One day at a time, I tell myself, and press a layer of pink open with my thumb. I can take it one day at a time.
I almost believe it.
Chapter Fourteen
Demetrius
Maddiewasright.Mygrandmother is as stubborn as a mule.
The waiting room at Elven Mercy stretches around us with its rows of plastic seats bolted to the floor. The antiseptic reekof cleaning products hits the back of my throat as a pixie child circles near the window on restless wings until her mother hauls her back with a few sharp whispered words. A troll man on crutches labors toward the front desk where a gnome in scrubs works through a stack of paperwork with all the urgency of geologic time. The overhead lights are the fluorescent kind that flatten everything they touch.
Agatha surveys the room with the air of someone conducting an inspection. And not liking what she sees.
I spot it the moment she decides to stand by herself. Again.
She puts both hands on the armrests of the wheelchair, jaw set. I know that look.
"Grandmother." I fix her with a stern look. "Do we have to go over this again?"
"I'm perfectly capable of walking to the desk myself," she says, already levering her weight forward.
"We're here for your follow-up appointment so the surgeon can tell you whether you're cleared to walk without support or not. Which is precisely why you're supposed to use the chair until then." I take one step and rest my hand on the armrest beside hers. She looks at my hand. Then at me. "Stay down." Then I think better of it.
Her snout flares and she narrows her eyes at me. I know that look. It's the look that used to send me cowering in my room whenever I did something pigheaded, which happened often enough.
"I'll call Maddie if you try again," I warn.
"You wouldn't dare." But Agatha settles back in her seat as she gauges my commitment to the threat. Because this is a threat, make no mistake. "You gave that girl a day off. You're not going to call her back to work just because I want to walk on my own two feet."
"Try me and see if I'm bluffing." I can't quite suppress the smirk that pulls on my lips as Agatha glares up at me from her sitting position.
The fight drains out of her. Then she scoffs, slams the armrest of the much-hated chair and settles back down, bracing her chin in her hand like a pouting schoolgirl.
I straighten up.
"I'm surprised you're taking time off work," she says.
"I'm not always working," I protest.
"Mm." She doesn't look up from the room. "Your grandfather said that too."
I pull out the chair from the row beside her and fold myself into it. It is not designed for a minotaur of my dimensions. The armrests dig in my sides and my knees stick out at an angle that the ergonomics of this chair simply did not account for. I settle into it as best I can anyway.
"I take time away from work whenever I want," I say.
She gives me a sideways look that makes clear the distinction is not landing the way I intended.
"You're just like him," she says. "Cornelius was always buried in his work. Always one more call, one more deal, one more meeting he couldn't miss." Her voice is mild, but her weathered face wears a sad, almost longing expression. "I used to sit across the dinner table and watch him have three conversations on the phone while we were eating. He was there with us but his mind wasn't, you understand. Always half somewhere else."
For a moment I don't answer.
All my life, I have held a particular picture of my grandparents' marriage: Cornelius at the center of it, driving, building, relentless, and Agatha beside him, proud and steadfast, the foundation he could always come back to. It has never occurred to me that she might have wished for something different.
"But you were always so proud of him and what he accomplished."
She smiles at me and I feel like a fool, a child who doesn't understand the intricacies of the adult world.
"I was proud of him," she says, still with that smile. "But one can be both proud and lonely at the same time."
