Summer of Supernovas

by Darcy Woods

“Shh.” Irina winds her arms around me. “Shh,” she croons. “It’s not your fault, Wil.” She keeps an arm around me while taking Gram’s IV-free hand. Her voice is a shadow of a whisper as she murmurs something in Russian. She repeats the phrases, over and over like a prayer. Whatever they mean, I find them soothing.

  And for a time we sit, clinging to Gram’s life and each other.

  “Wilamena? I’m Dr. Gaultier, the cardiologist who treated your grandmother.” He pauses to punch something into the tablet he carries.

  “Will she be okay?”

  The middle-aged doctor removes his glasses, tucking them into the breast pocket of his lab coat. “We are doing everything we can to help her to recover. Your grandmother suffered an inferior wall S-T elevation myocardial infarct, or what we call an N-STEMI. When she arrived, she had an acute blockage of the right coronary artery. This complete blockage also triggered the arrhythmia, resulting in her loss of consciousness. We’ve performed an angioplasty with stent placement of her right coronary artery to regain proper blood flow back to the heart.

  “Now, Wilamena, we’ve run all the preliminary tests, and there’s nothing that suggests your grandmother has experienced brain damage. However, because it’s unclear the amount of time she was unconscious before you began CPR, we won’t know if she’s completely neurologically intact until she wakes up. It’s possible there could be some memory loss, personality changes—”

  Iri finds my hand and squeezes it. And as the doctor continues his explanation of Gram’s status and care, I can’t unstick myself from the words “brain damage” and whether or not my grandmother will be “intact.” Those are ugly phrases with uglier connotations because it robs people of who they once were.

  What if Gram isn’t Gram when she wakes up?

  What if she doesn’t remember me?

  What if, what if, what if…

  I stare down to where Irina’s hand clenches mine. My fingertips are mottled red and white. I feel nothing.

  Dr. Gaultier’s still speaking, but I haven’t heard anything else.

  “I’m sorry.” I rub my swollen, tender eyes. “How long will she have to be on this breathing tube?”

  “Currently the ventilator is doing much of the breathing for her. We can, however, monitor when she instigates her own breath. So until she’s able to spontaneously breathe on her own, we’ll need to keep her vented and sedated.” He rests a hand on my shoulder. “It’s important to have faith, Wilamena. As I’ve said, we’ve opened up the blocked artery, so she’s getting the blood her heart needs. But your grandmother’s been through a tremendous trauma. Her body will need time to recover.”

  “Thanks,” I say as the doctor exits the room.

  Irina’s phone chimes. She lets go of my hand and frowns as she reads the message.

  “What?”

  “It’s…” She offers a pleading look. “I, um, wasn’t thinking clearly on the way here. I got a call and might’ve mentioned you were at the emergency room with Gram.”

  “Who was it?” I ask before blowing my nose into one of those scratchy hospital-grade tissues that offer all the comfort of tree bark.

  “Hey, I got here…as quick as I could.” Grant’s standing there breathless, cheeks flushed with color, hair disheveled. “What can I do? How can I help? Or…do you want me to call Seth instead?”

  “I’m sorry”—a panicked Irina looks to me—“I didn’t know he would actually come.”

  Grant’s head snaps to Irina and then back to me. “I—I can leave. Or wait downstairs? Or, um, you can send me on errands. I’m good at following directions.”

  I can’t believe he’s seeing me at my emotional rock bottom. And he sees Gram with all her awful tubes and breathing devices and…he’s not flinching or turning away. If anything, he seems desperate to stay. I can’t understand it. And I can’t understand why I’m not immediately telling him to go.

  A nurse pokes her head in the room. “I’m very sorry, but we can only allow two visitors at a time. One of you will need to go to the waiting area.”

  I give Irina a slight nod. That’s the beauty of best friends—talking without words. She can read everything from the tilt of my chin to the expression in my eyes.

  “Well, I was about to pop down to the crap-a-teria anyway. Earl Grey sound good?” Irina asks me.

  “Please,” I answer.

  She kisses the top of my head and slings her bag with the metal rivets. “You’ll stay with her while I’m gone?”

  “Of course,” Grant answers.

  Irina squeezes his arm as she passes. “You’re one of the good ones.”

  I toss my mound of tissues into the trash while Grant walks uncertainly closer. “Am I overstepping? Because you can tell me to leave. I mean, with everything that happened the other night…”

  “I just don’t understand why you’d want to stay.”

  Grant pulls the chair closer to the bed and sits down. He reaches through the space in the plastic rails to find my hand. It’s warm and gives me more reassurance than any doctor could. “A few years back, I had this friend who was in trouble. I should have done more to help. I won’t make that mistake again.”

  I let my thumb stroke the ripple of tendons across the top of his hand. “What happened?”

  He doesn’t let go but shifts back against the chair. “Not now, okay?”

  “Well”—I swallow the ever-present sadness in my throat—“thank you for being here.”

  “Thank you for not making me leave.” He squeezes my hand. “But I meant what I said…if you want me to call Seth, I will.”

  “Is it wrong that I don’t want you to? That I don’t want you to call? I just…” I gaze back to my grandmother, sleeping deep inside herself.

  “There’s no right or wrong, Wil. So, what are the doctors saying? Unless…you’d rather not talk about it.”

  I’m shocked to discover I do. Grant listens and nods and asks all the right questions. And then Irina returns and someone has to leave. So Grant squeezes my hand one last time before walking out the door.

  It’s gotten late. I’m so exhausted I’m seeing double. Visiting hours are over but I’m told I can return tomorrow morning.

  Irina’s skipped work to be with me, but I know she needs the cash. Even with her latest pool hustling, she’s still short on enough funds to move out of her tetya’s.

  “I’m just gonna crash tonight,” I say to Iri for the umpteenth time. “You might as well get a few hours in at Inkporium.” We navigate the busy ER waiting area, where a baby is wailing and a haggard old man reeks of pee and alcohol.

  “Uh-uh, I’m not leaving you alone tonight.” She puts her arm around me, guiding us around a rambunctious kid who is not the least bit slowed down by whatever’s stuck in his nostrils.

  “Baba, why does that guy habe silber tape od his shoe?” Plugged Nose asks.

  “It’s not polite to point,” she scolds. “And it’s that finger that got you into this trouble in the first place. Whatever possessed you to shove raisins up your nose?”

  My heart is leaping in my chest. I’m flooded with hope that it’s my guy with the silver-taped shoe. And it is! Grant’s slumped half-asleep in a chair too small for his long body. His elbow slides beneath him, causing him to jolt awake.

  “Hey.” He rises. “I, uh, wasn’t sure if you’d need a ride.” Grant crams his hands in the pockets of his jeans. “But Irina’s probably gonna take you, so I’ll go…”

  “Actually,” Iri says, checking her cell, “I was due at work a while ago. I’m sorta hurting for hours, so if you don’t mind, maybe you could take her?”

  “Yeah, sure. Whatever you need.”

  Irina hugs me goodbye. “Did I read that right?” she whispers.

  Honestly, I don’t know what I want. But I nod into her shoulder, because sorting out my messy feelings is too much work.

  I promise to call if I need anything, and she promises to meet me at the hospital first thing tomorrow.

 
Grant takes my hand and for the briefest second, I forget the anguish of the day.

  “Let’s get you home,” he says.

  I wake up to the feeling of movement. We’re in Grant’s pickle wagon, and my head is cradled in his tattooed arm. I take a deep breath, inhaling his laundry smell, and my stomach grumbles at another smell…food.

  “You’re home,” Grant says quietly. “I didn’t want to wake you, but I stopped at Spoon & Ladle and got some takeout. I know, probably dumb to get soup in the summer.”

  I sit up woozily. “No, it smells good.”

  “I wasn’t sure what you’d want so I got four different kinds.”

  “I’m not really that fussy.” My attempt at a grin doesn’t carry the grace it should. “Thanks.”

  Grant parks the wagon and follows me up the steps.

  I unlock the door and can hardly believe this is the same house it was this morning. Now it is unwelcoming. Cold. We kick off our shoes on the mat beneath the bench.

  “Where should I put these?” He holds up the soup carrier.

  “Living room is fine.” I tuck my hair behind my ear. “I could use a shower if you don’t mind. Maybe a change of clothes.”

  “No rush,” Grant says.

  But it isn’t long before I’m padding back downstairs, clean and in my silk pj bottoms and worn constellation T-shirt. My cheeks seem to have permanent stains of pink that look like rouge gone wrong. Simply put—I’m a disaster. And too tired to care.

  Grant’s laid out spoons and napkins on the coffee table, and lined up all the soups in a neat row. “Okay, what’s your poison? Broccoli and cheddar, tomato bisque, hearty chicken nood—”

  “Stop, just…” I sit down beside him on the couch and bury my face in my palms.

  “It’s too warm for soup, isn’t it? I can run out and grab something else. Whatever you want—”

  “No! It’s…if you do or say one more sweet thing, I might fall apart.” I choke back a sob. “Why are you still here? Why do you keep doing all these things for me?” I close my eyes and slowly open them. “Grant…what do you want?”

  He takes his time setting down the soup lid, training his eyes on it. “Is it that you really don’t know? Or you want me to say it out loud?” He swallows before looking at me when I don’t answer. “You should eat your soup before it gets cold.” He passes the cup of chicken noodle, which I wordlessly accept.

  A stupid movie plays, filling the conversation void. When I can’t withstand another second of mindless chatter, I shut it off.

  “I broke up with Seth,” I say. “That’s part of why I didn’t want you to call him.”

  Grant rubs his furrowed brow. “Last night wasn’t exactly a shining moment for any of us, Wil. And…I think he’d take you back in a heartbeat if you asked him to. If”—he pauses—“that’s what you really want.”

  None of that eases my conscience; it makes me feel worse. “You know why I was with him in the first place?” I let out a morose laugh. “Because he’s supposed to be perfect for me according to our astrological charts. He even had the exact birthday of the person I was looking for. Seth is my cosmic destiny. And right before my mom died, she had me promise to—”

  “Wil, you don’t have to do this now. You’ve been through enough.”

  “No, I do, because you should know. I’m not a nice person. I’m a rotten person.”

  “I disagree. I think you’re an incredible person who’s had rotten things happen to her.”

  I whip my head away, staring at the afghan Gram knitted eons ago. Anytime I was sick or upset, she’d wrap it around my shoulders. But she isn’t here to do that now. “You’re wrong, Grant.”

  “Well, then, you don’t know the girl I do.” Grant slides closer. In response, I move closer to the armrest. “Wil, stop trying to push me away, or trying to make me think you’re a bad person—you’re not.”

  “Nice people don’t agree to dates and meeting parents and hot-air balloon rides because of the day someone was born. Seth has been nothing but sweet to me, and…and…”

  Grant slides his arm over my shoulders. I give up fighting it. “And what?”

  “I don’t love him,” I finish hopelessly. “I don’t. I never will, not the way I should.”

  All the air rushes from his lungs as he pulls me tightly to his chest.

  My eyes water, spilling their sorrow all over again. “God, what if I really am broken? What if all this loss…destroyed my ability to really love the way a person should?”

  “I don’t buy that for one second, Wil. I see you,” he says fiercely. “I see the love you have for Irina and your gram.” He dabs my wet cheek with a napkin. “You’re bruised…not broken.”

  My shoulders shake with another sob. “Gram’s my entire universe. Without her, I have nothing—no one. I can’t lose her, Grant. I just…can’t.”

  “Shhh, shhh,” he croons. His arms embrace me, holding me together, while the rest of me falls spectacularly apart. I slide deeper into my chasm of sadness. And he lets me. Lets me cry until I’m emptied of tears and quiet again.

  I sniffle in his T-shirt. “Grant?”

  “Yes?”

  “Why did you climb the water tower when you’re afraid of heights?”

  “What?” He stills the hand rubbing my back. “I told you, we thought you were going to jump.”

  “But…there was something else”—I peer up—“wasn’t there? There had to be.”

  “Wil, sweetheart—”

  “Call me Mena.”

  Grant tucks the hair behind my ear. “Mena, it’s not a story for tonight.”

  I find his hand, drawing it into mine. “Would you tell me anyway?” And I can’t explain why it is so important for me to hear his story. Maybe it’s being here in his arms, soul stretched and bare before him, that now makes me desperate to know the parts he hides.

  Indecision wars on his face.

  I squeeze his hand. “Please?”

  His hand instinctively moves over his tattoo. “It’s…it’s because of the friend I was telling you about earlier. Her name was Anna—Anna Rodriguez.” I startle at the last name. “Yeah, Manny’s cousin—my girlfriend sophomore and junior year. She was this totally incredible girl who wasn’t afraid of anything, and there was a line of guys dying to date her, but she picked me. Out of all of them, she picked me.” A sad smile lifts the corners of his mouth. “She taught me how to dance, how to speak Spanish.” He quiets for a moment. “She taught me a lot of things. For a while…it was great.

  “But Anna had these dark moments, too. Her home life sucked. Manny tried like hell to get her to leave and come to his family’s house, but she wouldn’t. Wouldn’t dream of abandoning her mom—even at her own expense. Not that her mom was around much, since she worked two jobs just to make ends meet. Which killed me because we had more than enough.

  “And then her stepdad”—Grant gives his head a disgusted shake—“he was a heavy drinker and pissed away any earnings on the bottle and gambling. She denied there was any abuse, but I think by the time I came into the picture the damage was already done. All her scars were on the inside. I wanted to fix it—make her better. I wanted the happy girl I fell for to be there all the time. But I saw her less and less. The past has a way of catching up to us, you know?”

  I do. More than I’d like to. I draw a breath to speak, but Grant has already moved on.

  “So we broke up. I broke up with her. I was sixteen and my overprivileged ass didn’t know how to deal with the way her past was eating at her. Anna got mixed up with a rough crowd of partyers and users. God, Manny and I did everything we could to get her out of that scene. But she kept migrating back—over and over.

  “Then she called me one night—drunk, high, maybe both—begging to get back together. I said no.”

  The sadness percolates from somewhere deep inside him before he continues. “I knew she was upset, but I also knew there’d be no reasoning with her when she was that messed up.” Grant’s fin
gers pass over the inked musical notes on his arm. “Anna died that night.”

  “Oh, Grant.” I push back from his arms, seeing the pain cut across his face. “What happened?” I whisper.

  “Sometimes they partied at construction sites. She, um…she climbed up some scaffolding to one of those metal beams, lost her footing, and…” His voice thickens with emotion. “It was pretty much instantaneous.”

  I wrap my arms around his waist and lay my head to his chest. “God. I’m so, so sorry.”

  “Me too. I played back the last time we spoke again and again and thought of a million different things I could’ve said, I could’ve done.”

  “You know it wasn’t your fault.”

  “Maybe, maybe not. But there isn’t a day that goes by when I don’t wish I had done more, tried harder, listened. I don’t know.”

  I sigh into his chest. “That’s why you climbed the tower, isn’t it? You were rewriting history…by saving me.”

  Grant nods and then continues. “After the funeral, I went into my own tailspin. Staying out late, drinking, finding excuses to get into fights.

  “One night at a party, a guy got rough with this girl. I found her on her back, dazed, nose bloody, and I just…snapped. Ended up beating the guy so bad he spent several days in the ICU. He filed charges, and if it weren’t for my parents and the lawyers, I would’ve stood trial. So they saved me.”

  He shifts uncomfortably in my arms. “But besides the drinking and fights, I was also sleeping around—a lot. Anything to make me forget about Anna and how I could’ve been the one who made the difference between her living and dying. You can’t imagine the weight of something like that.”

  My hand finds his; our fingers lace together. I caress my thumb over his skin. “What brought you back?”

  Grant lets out a sorrow-filled chuckle. “Manny. He knocked the self-loathing out of me—I mean that literally…he punched me in the face. Told me how pissed Anna would be at the way I was throwing my life away. So…I just immersed myself more and more in my music. It gave me an outlet for the grief, the anger, all the helplessness. It’s when I wrote ‘Anna’s Song’—the tattoo.” He lifts the inked arm, trembling when my finger runs over the musical notes. “It helped me get through.”