the beauty outside and looked over at the rest of my world. The only things I’d ever known for sure in my life were that the sun would shine again and that these two would be there for me. Now nothing was certain except for that sunrise.
Grams was sleeping, a dozen tubes connected to her, the sound of the ventilator sucking the air out of her lungs and hissing new life in joined by the rhythmic beeping of her monitor. She’d made i
t through the night, which was more than the doctor initially thought would happen. Now it was a matter of time until they could repeat the CAT scan and see if the bleeding had stopped.
My watery eyes fell on the man sleeping next to my grandmother. Brody had finally dozed off an hour or so ago, sitting up in a padded chair. I told him he could go, head home and get some rest for at least a few hours, and I would stay. But he never even considered it. Grams had always been like family to him. After his mom died of cancer when he was only seven, Grams had filled the matriarchal void in his life. She was always there for him. And he, in turn, had been the only reliable person in her life after Pop Pop had died.
Women had always loved Brody. With his undeniable good looks, physique of the professional athlete that he is and stature as one of America’s most admired quarterbacks, there wasn’t much not to like. Add a heaping dose of confidence and the ability to make a woman feel like she was the only person in the room, and it was no wonder women literally chased after him. But the thing that makes him a man who was impossible to get over is exactly who he was right now. The most devoted person I’ve ever known. When the man loves, he loves hard, nothing stood in his way.
God, I would have given anything to have my old life back again. To turn back time so I could appreciate everything I had, rather than throw it all away. I deserved to be the one sitting in that bed, not Grams.
I spent the next hour mindlessly fiddling with my necklace, watching the two people I cared about most in the world, and falling in love with them all over again. When Brody’s eyes fluttered open and found me sitting across the room, our gazes locked for a long moment. I saw the moment he gave in. He might hate me down deep, but he was letting go of his anger. For now at least.
“How is she?” he asked.
“The same.”
“How long was I sleeping for?”
“Two hours, maybe.”
“You sleep at all?”
“Not yet.”
He stretched out in the chair, arms reaching up and neck going from side to side. “Why don’t you go home? Get some sleep. I’ll call you if anything changes.”
“I want to stay.”
It looked like he was going to say something but then changed his mind. Instead, he just nodded.
“Still drink sugar with some coffee in it?” He stood.
“I do. Still drink it black and disgusting?”
He chuckled. “I’ll go find us some.”
Things between Brody and I relaxed a lot more after that. We weren’t best friends again, but I also didn’t feel like he was shooting an imaginary bow and arrow, with my forehead as the target.
“How long has she been in Broadhollow Manor?”
“A little over three years.”
I nodded. I had no idea how long it had been since I’d seen the two of them. Years of my life had been wasted and gone. The screwed-up thing was, now that I was sober, it felt like the world had stood still for me. I’d aged, but life had never progressed. It was as if I were picking up after pushing pause on my life for a long time. The thing was, my life had been the only thing paused. The world had gone on around me.
Brody and I made small talk while we kept vigil. It was better than the silent treatment, although there were so many meaningful things I needed to say that I still didn’t have the courage to speak. When the nurse came in a few hours later and asked us to step out for a little while so she could wash Grams and take her vitals, Brody and I headed to the cafeteria to grab a bite to eat. We wandered into a gift shop first.
“You need anything?” He had a baseball cap in his hand.
“A toothbrush would be nice.”
The woman at the counter recognized Brody when she rung us up. Walking out of the store, he pulled on the cap, bringing the bill low on his face.
“Disguise?”
“Sort of.”
“Is it everything you thought it would be?”
“What?”
“Being famous.” When we were teenagers, we used to spend hours dreaming of what being a famous football player would be like.
He glanced at me. “Nothing turned out the way I thought it would.”
We ordered two egg sandwiches from the cafeteria and sat down to eat. Brody finished his in what seemed like three bites. I ate only half of mine.
“You’re not going to eat that?”
I smiled. Brody always had a ridiculous appetite. Wherever we went, both of our plates were wiped clean, but it was usually because Brody devoured everything on his plate, then attacked mine.
“Nope. Help yourself.”
He finished off my breakfast and guzzled his small black coffee.
“Do you remember when we went to that Oktoberfest during senior year, and you ate that guy’s full plate of food because you thought it was mine?”
“Yeah. I almost got my ass kicked by Paul Bunyan in lederhosen. That was the biggest person I’ve ever seen wearing overalls in my life.” We both laughed at the memory. We had snuck into a German festival, but only had twenty bucks between the two of us and were starving and unwilling to forego beer. So we each ordered an appetizer and the biggest mug of beer we could afford. Brody was off talking to some guys from the football team, and when he came back, I told him he could finish my appetizer while I headed to the bathroom. He proceeded to eat the entire fifteen-dollar meal that was on the table. Only it was on the table next to where my leftover appetizer had been. We had one large, pissed-off German guy to contend with when he realized that his meal was gone.
When we got back to Grams’ room, the nurse was done, and a doctor came in a few minutes later. He told us that although her stats had stabilized from the medication, she wasn’t trying to breathe on her own, and that wasn’t a good sign. They would repeat the CAT scan in the early afternoon to determine the extent of the damage. Each doctor who stopped in felt compelled to warn us that things were not looking good. It was as if they were trying to prepare us for what the afternoon test would bring.
Brody and I were both quiet for a while after the doctors left.
“She has a health care proxy. I found the papers when I was cleaning out her things in the apartment. She and your grandfather had them drawn up years ago. I never tried to have a new one made, because my lawyer said her mental capacity would be an issue if we drew up any legal documents. So even though I’m her legal guardian now, her health care proxy was made when she was able to make her own decisions. And those decisions were her wishes.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means her medical decisions get made by the person who she wanted to make those decisions, not me.”
“And who is that?” The answer was obvious, but I hoped I was wrong.
“You.”
Chapter 29
Delilah
I’d tried to reach Brody three times since the morning, but each call had gone straight to voicemail. I finally ended up sending him a text before Michael and I taped the spot with Payton Mara. When we were done, the text still didn’t show as delivered. I was growing concerned for so many different reasons.
“Everything okay?” Michael asked on the way back to the airport.
“Sorry, yes,” I lied. Well, sort of. “I just don’t like to fly. I get nervous for hours before.” It was the truth, but it wasn’t what had me preoccupied today.
“I think our seats are next to each other. My hand is available for holding. And squeezing if you need.”
I forced a smile. “Thank you. But usually I need more of a drool wiper than a hand-holder.”
He glanced sidelong at me before his eyes returned to the road, so I explained, “I take a Xanax, it knocks me out pretty good. But it’s either that, or my heart might crack a few ribs pounding so hard to get out of my chest.”
“Ah. Drool wiping it is, then. Even though I was looking forward to an excuse to hold your hand.” This trip had proven that Michael was the nice guy that I initially thought he was, not the bad guy Brody ha
d warned me about. Although I was glad I hadn’t gone out with him. Until Brody, I’d avoided anyone who might make my heart race. Letting anyone in other than Drew had felt like I was cheating. But somehow, Brody had wormed his way into my heart without my even seeing it happen.
Michael and I had just cleared security when my phone buzzed in my jacket pocket. Brody’s name flashed on the screen.
“Hey. I’ve been trying to reach you all day. Is everything okay?”
“Sorry. I was in the hospital, and my phone was off. I just turned it back on.” He sounded exhausted.
“It’s fine. I was just getting worried. How’s Marlene?”
“Not good. They’re doing a repeat CAT scan now, so I’m heading to my place for a quick shower and change of clothes. She had a stroke.”
“Oh God. I’m sorry.”
“Thanks. They’re keeping her alive with machines right now. But they’re not giving us much hope that the second scan is going to come back better than the first scan. She has bleeding in the brain, and she’s not strong enough to survive surgery.”
“I don’t know what to say. What can I do?”
“There’s nothing anyone can do. The doctors are doing everything they can, and they’re still not sure it will be enough.”
“I’m at the airport in Miami. My flight should land about seven. Will you be there all night?”
“Yeah. I’m probably gonna stay again tonight. I have practice early tomorrow, and I already missed practice today. Not sure how things are gonna go, but I want to stay as long as I can. Coach will fine me, but he’ll understand when I explain things in person.”
“I’m available to bring up dinner or come sit with her so you can take a little break.”
“Thank you. But I’m good for now, babe.”
“I wish I would have had the chance to meet her before now. The way you talk about her, I know how much she means to you.”
“Yeah. She’s pretty great. More like family to me than most of my real family. They say blood is thicker than water, but that doesn’t mean shit. Everyone needs water to live.”
