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Lolly is in her recliner, looking much more like her usual self than she did yesterday. She smiles at me, then sees the flowers and gasps.
“Oh, goodness!” she exclaims. “Are those for me?”
“Pretty flowers for a pretty lady!” I reply with my own smile.
I wait for Greg to finish up his charting, and then I lay the bouquet in my grandma’s lap.
“Hi, Lolly,” I say more quietly, patting the little gray poof of a bun on her head. “You’re looking awesome today.”
“She’sdoingawesome, too,” Greg chimes in.
“That’s what I heard on the phone!” I watch her smell the flowers, remembering how she used to do that with the flowers in her garden at home.
“I love orange,” she says, positively glowing as she admires the vivid blooms.
“I know it.” She used to hate the color orange with a passion, but that has changed, like so much else. “I knew you’d like these.”
Her warm eyes find mine, corners crinkling as she grins. It’s funny that sometimes she seems exactly her age—sixty-three—and other times she seems as young as I can remember her ever being.
“Well, how are you?” she wants to know.
“Good.” I grin back and nod. “I’m really good.”
“Oh? Did you finally finish that puzzle?”
I don’t know what she means, but instead of questioning her, I say, “It’s funny that you mention a puzzle—let me tell you something cool that happened to me.” I pull up the visitor’s chair I sat in last night. “I pieced together another bit of the puzzle of life itself.”
“Did you!”
Lolly is a great audience while I tell my choking story. She’s wide-eyed and nervous about me not being able to breathe, then awed when I tell her about Liv saving me, then thrilled when I talk about her and her niece, just as I expected. I find she doesn’t remember who Amanda is when I start on that part of the whole thing, so I just summarize my ex-girlfriend’s character, which leads to Lolly nodding in wise approval of my ending the relationship.
“Being happy is important,” she tells me.
“Yes,” I agree. “I realized that.”
She looks at me for a moment that stretches into a few, then several, then many.
And the longer she looks at me, the more unreadable her expression becomes.
“What’s up, Lolly?” I ask softly, trying to fend off the dull ache that fills my chest whenever I sense I’ve lost her in even the smallest way.
After another second, she blinks a slow blink, then sighs and gives me a smile.
“Have you seen the cat?” She peers around the room now. “I haven’t seen him in too long.” She makes smooching noises and pats at the plastic wrapped around her flowers. “Spoon! Come here, boy! Where are you hiding?”
I ignore the fact that she’s calling for a cat that’s not here and ask, “Spoon?”
“Yes, the cat, Spoon.”
And I can’t help it: I let out a laugh.
Lolly looks a little startled.
“Spoon,” I repeat, the ache in my chest blotted out by amusement over the silly name, which never belonged to any pet we ever had.
She begins to laugh, too, now. “Spoon!” she echoes.
I suspect she doesn’t really get what’s funny and is only laughing because I am, but that’s okay.
