Page 76 of Meet Hate Love
Ever since my grandpa had passed away, she’d loved to refer to them all as crooks.
The nurse moved to the bedside, checking the taped-over canula in Grandma’s hand. “We just want to make sure you’re better before we discharge you.”
Grandmahmphedat that.
I sat on the edge of the stiff bed and mouthed “sorry” to the nurse before she left the room. “They’re trying to help you.”
Her cold hand clasped mine. “Sorry I ruined your trip, sugar.”
“You didn’t ruin it.” Had I needed to, I would have turned around the minute we’d landed in Paris, without complaint, for that woman. She was the closest thing to a mother I’d known, and she meant the world to me. “You scared me, though.”
“Yeah.” She chuckled. “Gotta keep you on your toes, I guess.”
I satand talked to her for the rest of the evening, mostly listening to her tell stories about my grandpa. About two hours in, she came to her favorite story. Grandpa had walked into M and M’s BBQ wearing a leather jacket and greased-back hair and had stolen her heart. “You know, I was engaged to another man when I met him.”
That was something my grandfather had been proud of. Stealing her out of the clutches of another guy. “Grandpa always said his doing a wheelie on that motorcycle made you find him irresistible.”
“I wouldn’t so much call it a wheelie. He was trying to show out. Lost control of the dad-blast-it thing and nearly ran into the billboard.” She chuckled. “Wasn’t even his motorcycle.”
That was a new bit of information I’d never heard. “Whose was it?”
She fiddled with her hospital gown. “No idea. Pretty sure he just hopped on one in the parking lot.” A sentimental smile shaped her thin lips. “Oh, your grandpa… There was just something ‘bout him. It made no sense, but it felt like I’d known him my whole life.”
“Of course, it didn’t make sense, Grandma. You married him after two weeks.” And they’d remained married for sixty years.
“Because we knew.” Her gaze met mine. “You know, I always say, nothing about love makes sense. And if it makes sense at first, it ain’t no good.”
“I believe that…”
She perked up at my comment, shifting in the hospital bed with a grin. “You got your eye on somebody?”
I had more than my eye on Blake. “There’s a really nice girl I’ve started seeing.”
Her smile widened. Probably because I hadn’t “seen” a girl since I’d left Alabama, and she had stayed on me about settling down. “You gonna bring her down to meet me?”
“Of course.”
“I’ll make her a jar of my dill pickles.” A shrill alarm went off, and Grandma reached for the overbed table. “Now, which reminder is that?” She picked up her cell phone, holding it out to read the screen. Then she shook her head and passed the device to me. “Done left my glasses at the house.”
“It says feed Cowboy.” The woman would set reminders to feed her dog but not to take her blood pressure medicine.
“That’d be ‘bout right. His dinner time’s always afterJeopardy.” She shifted in the inclined bed, fiddling with the IV in her arm. “You’re gonna stay at the house, right?”
I nodded toward the plastic-looking recliner in the room’s corner. “I was planning on staying right there.”
She huffed. “Ain’t gonna do no such thing. You snore like you’re sawing logs. Kept me up for eighteen years. And I already got enough beeping and chiming from all these monitors.” She waved an arm around the small room. “Besides, Cowboy gets lonely.” She patted my arm. “Why don’t you go on to the house and take care of him? Come by and see me in the morning?”
A bed sounded much more inviting than that recliner. “Okay, Grandma.” I leaned over to kiss her forehead.
She cupped a hand to her mouth. “And bring me some cigarettes,” she whispered.
The woman used to smoke like a chimney. After my grandpa had passed, she’d promised she’d stop.
“I thought you quit?”
“Practically have. Only have one after my morning coffee, one at lunch, and one after dinner. Maybe one when I wake up to take a tinkle at night.”
Shaking my head, I pushed up from the hospital bed. “I’m not bringing you cigarettes.”
