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“Honey, he’s fine. As fine as a short order cook who’s been eating nothing but his own fried food for years could be, anyway. You’ll see him tomorrow.”
“What time do visiting hours start?”
“Eleven.”
“Great. So we can be there at ten-fifty.”
Grandma Grace turned the fire down under the bacon and sat down in the chair next to Luna, reaching over and taking Luna’s hands in her own. “Sweet girl, you have the biggest heart. That’s how I knew you’d jump in the car and drive straight here, even though this town hasn’t seen your pretty face in ten years. That’s how I knew you’d go without food. Why you’d probably have even skipped the toilet if the car didn’t need gas.
“But, honey, you’re here now. Take a breath. The last thing I need is two of you laid up with heart attacks. You hear me?”
Luna’s shoulders relaxed of their own volition. She hadn’t even realized how tense they were until they collapsed down from around her ears. Just hearing her grandmother’s no-nonsense voice telling her that everything was going to be fine was enough for her to believe it. It had always been that way.
In fact, in college, she’d seriously considered getting her grandmother to make recordings of herself telling Luna that things would be fine. That way, she could whip them out and listen to them whenever she started feeling overwhelmed, and comfort herself with the grounding sound of Grandma Grace’s voice. She wasn’t totally convinced it was a bad idea, even still.
“Now, then,” her grandmother continued, returning to the stove and turning up the burner again. “Let’s get some food in your belly and get you into a nice, warm bed.”
Luna dropped her forehead into her palms, all of the exhaustion that streams of adrenaline had been keeping at bay for hours suddenly flooding her body like a tidal wave. “That sounds amazing, Grandma. Thanks.”
“Maybe if you’re up in time tomorrow morning, you can go see Genevieve. I know she’d love to see you.”
“That’s a good idea. In fact, I think I’ll plan on it.”
Luna hadn’t seen her childhood best friend Genevieve in a few years. It wasn’t intentional. They always talked about making trips to get together, but life sped by. A day turned into a week turned into a month turned into a year. And then another, and another. They kept up on Facebook, but it wasn’t the same. It would feel so good to hear her voice again, to give her a hug.
Grandma Grace set a steaming plate of bacon, eggs and toast in front of Luna and she shoveled the food in. She refused to think about being back in Valentine Bay. She refused to think about Connor Adams. She refused to think about anything but moving the fork between the plate and her mouth, then moving her feet down the hall to her old bedroom.
It was only once she was scrubbed up and settled between the blankets, watching the moonlight cast tree-branch shadows against the wall she knew so well, even as the horizon was dusky grey with the approaching dawn, that she let the full weight of it hit her.
She was back. This was real. Even though she was in bed, it wasn’t a dream.
She drifted off to sleep thinking about how strange that was, but the strangest thing about it was how it didn’t really feel strange at all. In fact, it felt like the most natural thing in the world.
