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“Fine,” she said after a long pause. “Make sure nobody sees you.”
“Promise.” Leah exhaled in relief. “Thank you so much.”
She was already five steps away from the desk when the nurse cleared her throat. “Wait a second.”
“Yeah?”
The nurse’s meaty hands slid the box under the desk. “There’s a problem.”
Leah didn’t think her heart could sink any lower. “Is she okay?”
“She will be, at least for a while.” The nurse sighed. “There’s a problem with the blood medication she needs. The supply’s running dry and…”
Leah’s knees gave out. Her shaky hand leaned against the wall, centering her. She was three shallow breaths away from collapsing.
The moment she’d been dreading had finally come.
“How long?” she whispered.
“Two weeks, maybe.” The nurse’s eyes softened further. “Listen, hun, we’re doing everything we can to find more. But you know how it is. Those blasted Zavorians intercepted a shipment and it’s going to take a long time until another craft dares to cross the ocean. We’ve already contacted every hospital in the state. We’re trying the next state over tomorrow.”
“I can pay,” Leah lied. The money she got from selling the house, which she only used for the hospital bills, was quickly diminishing. “Please.”
The nurse shook her head, even as she said, “We’re trying.”
An ugly silence settled over the reception hall. It had a sickening finality to it.
Leah shook her head. Her grandma couldn’t see her like this. She’d have to worry about the medication once she left.
The ticking clock on her five minutes had already started.
Once she regained feeling in her feet, she wobbled up to the third floor. She’d been traipsing the same dejected path for the past three months.
The white corridor was silent, except for the few beeps breaking the hideous stillness.
Leah hated this hospital. But it was the only one her grandma’s insurance covered and the staff was usually nice.
She rolled her shoulders back and plastered a smile on her face as she opened the door to her grandma’s room.
It was bare except for a bed and a nightstand holding a vase with a quickly wilting flower. Damn. She forgot to bring a rose today.
You wouldn’t have been able to afford it, anyway.
She’d just have to ask Chanelle if she could borrow one from her garden tomorrow. Leah’s grandma had loved her rose garden—and still didn’t know it was gone.
Leah hadn’t had the heart to tell her grandma she’d sold the house.
“Hi, Nana,” she whispered as she stepped inside.
“Baby girl, you came,” her nana whispered as if she’d just woken up, turning her head slowly. A beautiful smile bloomed on her face, accentuating her smile lines. She’d had a good husband and a good life.
Leah would do everything in her power to make her final days as comfortable as possible.
But it gutted her every time she saw her grandma in that bed, getting smaller each day. Nana still had her brilliant smile and the sparkle in her eyes, but her wrists were getting slimmer, her white hair thinner.
This was the woman who’d raised Leah since she’d been three years old. Back when cars had still been a thing, her parents had been taken away in an accident. Leah barely remembered them.
All she remembered were her grandma’s long hugs, the smell of soup in the kitchen when she came back from school, and being told not to run on the rundown porch, but doing it anyway.
