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Chapter 43 - Meddling
Ruby
Walking into the house last night, I felt Yiayia’s absence acutely. Rarely, over the past ten years, had I arrived home to an empty house. Without her, the house was a brittle shell with only memories echoing off the walls.
I held it together, ordered pizza for dinner, even pulled out a board game to play with Jace and Vander. But as soon as Jace headed to bed, I dropped the façade. Standing in the kitchen, I stared out the window into the night until Vander led me upstairs by the hand.
Slipping into my bed, I folded in on myself. Vander curled around my back with one arm around my waist, holding me close, the other under my head, his hand wrapped around my wrist, tethering me to him tightly, and surprisingly, I slept.
First thing in the morning, I called the hospital for an update, then called Amber. She had two patients she couldn’t reschedule in the afternoon but planned to go to the hospital in the morning. I agreed to go in the afternoon. Hopefully by then, we’d be allowed to bring Yiayia home, well, to Amber and Gus’s house. I still believed the familiarity of home might be better.
Vander left for work, hugging me tightly and kissing me deeply before he left, dropping Jace off to school on his way. He planned to pick Jace and Alex up from school and keep them at his place for the night. Gus would take the following night. The goal was to keep the boys in the loop but distracted. The comfort of each others’ presence would help them cope with the uncertainty of Yiayia’s health.
At Spuds, I found little to do. I put a sign up on the door stating we were closed due to a family emergency, cleaned out the fridge of all perishables, and disinfected the surfaces. Locking the door, I headed to the hospital only to find out that Yiayia’s blood oxygen levels were dropping dramatically for no known reason, and she’d be staying another night.
Amber left to meet her appointments and I sat in the world’s most uncomfortable chair and watched Yiayia breathe, my anxiety spiking with every alert from the machines that monitored her vitals.
When awake, Yiayia spoke clearly, her thought process lucid, but she wasn’t awake a whole lot.
By late afternoon, Amber returned, and we waited together for the doctor to show up. A short while later, a brisk knock on the door announced her arrival.
“Hi, ladies. I’m Dr. Galena. I’m your grandmother’s physician here at the hospital,” she said with a ready smile.
“Nice to meet you. I’m Amber and this is Ruby. What can you tell us about our grandmother’s condition?”
She flipped through the file, murmuring, “Nothing has changed since this morning, that’s good…” She looked up at us. “Okay. Her hip is fine. The break in her arm is going to take a while to heal. She cannot use that hand for six weeks. It should heal if she doesn’t try to use it. As for the concussion, there are certain things for you to watch for like dizziness, confusion, headaches, anything out of the ordinary. I’d like her to have a seated walker with her at all times so that if a dizzy spell comes, she can sit until it passes.”
“Um, we were in the process of moving her when this happened,” I interjected. “Would it be better to just keep her in the home where she’s lived all her life?”
“Hmm. Where was she moving to?”
“My house,” Amber replied. “We have a granny suite on the main floor. Her house is a two story.”
“I would think she’ll be much better off in the one floor plan. How are the bathing facilities?”
“My husband is outfitting her bathroom with safety bars and seating today.”
“That sounds good.”
Whatever else they said escaped my notice.
Yiayia stirred but didn’t wake.
The walls closed in, thinning the air around me, and I needed to escape before I embarrassed myself. Standing, I thanked the doctor, told Amber I’d check in with her later, pulled back my shoulders to open my chest, and walked out as calmly as I could.
Breaking through the front doors of the hospital, I sucked in a breath of cool air. I walked the perimeter of the parking lot, taking deep breaths and repeating my mantras, but the overarching urge to get home swelled up within me pushing me to beeline to my car.
I concentrated on the drive. The need to focus offered a welcome respite from my rising anxiety. I mentally traced the routes in my head, choosing the one with less traffic while not going into those isolated stretches of road I’d deemed unsafe.
Okay, okay, okay. You’re doing good. Almost home.
The relief I expected would greet me once home embraced me within its walls, was conspicuously absent. I wandered the first floor, searching for something to anchor me, something to make me feel safe
The silence acted as a greenscreen for the noise in my head.
I plodded upstairs, my head floating above my body, my legs jellied, my pulse pounding in my ears.
Working to keep my breaths long and even, I dug Vander’s university sweatshirt out of the back of my closet and pulled it on over my t-shirt. With stiff, bloodless fingers I struggled to release the button of my jeans and exchanged them for pyjama pants. Digging through my drawer, I found a pair of warm, fuzzy socks and put them on with shaking hands.
