Page 37 of Back to You
“Yeah, I know.” I tossed back the covers and opened my bedroom doors. “Kitty-kitty?” Several of them circled my feet, continuing to meow. A glance towards the kitchen told me that Gran wasn’t up yet. The house was still dark. I padded down the hall in my underwear. Their food dishes were empty.
“What’s wrong, buddy?” I bent down to see cross-eyed Sampson flick his ears back with another plaintive meow. “You hungry?” I dished out their breakfast, but only a couple of the younger cats came running up to eat. The others rubbed against my legs and paced down the halls, making noises that I’d never heard in all the years I’d lived here.
It worried me.
“Gran?” I called out. Had she fallen? She could’ve broken a hip. I knocked on her door, three sharp raps. I held my breath. No answer. She was a heavy sleeper though, always had been. Cautiously, I twisted her doorknob and crept into her bedroom. “Gran?” I said, a little louder.
Gran was in bed, with Mrs. White perched on the pillow beside her head. The room was eerily quiet except for the loud knocking in my skull. She wasn’t snoring. Anxiety kicked in.
“Grandma Gin?” I went to her side and gently shook her, then yanked my hands back with a gasp. Her body was cool and unmoving. I staggered away from the bed. “Dane!”
Footsteps thudded down the hall. Dane flung the door open and flipped on the light. I backed away from Gran’s body, stumbling into him. “Easy.” He looped an arm around my shoulder to steady me. “Hollister? What happened?”
But the shock that colored his voice told me that he saw what I saw—Grandma Gin, as peaceful in death as she was in slumber, with a smile on her pale lips. My chest clenched as my vision swam. I turned away to bury my face in Dane’s shoulder.
“She’s dead.” Sure, she was old and sure, she mentioned she’d been missing Calvin a lot lately, but she was as healthy as a horse, according to her doctor. Tears burned my eyes. I squeezed them shut. “I don’t understand. Why Gran? Why now?” A sob escaped and I didn’t even try to hide it. “Oh, god, Dane. She’sdead.Gran’s dead!”
Dane pulled me to his chest and kissed my forehead. “Shh, I got you, Hols. Come on, I’ll make you some tea.”
I clung to his hand all the way to the kitchen, fighting back tears the entire time. His thumb rubbed soft circles over my knuckles in an attempt to comfort me. “Sit,” he murmured. I pulled my chair out away from the table and sat while Dane calmly called 911.
When he hung up, he fetched Gran’s throw blanket and wrapped it around my shoulders. A glance down reminded me that all I wore were a pair of black briefs and my socks. I tugged the blanket tighter around my body with small smile. “Thank you.”
“Anytime, baby. Point me in the direction of the teabags and I’ll boil some water.”
Fifteen minutes later, we sat at the table with steaming mugs of chamomile tea. I curled my stiff fingers around the warmth of the cup and breathed in the sweet herbal aroma. Neither of us said a word, but the firm press of his thigh against mine was a promise that he wouldn’t leave my side. I closed my eyes.
It wasn’t long before every light in the house was on. An ambulance and two patrol cars were parked outside Grandma Gin’s house, red and white lights flashing through the sheer lace curtains. Dane took the EMTs back to her bedroom while I answered the officers’ questions.
When they finally left me alone, I pulled my legs up to my chest and buried my face in my knees. I wore the throw blanket like a cloak, as if somehow it might keep the tears at bay.
It didn’t.
The EMTs pronounced her dead at six twenty-two AM. I felt both sick and numb when they rolled her body out of the house on a stretcher, covered by her favorite floral sheet. I watched them go. I couldn’t seem to look away. It felt like they were taking a piece of my heart with them.
If it wasn’t for Grandma Gin, I didn’t want to know where I would’ve ended up. Now she was dead. I’d never see her smile again, never hear her laugh or watch her fill in those stupid crossword puzzles she loved so damn much…
I choked on a sob. Dane rubbed my back.
“You alright there, son?” A forty-something cop with a smatter of white hairs in his bushy beard stood in the archway between the kitchen and the living room. I glanced up, pursed my lips, and shook my head. No. I wasn’t alright. I was still trying to wrap my head around the fact that Grandma Gin was gone. “I’m sorry,” rumbled the officer. “Are you her grandson?”
“I… No. No. Just a friend. We looked out for each other.”
“Death is hard.” The man nodded solemnly. “Doesn’t matter if it’s a relative, or just a friend. It’s hard for everyone. Keep your chin up, kid.” He clapped me gently on the shoulder on his way out, his boots thumping over the cracked tile. The front door swung shut behind him, and then it was just me and Dane.
“She’s dead,” I finally managed to whisper. “This is real.”
“I know,” Dane murmured. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”
“What am I going to do?” I searched his face for answers that I knew he didn’t have.
Dane took both my hands in his and drew them to his lips, kissing my knuckles. “We’ll figure it out, okay? You’re not alone anymore, Hollister, I promise you that. We’ll get through this. Together.”
* * *
We’d talked about death a few times. Sometimes Grandma Gin would get a little weepy, missing her dearly departed. She knew she was old, and that human beings didn’t live forever, but she wasn’t afraid of death or whatever came afterwards. In fact, looking back, I think she was kind of looking forwards to it.
“I know that when it’s my time, my Calvin will be right there, waiting to take me through those pearly gates,” she’d told me once, dabbing at her eyes with a scrunched-up tissue.
