“Okay, that’s good.”
This couldn’t be as serious as the first stroke since she could still talk to me clearly. Right?
“How’s your head? Do you have a headache?”
“No. Why would I have a headache?”
“Because you’re having another stroke. Remember, you had a bad headache the first time you had a stroke.”
I could tell I was confusing her. It was like suddenly she couldn’t remember that she’d had a stroke. I could hear the siren as the ambulance turned down our long driveway. They’d arrived quickly.
“I’m going to let them in.”
As I opened the door to the paramedics, I blurted out that my grandmother was having another stroke.
“Another?”
That left me explaining her recent medical history, even as I led them to the bathroom. Quickly, they put in an IV. They asked her a few questions, and then one of them said, “She seems pretty cognoscente.”
“Yeah, a few minutes ago she thought I was her first husband.”
“I didnot,” she said, clearly offended. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
Then she puked again, moaning even as she retched. One of the paramedics said, “We’ll be transporting her in a few minutes. Do you want to ride with her in the ambulance?”
“No, I’ll bring the car.” That way I had a way to get home. I also wouldn’t have to watch her throw up, which was making my stomach turn.
I followed the ambulance along the rain-slicked roads to the hospital in Bellflower. Part of me worried that I was losing her, while another part wondered what that would mean. My mother would get the farm, of course, and she’d immediately sell it, also of course. If I asked nicely enough—and by nicely, I mean begged—she might give me some money to help get me back on my feet and set up back home in Los Angeles.
Thinking that made me feel bad. My grandmother wasn’t dead. Yet. So I shouldn’t be thinking about how well that might work out for me. Though it did seem like it could work out very well… I mean, it would be better if she just left me some money directly, but that certainly wouldn’t happen.
And then, randomly, I started thinking about how much she’d hate the farm being sold. Was that why she’d talked about her family and how many—oh my God. She wanted me to talk my mother out of selling it when she died. Hmmm. That was not a conversation I had any interest in. Nor one I expected would be successful. My mother had always done exactly as she damn well pleased. No matter how it affected me.
Anyway, Midland Hospital (formerly Morley Medical Center, formerly St. Anne’s) was not especially busy, so it wasn’t that hard to find a parking spot near the emergency room and hurry over to join my grandmother before she got all the way inside.
I suppose I should have wondered if Edward was working, but I hadn’t, so it was a surprise when he walked into the examining area they’d settled us in. I immediately turned into a five-foot-eight stick of melting butter.
“Hi,” I gurgled foolishly. “I think my grandmother has had another stroke.”
“I have not,” she said from the narrow bed beside me.
“It’s probably a mild one,” I said, explaining the fact that she was speaking coherently. “She was vomiting and disoriented.”
“Hello, Emma, do you remember me?”
“No.”
“I’m Dr. Stewart. We met about two months ago when you had your stroke.”
“Oh. Okay.” She looked flustered. I suspected she was having the same reaction to his good looks that I had. The tree doesn’t fall very far from the apple, as it were.
“Do you remember what happened?”
“I heated up some lasagna for my lunch. A while later I began to feel sick.”
“What’s a while?”
“I don’t know. It might have only been a half an hour.”
