I met Aunt Gert’s eyes over Daphne’s shoulder. She raised her eyebrows, and I shook my head slightly and shrugged in anI don’t knowgesture.
“What did the doctor say?” Aunt Gert asked, and I repeated Dr.Cho’s diagnosis, trying to soften the parts about uncertain long-term prognosis.
“They’re going to transfer him to a private room soon, so I’d betterget back there. I’ll text you as soon as he’s settled, and you can come up and see him.” I patted Daphne, who was still clinging to me like a baby koala. This must be triggering so many painful emotions for her, bringing up what had happened with Mom. I was feeling them too.
“We closed up the diner,” Julio said, clearing his throat. He shifted from foot to foot, looking ill at ease.
“We served anyone already seated and then closed up early,” Aunt Gert clarified. “We gave each customer a free dessert for their trouble.”
I nodded. “Good thinking. Thank you.” I couldn’t think about the diner, only Dad, alone in that bed, his left side immobile. I couldn’t begin to process what this would mean for our lives. That realization would gradually come later, I knew. For now I could only concentrate on the present, the next step.
“You’re a mess.” Daphne sniffled. “You’ve got chocolate mousse all down your front.” She pulled back a little and surveyed me. I glanced down at my checkered blouse and cuffed jeans. There was a long brown smear down the left side of both. I had been too distraught to notice.
“Here, I’ve got an extra set of clothes.” Daphne rummaged around in her backpack and handed me a pile of yoga gear. It wasn’t my usual vibe, but it was comfortable and clean.
“Thanks.” I slipped into the ladies’ room down the hall from the lobby and changed clothes hurriedly. If Dad woke, I wanted to be right there with him. I splashed water on my face. In the mirror my reflection was drawn and pallid, worry tightening the corners of my mouth. I had chocolate mousse splattered on my arms and scrubbed it away with a wet paper towel from the dispenser. I wasn’t thinking clearly, my thoughts ping-ponging around in my head like crazy. I was on high alert but felt helpless. How could this be happening? What should we do now?
Back in the lobby Daphne took my soiled clothes and stuffed them in her backpack. “I’ll take care of these,” she offered.
“Thank you.” I squeezed her arm. “I should get back to Dad. Do you want to come see him?” I wanted to be next to him if he awoke.
Daphne tearfully nodded.
Julio cleared his throat. “Um, so what are we going to do about the diner? We’re closed tomorrow like usual, but what about Tuesday?”
I paused. In its over sixty years of operation, the Eatery had been closed unexpectedly only three times. Once when Magnolia sustained an unheard-of amount of rain in October of 1977 and the entirety of McGraw Street flooded, and once when the power went out completely for three days in 1988. And the third time on the day of Mom’s funeral. That was it. To close it now felt ominous, like waving a white flag, but what could we do? Aunt Gert and Julio couldn’t run it by themselves, even if Daphne helped out. And I couldn’t leave Dad alone until I knew more about his condition. I doubted we’d be ready to open on Tuesday.
“Put a sign on the door: ‘Closed until further notice,’ ” I said heavily, finally. “Hopefully we can be back up and running before the weekend.” They all nodded, looking sober.
Thirty minutes later, I sat next to Dad in a dim hospital room. After they’d peeked in and seen Dad, who was still asleep, Daphne and Aunt Gert headed home to feed Bertha and get some sleep. We agreed that Daphne would take over from me in the morning. Dad did not awaken, which the nurse had told me was to be expected. He looked so small, almost frail, lying there. The lines of his face were slack, his sleep unnaturally still. I was exhausted but strangely wired, hyped up on a potent cocktail of anxiety and relief. What was going to happen now? He was still with us, but he was not himself. The left side of his face drooped, a snail track of drool tracing its way down his chin.
I put my head in my hands, rocking slightly back and forth. This was all too much. I felt like a drowning woman, flailing to keep her head above water, and someone had just handed me a thousand-poundweight. I simply couldn’t keep afloat. I had thought it was the tax bill that would be our undoing, but I was wrong. This stroke was going to sink us. There was no way around it. We couldn’t keep the diner open without Dad as head cook. Julio was a good sous-chef, but he couldn’t manage a kitchen and handle all the cooking alone. He just wasn’t ready, and we had absolutely no finances to hire a new chef. And even if we did manage to squeak by, who was going to care for Dad if his recovery took a while? And there was still the matter of the looming tax bill. Any way you sliced it there was no way out. We were going down.
And then I stopped, a thought dawning on me, simple and obvious. The lemon drop. It could fix all of this. It was a solution to this entire mess. Neat. Tidy. Perfect. In the panic around Dad’s collapse I’d forgotten about it momentarily. I had planned to take it tonight. I still could. The thought brought a sweet rush of relief. I glanced at Dad.
Suddenly he went rigid in the bed, his eyes rolling back in his head, and he started jerking uncontrollably. I lunged for the call button and pressed it frantically, then bolted into the hall, crying out for help. Within a few seconds there was a flurry of lights and beeping and people in uniform rushing in and surrounding him.
“What’s happening to him?” I cried. He’d been sleeping peacefully a minute ago. What had gone wrong?
A nurse who was hurrying out of the room turned as she passed. “It’s a seizure, sweetie. Common in stroke victims.” And then she was gone. A minute later they wheeled Dad away too.
Alone, I sank into a hard vinyl chair, mind racing. Was he okay? Was he dying and no one was telling me? The minutes ticked by with agonizing slowness. Forty minutes later Dad was still not back. I asked at the nurses’ station, but received no helpful information—only that he was stabilized and they were running tests.Stabilized.That was a relief. The immediate danger was over, but what had happened to him?After what seemed like forever, an exhausted-looking Dr.Cho entered the room.
“Your father is stable now,” she told me. “It is not uncommon to have a seizure after a stroke. The good news is that with anti-seizure medication this should not occur again. Unfortunately, after running further tests, I’m afraid that the extent of damage to your father’s brain is more than we’d initially hoped.” She frowned.
“Damage?” I stumbled over the word. “What does that mean for his recovery?”
Dr.Cho stuck her hands in the pockets of her lab coat. “Again, there is no way to know at this point, but the extent and severity of the stroke are more than we first thought. I want to prepare you. His recovery will be slower than you might be expecting, and the extent to which he regains his verbal and motor functions may be considerably less as well.”
“Oh.” I sank back in the chair, her pronouncement a sucker punch in my stomach. “Is there... is there anything we can do?”
Dr.Cho shook her head. “There is nothing we can do at this point except monitor his condition and wait. When the time comes for him to be released, we can recommend some excellent rehabilitation facilities. Again, we don’t know exactly how much rehabilitation he will need, but it is best to be prepared. I’m sorry, but only time will tell.”
I was hardly aware of her exit from the room.There’s nothing we can do, she’d said. But she was wrong. I could do one thing to fix all of this. I could erase this terrible night. I could restore my father to health. Give Daphne the life she was longing for. Bring Dad a new love. And finally have the chance to live the life I had pined for all these years. I took a deep breath, sure this was the answer to everything. There was no time to lose. I was going home to take the last lemon drop.
38
In the backof an Uber, I pressed my forehead to the window and watched my childhood slide quietly by as we headed through the darkened village center of Magnolia in the direction of our house. It was almost midnight, and I was going home to save my father and reclaim the life I’d always wanted. It was as simple as that. And yet not simple at all. I had not anticipated the wave of nostalgia that swept over me as I watched the shops and bakeries and cafés of Magnolia pass in a rainy blur of dark windows and lit signs. Magnolia’s Bookstore. Petit Pierre. The Eatery. When I awoke, what would be different? I could only guess. If all went well, I would never again walk home after closing up, never wake in my single twin bed in the little garret bedroom that had been mine all my life, never bake those six lemon meringue pies every morning like clockwork. I shivered at the thought—delicious and a little terrifying.
