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CHAPTER ONE
“Are you sure she doesn’t have more time?” I clutch a bouquet of yellow roses to my chest, whispering to the hospice nurse in the hallway. I pray there’s been a mistake. I’m not ready to lose my grandma, even though I’ve known for months she’s nearing the end.
“I’m sorry, Lake, I wish we could do more.” She offers a sympathetic look that feels rehearsed. Of course, I know it’s her job to help families deal with the inevitable, so I’m not put off.
I appreciate her professionalism at a time when my heart is breaking. I thought Grandma Rain had a few more weeks, but as I was driving over just now, I got the call. This will be my last chance to speak to her.
I hold back the tears. “Thank you for taking such good care of her.”
“I’m here for you. Whatever you need.” The nurse gently squeezes my shoulder. “I’ve given your grandmother a sedative to keep her comfortable, so she might be a little out of it. Press the red button if you need anything.”
I thank the nurse again and enter the white sterile room. The blinds are open, and the afternoon sun is shining across the foot of Grandma’s bed. They’ve taken off her oxygen and unhooked her IV. It was one of her final requests. No crap attached to her body.
“Grandma Rain? I’m here.”
She doesn’t respond, but her chest is moving beneath her favorite gray flannel nightgown.
I tug on the beige blanket covering her frail legs and bring it up to her waist. I don’t know how to digest the harshness of the moment. I don’t know how to say goodbye. Grandma Rain raised me as her own after my parents disappeared. Still, there’s a part of me that feels grateful her suffering is coming to an end. Pancreatic cancer is not a nice way to go.
“Grandma Rain, can you hear me? I’ve come to say goodbye.”
She doesn’t respond, and I can only hope she knows I’m here. She’s not dying alone.
I grab the green pleather armchair from the corner of the small room and drag it across the linoleum floor, parking it next to her bed.
I sit and take her cool soft hand. So many thoughts are running through my mind. If she can hear me, what do I say? I want to thank her for everything. I want her to know how much I love her and—
“You’re late,” she snaps, cracking open a pale blue eye.
I jolt in my seat. “Oh my God. You’re awake.”
“What took you so long to get here, girl? Who makes an old woman wait to die?”
“I’m—I’m so sorry. Jim made me stay an extra hour.” Jim is my boss at the 911 call center. We’re always shorthanded. Mostly because the pay is shit, the hours are long, and the job can be stressful. It was only supposed to be a temporary gig while I looked for a teaching job, but that’s life. I needed a job close to home.
The good thing about Tionesta, Pennsylvania, where I work, is that it’s generally quiet. We get the tourists in the summer who go up to the lake and sometimes drink too much—boating accidents and heatstroke—but that’s about the worst of it. We actually live about thirty minutes east of Tionesta in Mayburg. Population: It depends. Mayburg is literally a bend in the Tionesta Creek along Route 666 near the Allegheny National Forest. There are a few family farms, but most of it’s thick wooden forest. Cold as hell in the winter.
“Your boss is a useless fuckhole,” Grandma Rain says. “Someone should light his dick on fire and throw him off a cliff before he procreates.”
Did I mention that Grandma Rain is a foulmouthed curmudgeon who hates just about everyone except me, her dog Master, and her live-in handyman, Bardolf?
I’m told by Bardolf, “Bard,” that when Mom was around, she and Grandma didn’t get along either. “Like two feral cats, ready to scratch each other’s eyes out,” he once said. Dad was barely welcome on Grandma’s estate. It was why the police accused Grandma of killing my parents when they disappeared over twenty years ago. I was almost nine at the time.
Obviously, no evidence was ever found, but the rumors never stopped. The locals hate Grandma just as much as she hates them.
As for me, I don’t know what I’m going to do after she’s gone. Grandma Rain and I are opposites in every sense of the word—she’s mean, I’m not. She’s tall, I’m five two. She wears her hair short, mine is long and dark. Blue eyes, brown eyes. Winter, summer. Hates everyone, loves everyone. Still, despite our differences, we always got along.
Maybe because I grew up feeling lucky to have her. She loved me, encouraged me to be independent, and made sure I got an education. I never minded her eccentricities or profanity because deep down she’s the sort of woman who’ll fight tooth and nail for you. And for the record, she loved my mom, Storm. Her disappearance is what made Grandma so inconsolably bitter, though she’d never admit it. Too prideful.
