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“Hello, Brody,” a younger woman says.
“Hey. Yep. This is me. What’s up?”
There’s a short pause.
“I’m Katrina. One of your grandmother’s main nurses.” She sighs. “Brody, I’m so sorry to tell you this over the phone, but…your grandma had a stroke this morning. She’s being kept comfortable…but there isn’t anything we can do besides wait.”
Time stops moving. And everything in the background just echoes, blending together. My grandmother has Alzheimer’s, but her body was in good shape. Terrific shape.
“Brody? Are you there?”
“I’m here,” I mutter. “I don’t…I don’t really understand.”
“There was too much brain damage. She’s in the hospital now, but she’s being kept alive by machines.” She pauses. “Her body is shutting down despite our efforts. If you’d like a chance to say good-bye, you’d better get here as quickly as you can.” There’s a short pause. “Is that something you’d like?”
“Uh, yes. Yeah. What hospital is she at?”
“Dixon White. And, Brody, she might pass on her own, so if seeing her before then is something you’d like…you might want to hurry.”
“I’ll leave right now,” I say, heading back in the locker room to shower and change quickly. “I can be there in four hours.”
“I’m so sorry, Brody,” she says softly. “She’s a wonderful lady.”
“Thanks. Bye.” I end the call, not wanting to talk anymore.
I know I should have gone home more. I should have sucked it up and just gone back. But I can’t turn back time. The least I can do is be there for her now.
Just a few minutes shy of four hours later, I walk into the hospital, realizing I’ve never felt quite this alone. My grandmother is the only family I have besides my sperm donor. And even though she couldn’t save me from my father because she was scared of him too, what she did do was make my childhood a little more bearable. Because every now and then, I got to travel the hour to her house and stay the night there. She’d promise me things would get better even though I knew they probably weren’t going to.
I don’t know what I’m going to say to her. Or if it even matters since she’s pretty much gone anyway. But I knew I had to come here and do this. Even if it doesn’t mean anything now.
Once I’m directed to where I need to go, I head to floor five and find her room. If I didn’t have that feeling creeping up my spine that my father might be here, I could probably stop looking around, panicked. But even though I know the likelihood he’d be here is zero to none, I can’t help but feel like I need eyes on the back of my head right now.
Walking into room 515, I’m hit with a feeling of guilt as soon as I see her lying in that bed. Her skin is an odd color, and her body looks so frail.
I should have come home sooner. If I had come home more often, maybe she would have known who I was when I did.
Taking a few steps toward the bed, I pull the chair closer and sit down. Awkwardly looking at her hand, debating if I should take it or not. Most people have parents to help them know the proper thing to do in this kind of situation. So, I sit here, wondering,Is it weird to hold the hand of someone who’s basically dead? Or do I take one for the team and just go for it, hoping she’ll somehow know I’m here?
“Fuck it,” I mutter, taking her hand. “Sorry, Gram. I’m no good at this shit. You know that.” I sigh. “I, uh…I don’t really know what to say. Or how to say it. Since I went to Brooks, I know I haven’t come home much. Damn hockey keeps me busy.” I pause. “That’s not always true. And the one thing you couldn’t stand was when I lied to you. So, here it is…I’m scared to come back here. You know why. I don’t need to say his name. But it’s more than that, Gram. It’s like…what if I fucking turn into the guy after spending too much time around him? What if his poison creeps into my veins and I wake up a monster?” I look down at our hands. “Sometimes, I feel like one anyway.”
The machines beep, and her chest rises and falls, but I know it’s not because she’s breathing on her own. She isn’t.
“I get so mad sometimes. I get angry, and I can’t even control it. I do stupid shit. Isaystupid shit.” I swallow back a lump. “I had this girl, Bria. Sweetest, coolest, prettiest chick I’d ever met. You would love her. But she’s like sunshine, Gram. And I don’t want to ruin her with my darkness. The world needs her light.” I wipe my eyes with my free hand. “Just like it needs yours.”
I stare down at her, shocked by how much she’s aged since I saw her last.
“She took me to Disney World.DisneyWorld. And I think I fell in love with her for it. How dumb is that?” I let the tears fall, but I don’t try to stop them.
“I guess I just got it in my head that people like us, we don’t get happily ever afters. You didn’t with my asshole of a grandfather, my mother didn’t because my father probably beat her so much that she ran away, and now, I’m here. And where we come from…we don’t get the fairy tales that kids read in books.” I snuffle. “I wouldn’t even know the first thing about how to get there. Or what to do once I made it.”
I give her hand a squeeze. “You are the best thing in my life, Gram. I know you wanted to do more. I know you tried your best. And for that, I love you. You always told me to be a good boy. And most of the time, I didn’t listen. But I promise, Gram, I’m going to do my best.”
In this moment, I guess I half-expect her to open her eyes and say good-bye. Or squeeze my hand. Something—anything—to tell me she’s still in there. But she doesn’t. The machines continue to do their job, beeping every now and then. And she lies there, basically lifeless.
I walk out of the hospital room, leaving my grandmother behind.
Twenty minutes ago, they shut off the machines and let her go, just like she’d wished for. And watching that line go straight, indicating she had really left this world behind, hit me hard.
