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“Hey, Grandpa. I heard you’re giving Grandma fits. She called me in for backup.”
His grandfather snorted and then smiled. “She can take care of things on her own. She always has.”
“Not this,” his grandmother said. “You need to talk to Sawyer and listen to him. He knows what he is talking about.”
He wasn’t so sure about that. It’s not like he had any medical knowledge for a situation like this. Just his emergency training for his job.
“What’s going on, Grandpa?”
“Nothing,” his grandfather said and put the beer on the counter. “I’m out of breath and tired. The quack doctor thinks I need a new heart.”
He lifted his eyebrow. “A new heart?”
“No,” his grandmother said. “A valve. Not a heart. Don’t make it out to be more than it is.”
“It’s still open heart surgery,” Sawyer said.
“That’s right,” his grandfather said. “If you’re going to crack my chest open, do it when I’m dead. Or don’t bother at all. If I’m dead does it matter what caused it?”
“Curt!” his grandmother said sternly. “Stop it right now. Do you want to leave me alone when you can do something to stay with me?”
“So you can continue to nag me?” his grandfather said and walked out of the room.
Sawyer wanted to say something back but held his tongue. “Has he been like this for a while?” he asked his grandmother.
He could see the aging of his grandfather more than before. Whatever was going on, it wasn’t good.
“Yes,” his grandmother said. “He wanted to cancel his upcoming doctor’s appointment, but I told him no. I made the other one without telling him. It was the only way to get him to go. Actually”—she lowered her voice—“I said it was for me and when we got there, I checked in for him. They called him in and there wasn’t anything he could do at that point.”
“That’s pretty devious,” he said. “I didn’t think you had it in you.”
“I’m not my daughter,” his grandmother said. “Don’t think that, though I know you are.”
“I try not to think of her much at all,” he said.
His grandmother sighed. “I know. I don’t know what is wrong with her.”
“She is who she is. No one can change it now like they couldn’t years ago. Does she know what is going on with Grandpa?”
“Yes. I called her a few weeks ago and said I was concerned.”
He rolled his eyes. “And she didn’t want to be at the appointment?”
“I couldn’t have her there because your grandfather thought it was for me.”
“But once you knew what you know now?” he asked.
“She’s busy on Monday. She said she can’t get the time off of work.”
He didn’t believe that. More so with the sarcastic tone that his grandmother used. “She normally has some excuse.”
“As you said, you can’t change people all that much.”
He left after that. There was too much tension in the house. He’d felt it as a kid when his grandparents were pissed at their daughter. His mother. For never stepping up and being a mother.
Or a wife.
It’s funny but his grandparents were closer to his father than their own daughter back then. That was probably why they still kept in touch with their ex-son-in-law.
