A Million Ways Home

by Dianna Dorisi Winget

  Trey stepped out into the hall to take a phone call. When he came back a few minutes later, a gray-haired doctor followed. “Are any of you here for Bethany Parker?”

  I sat up. “She’s my grandma.”

  “I’m Dr. Corliss,” he said, looking between the three of us. “We’ve got her stabilized for now. Her vital signs are good, but her oxygen level is very low. It’ll be at least twenty-four hours before we’re able to ascertain the amount of damage. Nobody at the nursing home seems to know exactly when she had the stroke.”

  “What made her have another one?” I asked.

  Dr. Corliss gave me a kind look, like he felt bad he had to answer a question like that. “Your grandma’s had a series of mild mini-strokes, and unfortunately, they often lead to bigger, more serious ones.”

  I swallowed. “Can I see her?”

  He nodded. “You can go in for a minute. But I’m afraid she won’t know you’re there.”

  “I don’t care. I want to anyway.”

  Marti stood. “I’ll go with you.”

  The doctor started out of the room but then turned back. “Do any of you know if Mrs. Parker has a durable power of attorney?”

  “I’ll check on it,” Trey said.

  Grandma Beth lay in a mostly white room, underneath all-white bedding. She had a tube in her arm and an oxygen mask over half her face. A dark green bottle was attached to a machine that made sharp hushing noises every few seconds. It made me sick to see her looking so helpless. I reached out and touched her hand. “She’s cold.”

  Marti pulled the blanket higher on Grandma Beth’s chest. “I doubt she feels cold, honey. It’s probably just her hands.”

  I wrapped my fingers around Grandma Beth’s wrist. Her pulse throbbed as soft as a feather’s touch — so softly I barely felt it. I wanted to tell her I loved her, that everything would be okay, and to just sleep as long as she needed. But it felt like somebody had me by the throat. And the worst part was that the doctor was right — Grandma Beth didn’t know I was there. It almost felt like she wasn’t there herself.

  Later, I spent most of that afternoon lying on Marti’s couch pretending to watch a movie. But my mind was numb with guilt over lying to Trey and worry over Grandma Beth, and I knew if I didn’t find some way to let the pressure out, I’d go crazy. There was no way I could explain what I’d done to Marti or Trey or even Grandma Beth, if she’d been awake. They wouldn’t understand, and who could blame them? But then it finally came to me — there was one person who might understand. Someone who’d made her own stupid mistakes. I pulled out my cell phone to text Lizzie.

  Hi. What R U doing?

  My phone buzzed with a reply only seconds later.

  Hi. Cleaning dog kennels.

  I sucked in a breath. Lizzie was at the shelter. I found Marti in the kitchen, rolling out pizza dough, her hands covered in flour. “Hey there,” she said. “Like pizza?”

  I nodded.

  “Great. It’s one of the few things I ever make from scratch. Want to help?”

  “Actually, I was wondering if we could go to the shelter for a while.”

  “It’s closed today, honey. It’s Sunday.”

  “I know. But Lizzie and Carol are there. Besides, I really want to visit Gunner.”

  The rolling pin stopped, and Marti’s eyes clouded with worry. “Gunner’s beautiful, Poppy. But he’s … he’s got an uncertain future. Don’t get attached to him.”

  I let out a soft breath. An uncertain future. Those words made me want to start bawling again, because she wasn’t just describing Gunner — she was describing me. I turned my palms up. “I know,” I said. “I just really need to see him. Just for a few minutes. Please?”

  Marti sealed her lips. I watched as she patted the dough into a circle and waited for her to say no. But instead she nodded. “All right, as soon as I get the dough ready to rise.”

  Carol’s car was the only one in the shelter parking lot. Marti went inside, and I slipped around back to Gunner’s kennel. He stood and stared intently as soon as he caught sight of me. “Hey there, boy. How are you doin’, Gunner? What a good dog.”

  The low growl came at about ten feet again, but this time I didn’t let it bother me. I kept moving forward, ever so slowly, and Gunner continued to growl. But he finally stopped once I knelt down on the scrubby grass right outside his kennel and started to talk to him.

  After about ten minutes, he quit acting nervous and sat to observe me from a few feet away. I kept talking, telling him how handsome he was and how he could be a dog movie star if he wanted. After a while, his ears pricked up and he looked past me.

  I turned, expecting it to be Marti. But it was Lizzie. “Figured you’d be out here,” she said.

  “Hey,” I said.

  She gestured toward Gunner. “Usually he has a fit if anybody gets too close.”

  “He’s not mean. You just have to be quiet and move slow. Give him time to get used to you.” I patted the ground beside me. “You can come sit if you want.”

  Lizzie hesitated a few seconds more before she moved closer and gingerly sat down on the grass. Gunner watched her every move, but he didn’t growl.

  “See,” I said. “He’s okay.”

  Lizzie started pulling up blades of grass and making a little pile beside her leg. “Marti says your grandma’s not doing so great.”

  I swallowed. “No. She had another stroke.”

  “That stinks.”

  “Yeah,” I said, and my heart started to pound like when I’d seen the poster of William Eugene Frank. “Lizzie, can I ask you something … kinda personal?”

  A guarded look came over her face, like she was afraid it was some kind of trap. “Maybe.”

  “That day you spray-painted the federal building, what made you do it?”

  She didn’t answer for a minute, but her throat bobbed as she swallowed. She leaned back on her arms. “I dunno. I was just so … mad.”

  “Mad at who?”

  “At my parents. For all the stupid arguing, and for getting divorced, and for never asking me how I felt about any of it.”

  That caught me up short. I had no idea Carol was divorced. “Sorry. I didn’t know. When did it happen?”

  “Last year.”

  “That must have been really tough.”

  She released a slow, even breath. “People get divorced all the time, but you never see it happening to your parents, you know? I mean, one day everything seems okay, everything’s like you’re used to. And then the next thing, your parents drop this bomb on you. We’re splitting up. Decision made. Live with it.” She rolled her eyes. “They have no idea what it feels like, what it does to you.”

  I nodded and tried to think of something to say, to tell her it all made sense.

  “It’s not like I thought getting in trouble would actually fix anything,” she said. “I just felt like I was gonna explode I was so mad. I actually wanted to get in trouble, to cause them trouble, you know? To make them pay somehow.” Her breath hitched on that last word and she looked down, embarrassed. “Sounds pretty lame, huh?”

  I sniffed and shook my head. I wanted to tell her how many times I’d felt that same exact anger myself. Anger at my parents for leaving me with Grandma Beth, for not loving me enough to stay home. But Lizzie didn’t know that part of my story. “No,” I said softly, “it actually makes perfect sense.”

  A slight motion caught my eye as Gunner turned in a circle and then calmly lay down, like he was settling in for what he knew might be a long conversation.

  “So,” I said, “if you could go back, would you do it again?”

  Lizzie smirked. “No way. It’s practically wrecked my life.” She gave me a close look. “Why’d you want to know all this anyway?”

  Why? It was another of those simple questions I had no idea how to answer. All I knew was that my guilt was about to suffocate me if I didn’t let it out. And even though crying in front of Lizzie was the last thing I wanted to do, the emot
ion came flooding up anyway.

  “Because,” I whispered, “I think I just wrecked my life, too.”

  She drew back a little, like she thought I might be contagious or something. “Oh,” she said. Then she took a quick look over her shoulder and lowered her voice. “So … are you gonna tell me?”

  I knew I was taking a chance, because I didn’t even know Lizzie that well. But I started to talk anyway, and everything gushed out like I’d turned on both faucets full blast, and I couldn’t have stopped if I’d wanted to. I told her about Grandma Beth’s second stroke, about how sick she really was, and about how scared I was. I told her more about Lindsay getting shot and about William Eugene Frank, and then I told her how I’d lied to Trey.

  And Lizzie kept her mouth shut and listened, with her eyebrows arched a little, like she couldn’t quite believe such an interesting story could come from somebody like me.

  “Whoa,” she said when I finished. “You did get yourself in deep poop.” Then she smiled. “Thought you said your life was only G-rated.”

  And I smiled, too, because it was a pretty funny comment even though I didn’t feel like laughing. “I told you it used to be G. But it’s more like PG-13 now, remember?”

  “No kidding.” She squinted at me. “But you don’t really believe you made your grandma have another stroke, though, right? ’Cause that’s not how stuff happens.”

  I sniffled. “I don’t know what I believe anymore.” I looked over at Gunner and made eye contact with him. “Hey, boy,” I said. “Now you know my secret, too.”

  “So what are you gonna do?” Lizzie asked. “About that Frank guy?”

  “I don’t know. What can I do?”

  “But don’t you want the cops to catch him? I mean, aren’t you scared he might be looking for you?”

  I swallowed. “Maybe a little. I don’t know. I think I’m more scared that Grandma Beth won’t get better, and I’ll have to spend the rest of my life at the center.”

  “So what’s it like at that place?”

  I rolled my eyes. “It’s awful. Everything about it stinks. It’s crowded, there’s not enough hot water, and the food’s no good. But mainly, it’s not home. I hate it.”

  Lizzie was quiet for a minute, then she let out a soft sigh. “I’m supposed to spend every other weekend with Dad.”

  The change of subject sent me spinning for a few seconds. “Then why don’t you?”

  “Because it’s like what you just said, it’s not home. He’s got an apartment now, and his girlfriend, Kimberly, and her kid, Jake, are always over there, and it just feels so weird.”

  “Is Kimberly nice to you?”

  Lizzie tipped her head to the side. “She tries to be. I mean, she asks me what I like to eat and how school’s going and stuff like that, like she’s trying to be all friendly.”

  “Is that a bad thing?”

  “Yeah. Because, I mean, I have a mom. And I don’t wanna be her friend. So I don’t know how to act around her.”

  “What’s Jake like?”

  She shrugged. “He’s eight, and he’s kind of a pain. He always wants me to play computer games with him.”

  “Is his dad around?”

  “I’m not sure. I think he took off when he was little.”

  I cringed inside. “He’s probably lonely.”

  Lizzie looked at me. “Why?”

  “Well, if he’s the only kid, and he doesn’t have his own dad, then he’s probably … lonely.”

  She studied me with a curious look, and I was worried I’d said too much. But then Lizzie nodded, like maybe that hadn’t occurred to her. “You never told me why you live at the kids’ center.”

  It took me a second to realize she’d changed the subject again, and my muscles tensed at her question. “You know why. Because my grandma had a stroke.”

  “Yeah, but why do you live with her? What happened to your parents?”

  I glanced at Gunner. He lay quietly, with his head resting on his paws. I felt my heart squeeze at the thought of having to explain about my parents to another person. “I can’t right now,” I said. “Maybe another time.”

  She shrugged, but I could tell she was disappointed. “Yeah, okay.”

  Without thinking, I stuck my fingertip through the wire into Gunner’s kennel and wiggled it at him.

  Lizzie drew in a breath. “Better watch it.”

  Gunner studied my finger for a few seconds, then he stood and cautiously stepped forward and brushed it with his nose. “Good boy,” I whispered. “What a good dog, Gunner.”

  And then I stuck all my fingers through, and he moved a step closer, like he’d just been waiting for somebody to try and be his friend. And I touched his long whiskers and the thick, coarse hair on his neck, and it felt like I’d won a prize.

  Lizzie whistled softly in admiration. “Guess he likes you.”

  “Yeah, well we’re both kind of like prisoners, so we can relate to each other.”

  She grinned. “Makes sense to me.”

  I pulled my hand away from Gunner and checked my cell phone. Forty-five minutes had passed. “I should go. Marti’s probably waiting for me. Promise you won’t tell anybody what we talked about.”

  “I won’t if you won’t.”

  I reluctantly stood. “Thanks for … you know, letting me spill to you.”

  She smiled. “Sure. But remember, only the first session’s free. After this, there’s a hundred-dollar spill fee.”

  Trey wasn’t there for supper that night, and I was so glad, since he was the last person I wanted to see. After I finished my pizza, I called the hospital to check on Grandma Beth. She was the same, the nurse told me, but resting comfortably. She promised to call if anything changed overnight.

  Marti offered me some chamomile bath soap and sent me to take a bubble bath. By the time I finished soaking in the hot water, I was nearly asleep. I got into my pajamas, gave Marti a hug good night, and fell into bed. But as soon as I tucked my hand under the pillow, a sharp crinkling sound made me jump back up and flip on the light. And I stood there, staring, as all the guilt I’d managed to push aside came roaring back.

  Right beside my pillow lay the Twinkie Trey told me I’d earned — two, in fact — my reward for lying to the police.

  There was no change in Grandma Beth over the next two days, but on the third day she finally woke up. Trey took me to see her. She’d been moved from the intensive-care unit to a regular room. A thin purple curtain hid her bed from view as we walked in, but I heard the familiar hushing sound coming from the oxygen machine. I hesitated in front of the curtain, afraid of what I might find when I pulled it back.

  Trey gave me a nudge. “Go ahead, you check on her first.”

  I moved the curtain aside a few inches and peeked around. Three bright red poppies stood in a glass vase on the windowsill, looking like they owned the room. “Grandma Beth,” I said. “It’s me, Poppy. Are you awake?”

  She turned her head toward me. An oxygen mask covered her mouth and nose, but I could tell she was smiling from the way her eyes crinkled at the corners. She reached up and lowered the mask. “Oh, Poppy.”

  The sound of her voice paralyzed me for a few seconds. Her words sounded slow and strange, almost like her tongue was too thick. I moved up beside her, leaned down, and kissed her on the cheek. “I was so scared for you,” I whispered. “Are you feeling okay now?”

  “I’m okay.”

  “Does it hurt to talk?”

  She gently moved her head to the side. “Just harder.”

  “Does the oxygen help?”

  Her eyes flickered with confusion. “Oxygen?”

  My heart sank. I pointed toward the oxygen machine. “Yeah, you know, the oxygen coming from the mask. Does it help?”

  “Oh,” she said. “Yes.” She moved the mask back into place and took a couple of deep, slow breaths before pulling it down again. “Who’s with you?”

  “Trey.”

  “Have him come in.”

/>   Trey pushed aside the curtain and stepped in. “Mrs. Parker,” he said. “It’s sure good to see you again.”

  Grandma Beth didn’t smile. She looked him up and down for a long moment, and I wondered what she was thinking. Then she gathered a breath and said, “Thank you for looking after my girl.”

  “You’re welcome. She’s a great kid.”

  His words made me cringe inside. If he only knew.

  Grandma Beth looked at me. “That she is.” She held the mask back in place for several seconds.

  “Who brought you the flowers?” I asked.

  Grandma Beth slowly turned her head toward the windowsill. She studied the poppies for several seconds with her lips pressed together, before looking back to me. “I forgot.”

  I stepped over to the flowers, but there was no card.

  “Marti,” Grandma Beth suddenly said, sounding pleased with herself.

  I gaped in surprise. “You got to meet Marti? She’s Trey’s mom.”

  “Yes. Very sweet.”

  I wondered when she’d had time to stop by, but before I could ask, Grandma Beth said, “Poppy, I need coffee.”

  “Are you supposed to have coffee?”

  She smiled. “Don’t tell the nurses.”

  I gave her a close look. “Are you trying to get rid of me?”

  “Never.”

  “Then why are you making me leave when I just got here?”

  “Priscilla Marie,” she said with obvious effort, “coffee, please.”

  I reluctantly nodded. “Okay,” I said. I frowned at Trey, and he moved out of my way with a smile.

  There was no coffee in the nearest waiting area, of course. I had to take the elevator two floors down to the maternity ward before I found a pot. But then there were no sugar packets, only cream. I finally tracked down some sugar. If Grandma’s plan was to send me on a wild-goose chase, it had worked like a charm.

  By the time I rounded the corner back to her room, Trey was just coming out. “Your turn,” he said. “I’ll be back up in a bit.”

  Grandma had raised the bed so she was more on my level. It wasn’t until I held the coffee cup out to her that I realized she couldn’t lift her right arm.