She nods tightly, eyes still closed. Her face is ashen, her brow creased. Carefully, I take the hem of her shirt at her hip and raise it, exposing her where belly meets back. She makes a muffled noise that just kills me, and I move as gently as possible.
I see nothing. No sign of rash, no redness. But when I lay the shirt down and place my hand on her forehead, I feel fever.
“Grandma, I’m gonna call Aunt Josie,” I say softly.
She moans in protest. “Don’t do that. It’s late.”
“It’s not late. It’s not even six o’clock.”
“She’ll be trying to get dinner on the table.”
My eighty-three-year-old grandmother is lying on the couch, moaning in pain — a sight I’ve never seen and one that strips me down to nothing but terror — and she’s worried about being an inconvenience.
“Grandma, that’s not important.”
She makes a noise in the back of her throat, but she doesn’t open her eyes, so I go to the kitchen. A phone — a cheap one — is one of the first things on my list now that I’ve got money. I grab the cordless off the charging station and find Aunt Josie’s number in the call history.
“Hey, Mama,” she answers, a smile in her voice. Just hearing her on the other end of the line brings relief.
“Josie, it’s Drew. Grandma’s sick.”
Twenty minutes later, Aunt Josie and I are both standing over Grandma Q, arguing with her.
“I’m not going to the emergency room. I’ll be there all night.” She’s still lying on the couch. Her eyes are still closed, but her will is stronger. “I won’t sleep a wink. They’ll put me in a room with a flu patient, and I’ll never come out.”
Josie and I eye each other over her. Even in this condition, she’s a pro at emotional manipulation.
“If you would have called someone earlier, we could have gotten in to see Dr. Sullivan or at least taken you to a walk-in clinic,” Josie counters. “We can’t leave you like this all night.”
Grandma Quincy cocks one eye open and aims it at her daughter. “I didn’t feel this poorly earlier, Josephine, and you can and will leave me here tonight.”
The eye shuts again.
I shake my head at my aunt. Grandma had to be feeling bad all day. She would never leave breakfast dishes unwashed otherwise, but I don’t dare admit this oversight aloud.
“Have you taken anything for the pain, Mama?”
Silence.
“I’ll take that as a no,” Josie mutters.
I leave them and head to the kitchen. I open the cabinet where Grandma Q keeps her pills and feel a stab of regret at the sight of the Ibuprofen bottle.
Evie.
The afternoon we spent in this kitchen washes over me, as it has a thousand times since Saturday, but I don’t have time to sort through it all again. But unwilling to ignore Evie’s advice on pain relievers, I reach for the red and white Acetaminophen bottle instead.
I fill a glass of water and take it and the bottle back to the living room. Aunt Josie stands over Grandma Q with arms crossed at her middle. Grandma hasn’t moved. I set down the meds and water on the coffee table and lean in.
“Grandma, can I help you sit up to take some medicine?”
She makes a noise of assent, but moving her leaves me a little sick. Her strained breath and stifled moans make it clear that even sitting up is agony. By the time we get her upright and propped against the arm of the couch, my forehead is damp with sweat, and my hands are shaking. And it’s not from the effort.
Aunt Josie uncaps the medicine bottle and shakes two pills onto her palm. “Mama, you don’t want some Advil instead? It’ll last longer.”
“Nope.” Grandma Q shakes her head. “It’ll mess up my gut biome.”
My mouth falls open. I narrow my eyes at her. “What did you say?”
