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“Iam so sorry aboutyesterday.” I stumble out of my room into the living room where Vivian sits curled up on the couch with her coffee.
“Don’t be. You were sick. I actually . . . I had a great evening.” She smiles, but it doesn’t quite reach her eyes like normal as she takes another sip. “Was it food poisoning, you think?”
“No.” I scratch my head, glancing out the window. This is the earliest I’ve been up since moving here. I don’t think I’ve been awake at noon since college. “I, um . . . I just got too much sun.”
She follows my gaze to the bright, sunny beach. “I didn’t think it was hot enough out for sun stroke.”
Sun stroke.
If only it was that simple. Still, the symptoms are close enough. And, it’s easier than explaining the truth. I sigh, sitting down beside her. “For me, it is.”
“I just don’t get it,” Viv muses as she toys with a pillow, her eyes watching the waves.
I don’t really want to know, but still, I sigh and humor her. “Get what?”
“This house . . . I mean, you basically hate the sun and all that out there.” She gestures toward the beach.
“I don’thateit.”The sun hates me.
“So, why move here?”
I sigh, leaning back on the couch. Picking up a small picture frame on the end table beside me, I smile at the old photograph. I’m only seventeen in it, holding a giant seashell on the beach with my grandmother. It’s one of the last happy summers I can remember, before everything changed.
“Nana, I can’t.”
“It wasn’t an option, dear.” She smiles from her tiny bed in the equally tiny, hospice room.
Everything about this place is tiny and depressing. Even the frail skeleton of my grandmother lying beside me. I want to cry, scream at the injustice. Instead, I smile and take her hand.
“But it’s your dream home, Nana.”
“That’s why I want you to have it.”
I shake my head. “But where will you go when you get out of here?”
“Bless your heart, dear,” she licks her lips, then squeezes my hand with her weak, bony grasp, “we both know I’m not leaving this resort.”
A single tear streams down my cheek despite all my efforts to stop it. “Nana . . .”
“Hush now, dear. I’ve made my peace with it. I’ve lived a good, long life. And you should see some of those male nurses.” She winks as if that somehow makes this better. “But you, Asra,” her eyes gloss over, her words stuttering, “you’ve already been through more than . . .” A coughing spell interruptsher as she struggles to breathe. “More than any one person should in a lifetime.”
I help her to sit up, rubbing her back until she breathes steady, tears streaming down my face. “I’m fine, Nana. Just worry about yourself.”
“No.” She balls her thin hand into a fist and punches the mattress. “Now, Asra, I have thought and thought about this.” With some effort, she twists in the bed until she's facing me. “Do you remember collecting seashells with me in the summers, when you were little?”
“Yes.” I nod, smiling even as the tears continue to fall. “Those are some of my favorite memories.”
“Mine, too.” Taking my hand in hers again, she smiles. “If I could give you my health, I would, but,” she coughs again, my heart cracking with every gasp for air, “but I guess mine’s all used up. I don’t need that old house anymore. But you, you have enough on your plate, dear. Take it, that’ll be one less thing for you to stress over. That is something I can give you.”
“No, Nana, you’re not -”
“Every day,” she cuts me off, “promise me, you’ll go out on that beach and find your shells. That you’ll take a moment every day to breathe and remember the good things in life.”
I wipe my eyes, trying not to think of the inevitable, but knowing there’s nothing I can do about it, other than make her happy. “Okay, Nana. I will.”
She squeezes my hand again. “Now, tell me all about this fancy art job of yours.”
“Ilove the beach,”I whisper at last, my thumb tracing the image of my grandmother. “Just not the sun so much.” I place the picture back on the end table next to a glass bowl full of shells. “Hey,” I smile, turning to Viv, “we need to find you a shell before you leave.”
