Page 22 of Home Body
She turned around to find Rose and Rover standing behind her. “Where’d Mommy and Grammy go?”
“Oh, hi honey. Well, let’s see. They had to go visit a friend who isn’t feeling very well.” Her second lie of the day came more easily than the first about a gymnastics scholarship.
“Did they take her some soup?”
“Why yes. Yes, they did.” The third lie tumbled out in a slick domino effect.
“She’ll pro-ly feel better after eating some of Grammy’s soup.”
“Oh, I’m sure of it. It’s so nice of them to take care of her. Do you mind that I’m going to stay to babysit you?”
“Nah. I don’t mind so much.”
“Would you like to have me read you a story or something?”
“Sure. But first can I have a biscuit?” Rose pointed at the table.
“Oh, yes. Of course. In fact, I want to finish mine, too.”
Rose showed Llayne where in the cupboards to get a plate and a glass, she got a fork out of the drawer she could reach, and they settled down at the table. As they sat there silently enjoyingtheir snack, Llayne felt something she hadn’t felt since Kenyon had been a little girl. It was palpable, the essence of being so near an innocent child. She felt like she’d been granted the greatest gift imaginable: the friendship of a trusting child who had yet to be harangued by the vicissitudes of growing up. It was a gift that reminded her as a grown-up that life holds infinite possibility and unfettered love, no matter one’s age.
She had an urge to grab Rose in a big hug but checked herself. She didn’t want to scare the poor kid.
Instead, she sat back and reveled in realizing this was what it would feel like if she were a grandmother. This was what it would feel like to have faith in the future. And this was what it would feel like to know amidst all the marvels out there in the world, all the beautiful places she ever visited and all the interesting people she’d ever met, this very moment sitting at an old kitchen table with a young girl was the epitome of what life had to offer. This was the meaning of pure joy.
CHAPTER 16
“Clarice, how is she?” Dalia asked the front desk receptionist as soon as she entered Olive Branch nursing home. Mamie followed on her heels.
“Hi, honey. Hi, Mamie. I’m afraid it doesn’t look good but she’s still with us.”
The receptionist knew Dalia well from her weekly visits to her mother. But everyone in the place knew that Agnes Singleton, a crotchety resident who made life hell for everyone who deigned to cross her path, must have been a horrible mother. They also knew from word around town that Agnes had abandoned her child and left her to be raised by Mamie and Butch Blackburn, God rest his soul, the most beloved couple in the community.
The staff at the nursing home greatly admired Dalia for so dutifully supporting a woman they doubted would have returned the favor. And they loved it that Mamie usually brought them “a little something to keep the hangries at bay,” like donuts, cupcakes, cookies, and even cakes for their birthdays. In the summer when the farm flower garden was bursting with colorful blooms, they’d bring bouquets too.
When Agnes first took up residence there a year earlier, they would also bring the patient snacks and flowers. But she always complained. The donuts weren’t her favorites, the flowers smelled up her room, and the visits interrupted her naps. It wasn’t long before they gave up trying to make her happy and focused on the staff.
But this visit was different for the staff. This might be the last time they would be visited by Dalia and Mamie, who’d come to feel like family.
“Thanks,” Dalia said over her shoulder as she started down the hall.
“Thank you, Clarice,” Mamie added before following her adopted daughter.
Dalia knocked lightly on the closed door to Agnes’s room. A nurse answered.
“Come in,” the nurse whispered. “She’s sleeping. The doctor says it won’t be long now. Would you like me to call him for you?”
“No thank you, Sherri. There’s nothing he can do at this point, is there?”
“No. Nothing.”
“We’ll just sit with her for a while if that’s okay.”
“Of course.”
Sherri, an extremely competent nurse, the kind anyone would want watching over them in this kind of situation, went to a chair across the room, not willing to leave when death was imminent. Dalia and Mamie each took a folding chair on either side of the bed.
Dalia stared at the woman who was her mother. Oxygen tubes hung out of her nose with a hose draped across her shoulder that connected to an oxygen tank at the side of the bed. Agnes’s skin had always been blotchy, her high blood pressure causing red spots on her chest and neck. Now a deathly whitepallor overtook her, white as the sheet pulled up to her chin. Her thin gray hair puffed out around her head like cotton candy, so frail it looked like it would disintegrate if touched. She’d always been a heavy woman, junk food being her primary source of nutrients. But her body took on the shape of a skeleton under the bedding.
