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She looked at me sideways. “Apparently they have a standing date for breakfast on Sunday mornings. He said he went early because you weren’t there, and he knew she gets up at five most mornings.”
“Thank, God,” I whispered.
Amber’s eyes looked betrayed. I lay my hand on her arm. “I didn’t know.”
She nodded shortly. Believing.
Truthfully, it would not be unlike me to walk past a party in the dining room and miss it, lost in my own head.
“He does love you, Amber.” I held up my hand to forestall the protestation poised on her lips. “I’m not telling you what to do. I don’t know enough facts to even offer an opinion. But a blind man could see that he loves you and I know what it is to live separated from the one that you love. It’s got to be killing him.”
“You think it’s not killing me?” Amber hissed.
I took half a step back. Amber didn’t usually lose her cool.
“Then, why, Amber? Why deny yourselves?”
She looked away. “In this, Ruby, you need to mind your own business. You’re right, you don’t know the facts,” she swung back to look at me and her cognac-coloured eyes were flat, “and I don’t owe you them.”
I swallowed hard and nodded, realizing that while Minty seemed to be more aware about what happened between Amber and Gus, I was not.
God, I really was a third wheel to them, even after all these years.
I stepped back and turned to face Yiayia’s small form in the bed. I snorted to myself. Never thought I’d see a day when facing Yiayia still and quiet in a hospital bed was preferable to facing my sister.
I pulled a chair up to her left side and slipped my hand under hers, closed my eyes, and prayed.
Amber sat down on the other side and after a few minutes, when I could successfully hide my hurt, I spoke to her.
“The doctor’s been in?”
“Yes.” Amber glanced at me warily and cleared her throat. “She has a hairline fracture in her right arm and a possible concussion. They still need to run more tests, and they are concerned about her right hip.”
I swallowed hard. “I hope it’s not her hip,” I whispered.
I’d heard the stories, we both had, about elderly people going into the hospital with a broken hip and never coming out. Being stuck in a hospital bed did funny things to people and the elderly were particularly susceptible.
“Just pray that it’s not her hip, and that her concussion isn’t bad, so we can bring her home.”
“I think she should come home to her own house. Now is not the time to move her.”
If I had been there, this would not have happened. She wouldn’t have been lying there with no one to help her, no one to find her for hours.
Shitfuckdamn.
If she fell at five and Gus didn’t get there until seven? Did she lose consciousness? Is it bad that we don’t know that?
Did she fall because she was upset? Of course, she was upset. She wanted to be by herself to say goodbye to the home she shared with Pappou, the only home she’d ever known here in Canada.
Oh, God! What if she fell last night and waited all night, cold and alone, on the floor?
“Ruby, don’t fall down any rabbit holes. You’ve waited a long time to be with Vander and you are doing the right thing.”
There was Amber slipping into her role as my big sister, giving advice she wouldn’t take herself. I wondered if Minty saw me the same way.
“Look after your own problems, Amber. You’re hardly in a position to be giving me advice.”
I heard her quick intake of breath and regret for my harsh words hit me immediately, but Yiayia’s small hand fluttered over mine and drew my attention.
