“Now, I want you to cry a little for me, Kitty.” A faint smile played on her face, a shadow of Nana’s mischievous side, then it faded. “And then I want you to wipe your tears and make a wonderful life for yourself.”
Claire swallowed the huge lump that had formed in her throat. “I love you, Nana. I love you so much.”
“I know that, Kitty. You’ve never left me any doubt. And I love you dearly.” Nana cleared her throat and struggled to raise herself in the bed. Claire gently lifted her grandmother’s head and shoulders, shocked at the feathery weight of the frail body. She plumped the pillows behind Nana’s back.
“You made a promise to me, Kitty.” The strength was fading rapidly from her voice. “I want to see Jo—I want to see Michael before I die. I . . .” She closed her eyes and Claire waited for a long minute, but Nana was silent, her energy apparently spent.
Claire smoothed the wrinkled brow. “I’ll bring him, Nana. I promise.”
“Bring him now,” her grandmother ordered.
Claire’s heart pounded hard and fast in her chest as she hurried down the hallway to the offices. “Oh, God, please . . . please let him be there.”
The administrator’s office was empty, but the receptionist told Claire that Michael hadn’t yet left for the day.
“I can page him if you like,” the woman told her, undisguised curiosity on her face.
“Please do. It’s important.”
She paced the hall outside his office until five minutes later, Michael walked toward her, his expression unreadable.
“Hi, Michael. I’m sorry to bother you, but—” Unable to hold it back another minute, she burst into tears.
He put a consoling arm around her. “Is it your grandmother?”
She nodded.
He squeezed her shoulder. “I’m so sorry, Claire.”
As she realized that he'd misunderstood, she forced herself to regain her composure. “No . . . no, Michael. She’s awake and she’s asking for you. Could you please come and see her—meet her? Please?”
“Oh, of course. Of course.” She could hear the relief in his voice.
They walked back to the wing, Claire leading the way into Nana’s room. Nana appeared to be asleep when Claire reached her side. Gently, she began to pat her grandmother’s arm.
“Nana. Nana, Michael’s here.”
The old woman opened her eyes, closed them, then opened them again. It seemed a supreme effort. “Hello.”
Claire glanced over at Michael, who stood near the door, looking uneasy. With her eyes, Claire motioned him to the bedside. She willed her voice to remain strong, willed herself not to break down. “Nana, this is Michael Meredith.”
“Hello, Michael.”
Claire stepped back as Michael put a hand on the bed rail and leaned down to Nana’s eye level. “Hello, Mrs. Anderson. I’m honored to meet you.”
Katherine Anderson attempted a smile. “I’m not a formal person, Michael. And I don’t have many words to waste.”
He nodded, deferring to her with a faint smile.
“My Kitty tells me you are happy?”
“Yes, I’m happy.” He reached through the rail and touched her hand briefly.
“Good.” She gave an affirming dip of her chin.
“Thank you . . . thank you for your prayers.” His voice was so low Claire had to strain to hear him. “Claire told me you’ve prayed for me.”
Nana clutched at the air over the blankets, seemingly searching for Michael’s hand. He seemed to understand and caught her hand. Large, strong fingers swallowed frail, emaciated ones as Michael enclosed her hand in both of his. Nana’s chin quivered and a tear slid down her temple and dampened the pillow beneath her head. Michael’s shoulders shook with emotion, and the silence between the man and the aged woman became sacred.
Claire watched the tender reunion with tears streaming down her face, touched beyond words at Michael’s openhearted emotion, her own heart overflowing with gratitude that they had been allowed this precious time.
After a while, Nana looked past Michael and whispered, “Kitty? Where is Kitty?”
“I’m right here, Nana.” She wiped her eyes and came to stand beside Michael at the bed rail.
Slowly Nana looked from one to the other before her gaze focused on Claire. “I’d like a word alone with this young man, sweetheart.”
Startled, Claire nodded and backed out of the room.
As she stood in the hallway outside her grandmother’s room, she marveled at the moment that’d just occurred. If she'd known on that day long ago when Joseph Anderson was taken away that this reverent reunion would one day take place, how different things might have been. Her awe at the remarkable events that led to this moment overshadowed her curiosity about Nana’s private conversation with Michael. It truly seemed a miracle had occurred.
After a few short minutes, Michael emerged from the room. He tipped his head and gave Claire a searching look, then, seemed to shake off a disquieting thought. “She’s asking for you again, Claire.”
She put a hand tentatively on his arm as the tears threatened to escape again. “Thank you so much for coming, Michael. It meant so much to Nana to be able to see you…and…”
“Thank you, Claire.” Again, his eyes held hers with a question she couldn’t read. “You’d better go to her.”
“Yes.”
He turned and disappeared around the corner.
Claire watched the empty corridor for several minutes, wondering at the unreadable expression his eyes had held, and reliving the bittersweet reunion she'd witnessed between Michael and Nana. She was overcome with sorrow as she realized the finality of their exchange.
Hanging by a thread of emotion, she fought to compose herself, then walked back through the door. She stood beside Nana’s bed, silently waiting for her to speak.
The sunken eyes were closed, but Claire saw Nana’s lips tremble, and she knew that her grandmother, too, was struggling to gain her composure.
Finally Nana spoke, her voice calm and gentle. “Thank you, Kitty. Thank you for bringing him to me. I am at peace about his life now.” Beneath hooded lids she studied Claire’s face with startling intensity. “He seems a very nice young man.”
“He is, Nana. He is very nice.” She looked at the floor, suddenly fearful of her grandmother’s scrutiny.
Nana was not fooled. “Look at me, Kitty.”
Obediently, Claire looked into the liquid eyes.
“It is plain for anyone to see that you love this man.” Nana raised a crooked finger and shook it weakly at Claire. It was a tenderly familiar gesture. “Don’t let your stubbornness get in the way of love, Kitty. You know I would never tell you what to do, but for heaven’s sake, don’t close your mind to what God might have for you.”
As Nana reached for her hand, Claire was aware that she deliberately softened her scolding tone before she spoke again.
“I know you’ve been hurt, Kitty, but open your heart to love, sweetheart. Let God show you what is right. Don’t try to figure it out for yourself.”
“I can’t figure it out, Nana. I’ve tried.”
“Exactly my point.” Nana wet her parched lips and squeezed Claire’s hand. “I know you’ll do just fine in this life, honey.” The ragged voice cracked and Nana spoke her final words of blessing with deep emotion. “God be with you, Kitty. You have been the joy of my life.”
Claire stroked the soft, ashen cheek tenderly, unable to speak as tears coursed down her own cheeks.
Chapter 34
On the twenty-eighth day of September, Katherine Jayne Anderson slipped quietly into a coma.
In these final hours of waiting, Claire found it a privilege to watch and wait with this woman whose life was so precious and meaningful to her. Though her grief ran deep, she trusted that a timing more perfect than she could begin to fathom was in operation. These moments spent waiting for Nana to be ushered into the presence of God were sacred.
Her eyes rested on her gr
andmother, the thin form in the bed seeming to grow smaller by the hour, her breathing barely perceptible. A strange mixture of calm and disbelief filled her as she watched Nana’s life ebb away.
Memories of their happy times together paraded before her eyes. She remembered their laughter around the dining room table, always set with a Scrabble board or a domino game. She saw her grandmother’s slender hands stained with juice from the cherries they picked together every summer in Nana’s backyard in Lee’s Summit. She heard the rich voice of a younger Nana as she brought storybook characters alive for the curly haired granddaughter on her lap.
There didn’t seem to be any pain now. Nana did not struggle against death. She simply took one ragged breath and then another, and finally no more.
Claire took the thin, lifeless hand in hers. Trembling, she said her last good-byes. And as she sat beside the still form, the profound sorrow in her heart was slowly, surely transcended by a sweet knowledge that the shriveled body on this hospital bed no longer contained all that was Katherine Anderson, beloved Nana. Somewhere, at this very moment, a joyous reunion was taking place.
An hour later, Claire walked numbly out to the parking lot. The weather was hot and gusty—a Missouri Indian summer. The leaves on the myriad trees in these foothills were beginning to emerge as blazing orange and crimson tongues of fire, and under the conductorship of the wind, they murmured a haunting hymn of grief. It seemed impossible to Claire that the world could continue to breathe and live in Nana’s absence. And yet it endured. She endured.
She drove home from the hospital and, as though in a trance, parked the car in the garage, and went into the dark, quiet house. Scarcely able to fathom what had occurred, she changed out of the clothes she’d worn for two days and fell into bed, exhausted.
The next morning, she awoke to the sound of faraway thunder. For a moment, she lay in bed and listened to the eerie cadence of the distant rumble. Then, the realization washed over her. Nana was gone. Gone.
Numb, she crawled out of bed, showered, and dressed mechanically. She had a sense that she was using every ounce of her will to hold her emotions in check, to keep from falling apart. There was business to be taken care of—funeral arrangements, moving Nana’s things from Riverview, closing Nana’s bank accounts, canceling insurance, calling Becky. . . . Until those things were dealt with, Claire needed to remain strong and in control.
She spent the morning making calls, handling as many details as she could by phone. Nana had a funeral plot in Kansas City beside the grandfather Claire had never known. She called the chaplain of Elmbrook and was pleased that he remembered her. He graciously agreed to perform the graveside service. They discussed arrangements for the short service, and the chaplain assured Claire that he would coordinate things with the funeral home in Hanover Falls.
Finally, when she could put it off no longer, she got in her car and drove back to Riverview. It was difficult to walk through the front doors of the building knowing that Nana wasn’t there anymore. The nurses’ station in the main hall was empty, so she walked down the east corridor and slowly opened the door to the room that had been Nana’s.
The bed was made up with sterile white sheets,” the corners mitered hospital-style. The colorful quilted comforter Claire had brought back with Nana from Elmbrook, and which she'd carefully spread over the bed each morning, was gone. All of Nana’s personal items had been removed from the room. The bathroom was immaculate and smelled of antiseptic. The room did not at all resemble the cozy little space that had become Nana’s home for these short months.
For the first time since she'd gotten the call from Geneva, Claire allowed herself to fall apart. She slumped in the chair by the window where Nana had always sat. The large padded chair was the only thing left in the room that conjured a remembrance of her grandmother. Tomorrow she would bury the last member of her family and begin to learn to live alone in the world. She covered her face with her hands and wept bitterly.
As Claire prepared to leave Riverview Manor, she decided to stop off to see the two women to whom she'd been reading as a volunteer.
Gladys Armond and Nina Garcia had become special to her, and though she'd explained to them that she wouldn’t be able to continue full-time with her volunteer work now that school had started, she wanted to let them know she thought of them often and that she intended to visit whenever she could.
She knew they would have been told of her grandmother’s death, and she was tempted to avoid the emotional condolences she knew would come from these dear women. But she found to her surprise that their gentle coddling consoled her greatly, and she was glad she'd made the effort to visit them.
Impulsively, she decided to make a quick stop by Rob’s room. She knew the staff had probably told him about Nana’s death as well and that he would have heard the media accounts of the events which had transpired at Riverview the past week. Still, it had been several days since she'd seen Rob, and she wanted to let him know that, she would be going to Kansas City for the burial and would be away for a couple more days.
She walked down the familiar corridor of the north wing where the respite-care unit was located and knocked on his closed door.
“Come in.”
“Hi, Rob,” she said quietly, sticking her head in the door.
He was standing over a suitcase, opened and empty on his bed, with piles of folded clothing stacked all around it on the narrow mattress. The dark glasses were gone and Robert Tripleton looked as though he needed the services of a place like Riverview Manor about as much as Claire herself did.
He turned at the sound of her voice, happy surprise in his expression. It was obvious his once nearly blind eyes now took her in quite clearly.
“Claire! I’ve missed my story time lady.” The tenderness in his voice was unmistakable.
She nodded toward the bed. “Are you packing already?”
“I leave tomorrow.” His statement was devoid of emotion, and Claire thought he sounded very tired. But there was new warmth in his voice when he told her, “I’m so sorry to hear about your grandmother, Claire. Are you doing all right?”
She nodded. “I’ll be okay. It’s . . . it’s just hard to believe she’s really gone.” She knew she didn’t dare say more or she would break down.
Rob came toward her, and for the first time since they'd known each other, he put his arms around her. “I’m sorry, Claire. I know how much you loved her—how much you must miss her. Is there anything I can do?”
She stepped back. “Thank you, Rob, but I don’t know what it would be. I’m . . . I’m hanging in there. I’m coping better than I thought I would.”
She looked around the room again at the signs of his imminent departure. “I just can’t believe you’re going home so soon.”
He laughed softly. “Well, it doesn’t seem so terribly soon to me.”
“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean it that way. It’s probably seemed like forever to you. It’s just that . . . well, it seems like we just met.”
Suddenly she felt self-conscious in his presence. Her voice trembled as she tried to wish him good luck. She felt as though her emotions were hanging by a delicate thread and that at any moment it would snap and she would come undone.
Rob seemed to sense her fragility. “Sit down, Claire.” His tone held stern authority.
She was grateful for the order and sat heavily on a chair beside the bed.
Carelessly, he tossed the stack of shirts he'd been folding into the suitcase and came around to stand in front of her, putting his hands on her shoulders.
“You don’t have to be strong for me, Claire. You’ve lost someone very dear. It’s okay to fall apart.”
Rather than causing her to crumble, his permission somehow gave her strength. She smiled crookedly up at him and let the cleansing tears flow unchecked.
“Too many good-byes,” she told him, sniffling and motioning toward the suitcase and bags on the bed. “It seems like every time I feel I’ve gotten a sol
id footing somewhere, it crumbles beneath me.”
Rob sank to his knees and then sat down on the floor beside her chair, leaning an elbow on the end of the bed. “I do know a little how you feel, Claire. It gets easier as time goes on. We’re not ever really alone.”
Claire accepted his words, allowed them to comfort her, because she knew that he, of all people, did know what it meant to lose the only real family you had. And hadn’t he made a life for himself despite his situation? She could do the same. Rob was right. She would never truly be alone as long as the Lord was with her. But could God fault her for longing for a human touch, longing to be the most special to someone? Was it wrong to yearn for that?
“Thank you, Rob,” she told him finally, “for helping me through this. You’ve been a dear friend.”
He waved her comments away. “It’s the least I can do after everything you’ve done for me, Claire.”
Now it was her turn to shun the compliment. “Rob, I didn’t do anything—”
“You just don’t realize how much you’ve done, Miss Anderson,” he interrupted. “You saved my life.”
“Oh, for heaven’s sake.” She laughed. “That’s more than a slight exaggeration.”
“No, Claire, it’s really not—”
She started to protest again, but he rebuked her.
“Claire, just let me finish what I want to say here, will you?”
She bowed her head in deference.
“I have dearly loved our time together here. It’s given me hope and . . . well, something constructive to do while I recovered. Claire, you’ve probably guessed that my feelings for you are—”
“Please, Rob. Don’t.” She was close to tears, not wanting him to say the words, not knowing how she could answer him.
“Claire, you must know that I’ve hoped that there could be something . . . something serious between us.”
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