Page 44 of Forever Christmas
Chapter 16: Gavin
The hospital seems quieter than last night. Maybe it’s because we’re walking to ICU rather than a normal patient hall.
Everyone inside this waiting room is somber. Makes sense, I guess. Cases here are more serious. People probably die on this ward every day. Maybe several times a day.
I shouldn’t think like that.
Mom is in the back corner, talkingquietly with Uncle Ben. She looks like a widow already, in a black sweater and skirt. Ben listens carefully, nodding at the right moments. He’s grizzly, with a big beard that obscures much of his face. That’s new.
“Where’s Grandma K?” June whispers.
“Heck if I know,” I say. “You want me to go find her so you can give her a big ol’ hug?”
June stabs my side with her elbow. “Hush.”
Only six orseven other people are scattered through the room. In the opposite back corner, two women weep softly in a huddle. My stomach flips. I wonder what they’re going through.
I snuck into an ICU in California once to see Corabelle. The actual ward, not the waiting room. The beds had all been lined up along the wall, monitors beeping at random intervals.
I got caught, but the nurse had mercy and letme stay. Corabelle had pneumonia, a bad case. I was beside myself, thinking I had found her after four years only to lose her again.
This time is nothing like that. I try to find any concern for my father at all, and come up with nothing. If he’s dead, he can’t insult Corabelle. Blaming her for the way he treated me was ridiculous. Anger burns in my heart a second time, just thinking about it.
“June,” Mom says, holding out her arms.
June walks over reluctantly and allows Mom to wrap her up in a hug.
“Uncle Ben is here!” Mom says.
Ben must not have been around much in the last six years, because June gets shy when she turns to him. He holds out a hand and she shakes it awkwardly.
I guess I better get over there too.
“Gavin,” Uncle Ben says, standing to clap my back as we shake.“You’re not the teenage pipsqueak I saw last.”
“You look like you’ve filled out a bit yourself,” I say.
Ben spreads his hands across his belly. “Looking to apply for some Santa positions soon,” he jokes. “Just waiting on this hair to go gray.”
“Oh, you’ve got years on that,” Mom says. “Dad didn’t go gray until he was sixty.”
And died not long after, I recall. His favorite expression was “dieyoung and leave a good-lookin’ corpse.” He hadn’t died all that young, but certainly before any of us was ready.
Grandpa Jack hadn’t cared one whit for my father and told Mom so. I heard them argue a time or two that she should leave him. But Mom always stuck by her husband. That’s what she always did best.
Sometimes I imagine Grandpa Jack and Finn are in some otherworldly play land, whoopingit up together. Life sure was all right when he was around, giving me geodes and making sure I was learning stuff. He did hard labor on road construction sites, and it broke him down over time. His son Ben followed in his footsteps. He wanted something different for me.
Maybe I needed to get that degree done after all.
I sit by Ben, and June settles in next to Mom.
“Any news?” I ask.
“Theyupdate us every couple hours,” Mom says. “Everything looks good, so they’re going to let him wake up on his own. He’s ornery enough that he’ll make us wait all night.”
“You want to get some dinner or some sleep?” I ask. “I can hang out up here.”
“Ben and I had dinner,” Mom says. “We’re going to give it until midnight then break until morning.”
