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“I’ll be back in ten minutes,” the nurse said politely, giving Mom a little wave as she left.
“You haven’t been sleeping,” Mom said. Her eyes narrowed. “And you’ve lost weight.”
“It’s just my insomnia acting up,” I lied, sitting in the chair next to her bed. I wrapped her hand up in both of mine, relief crashing through me at the warmth in her fingers.
“You’re as bad as your father.” She sighed. “He tried to tell me he was getting three square meals a day and balked when I told him cereal wasn’t a meal.”
“It so is a meal,” I argued reflexively, after years of the same daily fight in our home.
“Just like him.” She chuckled. Her laugh turned to a hacking cough and I reached for the panic button before she waved me off. “Sorry, just a little weak is all.”
My shoulders drooped. “What did the doctor say?”
“Same thing he usually does,” she huffed, her indignation unfettered by her health. “I have to take it easy and rest, let the hospital treat me like a lab rat-”
“He does not say that,” I countered. “They’re running the tests they need to in order to find out what’s causing this. Have any of the results come back?”
“More questions than answers,” she grumbled. “But he’s coming to see me again this afternoon. I’ll find out more then, I suppose.”
I nodded, chewing on the inside of my cheek in thought. At least they were still actively running tests. I’d been thrown from sleep so many nights after nightmares of negligence and misdiagnoses.
“I’m so bored in here,” she complained, and I couldn’t blame her. “Tell me about the shop; how is everyone doing?”
“They’re all good,” I said, a genuine smile pulling my lips. “Vee says hi and Joe told me to tell you to remember your bet, whatever that means. They miss you.”
“I miss them,” she said wistfully. “What about Hayden? How is the store coming along under her ownership?”
I hesitated, long enough for Mom to notice.
“Has something happened?”
“No,” I assured her. “I’m working hard to keep it just the way you and Dad wanted. Nothing has changed.”
Mom looked at me for a long, long moment, her eyes dark with concern.
“You know, Frankie,” she began, her thumb running over the back of my hand. “Change isn’t as bad as you think. Personally, I think it's great. If it hadn’t been for me leaving my hometown, I never would have met your father.”
“But the store works fine as it is,” I told her, even though the fight in my voice had long ago left me.
“It may be fine now,” she said. “But it needs to adapt so that it can keep helping people. If the store can keep up with all the new technology that’s coming out, then it may just stick around for longer than your father and I thought it would.”
I stared at our hands, her knuckles knotted with arthritis.
From years of unloading crates alongside Dad. Of building what might become their legacy.
If only I allowed it to.
“Okay, who are you and what have you done with my precious Frankie?”
I rolled my eyes at Vanessa, whose sly smirk gave her insincerity away.
Because, of course, I couldn’t just change my mind.
“Don’t be dramatic, Vee.” I pouted, handing her the list of actionable tasks I’d printed that morning. I gave a copy to Joe, Dean, and Blanca respectively as well. “I just… had a change of heart, thanks to Mom.”
“A mighty woman, she is.” Joe whistled low, reading over the list I’d handed him.
“Okay, yuck it up.” I chuckled, setting my copy on the table in the staff room. “But I’m taking this as seriously as you all are. You know how I felt, but now I want to know how you feel.”
