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Looking back, I wasn’t sure if it was just a consequence of his unflappable nature that he was able to explain what happened so concisely or if it had been a conscious effort on his part to help me stay calm. There had been no dramatization but also no minimizing, like AJ had tried to do. Vinh hadn’t offered a single opinion or piece of advice.
And it’d been exactly what I’d needed at that moment. The kind of support that I’d never known existed—or how to voice my desire for—before experiencing it.
Flushed skin, enlarged pupils, general confusion, lack of awareness, and irritability, he’d said.
All characteristics of drug use, according to Google.
The heavy curtains were already closed when we’d entered, and I left them that way as I quietly began searching her room.
It was only minutes later that I found a lead among her ordinary over-the-counter medicines in a drawer of the ensuite bathroom—a prescription bottle of Prednisone. I read the label thoroughly, noting the word “gout” and then the prescribing doctor’s name—the quack doctor she kept in her pocket.
The listed side-effect warnings were vague, so I returned the bottle to the drawer, perched on the edge of the bathtub, and did some more googling.
After reading a quick summary on what exactly gout was, I clicked on the listed side effects.
Agitation
Blurred Vision
Dizziness
Irregular heartbeat
Headache
Irritability
Mood Changes
That’s where I stopped reading.
Agitation, irritability, and mood changes weren’t new for Grandmother, but it was certainly new for her to not mask them in front of others.
I rose from the tub on a soft groan, tiredness and restlessness at war as I grabbed a fresh towel from the open shelf under the sink. I laid it across the vanity and busied my hands as I tried to logic some of it out.
If gout, which according to my googling was a form of arthritis, had her feeling poorly enough to get a prescription, it may have kept her from wanting to travel home after a rigorous day of gambling.
I folded the towel’s top corners so they met in the middle.
Grandmother drove a tank of an SUV that you could always hear coming from a mile away and almost always utilized valet parking instead of self-park. But… it wouldn’t have been much effort to retrieve it from valet and then drive the short distance home.
I rolled each end of the towel.
She had to pass the automatic doors to the valet stand to get to the hotel elevators. AJ and I had escorted her right past them mere hours ago.
I folded the point of the towel backward a bit more aggressively than intended.
There were a lot of stairs at the Big House. A steep set to the front door and then even more to her bedroom on the second floor.
I curved the neck of my newly completed towel swan.
Bleary-eyed, I scooted the swan to the far end of the vanity and washed my face as quietly as possible with the hotel-provided soap. If I tried to make sense of anything else right now, Grandmother would likely wake up to a menagerie of towel animals in her bathroom. I smiled at the idea, twisting the hand towel in my hands before patting my face dry and returning to my vigil in the corner armchair, where I lightly dozed until Grandmother finally stirred in the early morning.
Afraid of how she might react to finding me sitting in her hotel room, I padded out the door in just my socks, carrying my shoes in one hand.
As soon as I was safely on the other side of the door, I put my shoes back on and then waited a minute before knocking on room 717.
I heard the click of the peephole cover a moment before she opened the door, making sure I had a placid smile in place as I greeted, “Good morning, Grandmother.”
