Retreat to Love (22 page)

“Well. Good. I’m glad.” It still seemed too odd to contemplate, but look at how strange everything was in our family right then. Bernadette, who’d just hugged me with no one to witness it, was off in the ICU waiting room with Frank and Caleb, and Zach and I were at our Gran’s bedside, talking about church, while she was comatose.

Zach was teary, too, so we hugged on each other and stared out the window at the top of a parking garage—not ours—below, and I told him it was going to be okay, because, after all, what was the alternative?

Soon—it seemed soon—visiting time was over, so we were packed off back to the waiting area with the assurance of a doctor soon to follow.

All in all, his report wasn’t so encouraging. Gran’s GP had been by, and would follow up with us after rounds, but hadn’t given us much hope. If any. They were, I guessed, taking it easy on us. It didn’t matter for Bernadette, who couldn’t or wouldn’t grasp a tenth of the medical information she’d been hearing. Maybe on some level the staff’s gentle reports helped her, I don’t know. But for me, I was angry at anything less than full disclosure. After the doctor headed away from our group, I pulled my arm from Caleb’s hold and followed him to demand more clarity.

At least he was sympathetic. What a crappy thing to have to learn to be, I thought, as I damned his glasses for reflecting the fluorescents and hindering my ability to read his expression.

“Ms. May, your grandmother is not in a good position. I don’t know of any better way to put it. This, the cerebral bleed, is one of the worst types of stroke to recover from, particularly for someone elderly who was not presented for treatment right away.”

“But she will—she could—recover?” I was speaking as levelly as I could. Breathe in, Ashlyn, then breathe out. Listen to what the man had to say.

“Anything is possible at this point, of course. But I will tell you even if she does survive this stroke, she will most likely have mobility and functionality problems, some of them potentially quite severe. The stroke was inner-cerebral, and affected the part of her brain where many of her reflexes are controlled. You should prepare yourself, and your family, for that.”

I stared some more at him, but he wasn’t forthcoming.

I went back to the chairs where my family sat, now giving me the hopeful blank looks we must have all given Dr. Erie moments before. I could only shrug as I sat back down between Caleb and Bernadette. She took my hand, and I clung to it, and then we just sat for a while.

“Matthew should be here in an hour,” Frank said. He’d said the same thing twenty minutes earlier, but Zach had been the only one to reply, “Great,” so this time I asked if I should go to the airport to get him. Between us, we’d had that conversation seven or eight times, but it kept resurfacing. Until Uncle Matthew—Gran’s baby-love, the boy who never failed to light up her face, the one who’d taken her on an Alaskan cruise to help her over the hump of Pappa’s death—until he arrived, we could go no further with discussing Gran’s condition.

“I saw signs for a food court,” Caleb volunteered. “I’ll see what they have. Does anyone want coffee or a soda?”

“Let me go, too,” I stood. It may have been the first time since we left FireWind I’d looked into his eyes. “Okay?”

He nodded, and pressing our palms together, we set off.

“Caleb,” I started, but had to stop his walking beside me first. There was a short hallway to an alcove, and I pulled us into it.

“Caleb,” I began again, this time touching his beautiful face and locking his stormy eyes with mine. “Thank you. Thank you so much, it’s ....”

“Shhh, Ash, love, it’s fine. It’s nothing to thank me for. I wouldn’t be anywhere else. Not now.”

And then he was pulling my body into his, holding me, a steel beam for my dripping limbs and drooping heart. He absorbed my tremors, quiet hmm-shusshing and gentle kisses in my hair and, I gasped because, in the midst of my meltdown, I was exalting that he’d called me ‘love.’

He eased us onto the floor and cradled me in his lap, my face buried in his neck, rocking us gently until I relaxed. The tears—that round of tears, anyway—subsided and I deep-breathed as I dried my face on the tail of my shirt.

“Thanks,” I whispered, a little embarrassed.

One more kiss to my scalp. “Hey, no problem.”

“Goddess help me, but you are a sweet man, Caleb.”

He laughed silently. “Is that bad?”

I held him tightly a moment. “No, not in the least.”

When we stood I suddenly felt the tight after-effects of the car ride, and probably the pent-up tension, as well. There was a restroom a few steps away, so I excused myself in search of a cool wet paper towel and a place to straighten myself without looking like an idiot.

Amazingly, the signs for the cafeteria seemed to lead us on a direct and easily-traceable route, and they had, in addition to cheese sandwiches, a decent-looking vegetarian pasta salad. In the course of collecting our Styrofoam boxes and bag of drinks, I told Caleb I’d been acting far too snippy and judgmental at the retreat, and he countered with self-accusatory self-centeredness and pettiness, and then we both assured each other that really, we’d done nothing wrong, and just fell into a little trap of not talking to each other, and we’d watch it from now on. By then we were back to our niche, and Caleb stepped into it, glancing back at me. I followed, blushing, and put the bag on the one wobbly table that furnished the area.

“You haven’t replied yet, you know,” he said, tracing my left eyebrow with his right forefinger. Delicate, delicate softness.

“About what?” I asked. Lying, of course. I just wanted him to say it again.

He shook his head. “I’m no sucker, Ashlyn May. You know perfectly well.”

My hands moved from his neck to his shoulders, and on tiptoe I leaned in to whisper, “I love you, Caleb.” The left ear, naturally—it’s the one most sensitive to these things.

Turns out he was strong enough to twirl me around, a spin of happiness followed by a short, hard kiss on the lips.

I used to wonder who it was out there—in the world of movies and novels and the like—who would chose the moments of deep turmoil in their lives to delve into the grandiose emotional territory of love. But all of the sudden I had a new theory about it, one which made it utterly logical for Caleb and I to be sharing our first confessions of love while the grilled cheese was getting cold and Gran was still unresponsive sixty yards away. The rawness of my fear and guilt left no room for interference about trivial matters. The unfinished quilts and the reactions of Wren and Lizzy to Caleb leaving town with me and whether or not I’d left the alarm clock on had no place in my mind—or heart—while I was wandering the hospital corridors. It was inconsequential.

What was strong and obvious was the union of our common emotion, and giving those words to him made going back with rubbery pasta spirals to the plastic sofas to wait for my uncle’s galvanizing arrival an easier task. Almost, if not quite, bearable.

Looking over my shoulder, Zach stood, grinning despite the circumstances, and went forward to take Uncle Matthew’s bag. Uncle Matthew tousled his hair. No one else could do that, but it had been their gesture of affection back when Matthew was in his twenties, not minding but not admitting he liked it that five-year-old Zach followed him everywhere. He hugged me in passing then kissed Bernadette’s cheek with a “Hi, sis, happy belated,” which set her in tears again. It killed off the rest of our initial euphoria at seeing him again, and we sat heavily into our chairs. Matthew shook Frank’s hand and I introduced him to Caleb. We determined that his flight had been okay and that he’d had no trouble getting in from the airport, that he didn’t want any lunch and that he’d stay at Frank and Bernadette’s house, with ‘the kids’—Caleb and Zach and I—at Gran’s.

Then there was nothing else to talk about except Gran.

Frank, with a surprisingly good grip on the medical facts at hand, talked Uncle Matthew through the events as we knew them and the diagnosis, such as it was. He told Bernadette to stay in the waiting area with ‘the kids’ (it was becoming standard parlance) while he took Matthew into the ICU, which has just re-started afternoon visiting hours. After the wide doors swung shut behind them, I looked at Bernadette. “Will you come for a walk with me?”

She blinked, focused, thought for a moment. “I’d like that, yes.”

We found a window looking out over actual green space and paused to take it in.

“He’s so nice,” Bernadette said.

“Matthew?”

“No, no. Your Caleb. A nice young man.”

I smiled my thanks. And I surprised myself by telling her I loved him.

“I can tell.”

“You can?”

“I can. It’s beautiful. Your Gran told me you were in love, and I was so, I don’t know, sad you’d told her and not me.”

Gran was the one who told them about Caleb? “But I didn’t tell her I loved him,” I said. “We only told each other today.”

“I know, but it’s the way you looked. She could tell, and I missed it when you came in for my party, but she knew. And when I saw you together, I could tell, too.”

Fortunately I had some of the thin cafeteria napkins in my pocket. We weren’t generally the type to cry easily.

“How does she always know everything?”

“I don’t know. She was always like that, even when your dad and I were living in Philadelphia, she knew everything I was feeling. She’s good.” Bernadette laughed, briefly. “She knew the day after I conceived you, she looked at me when she came to pick up Zach and told me, ‘It’s going to be a girl this time,’ and I didn’t even know myself yet.”

“You never told me that.”

“I didn’t? I thought I had. It’s true. I went running off to the doctor the next morning and had my blood test, and made him swear he wasn’t lying about six times, because I was so astounded she was right.”

Before we got back to the waiting room, not far, actually, from my magic alcove, Bernadette touched my arm.

“Ashlyn, I’m not leaving here tonight. You’ll have to take them all back home. No.” She shook her head as I tried to talk. “They’ll never let us both stay here, there’s too much maleness between them to allow it. Only one of us can manage it, and I know you want to, but please. Please, Ashlyn. Please let it be me, for tonight, okay?”

My heart, I think, stopped for a moment. Then I nodded slowly. “We’ll stay until visiting hours are over,” I said, “but you have to come have a good dinner with us, too. Something more than half a sandwich. You can’t sleep all night on a plastic sofa on an empty stomach. And I’ll be back for the first morning hours, and when I get here, Zach is going to run you home for a shower and a change and a rest, no matter what.” Internally I winced at the last phrase, but tried not to let it show. She knew what I meant, though. She knew.

Bernadette kissed my cheek. Her lips were dry and scratchy, and I made a note to find my lip balm for her when we got back to the guys. Neither of us mentioned our plans. At six, I took Caleb into the room with me; I wanted him to finally meet Gran, after all we’d talked about her.

“She’s just like you, Ash,” he said, quietly.

“Is she?” I’d never realized.

“Yes, she is. Your uncle’s the same, the same face on all three of you. The same lips and cheeks. Did you not know?”

I knew I looked like Uncle Matthew. Zach looked more like Frank. Frank with Pappa’s eyes. I’d never connected the dots from our faces to Gran’s, though.

“Thanks,” I whispered. We were both whispering, which was foolish, but it felt appropriate at the time. Caleb wanted to leave so Bernadette could come back in—they were still letting us in two at a time, since the bed next to Gran was empty—so he brushed his lips against my cheek and then, pausing, Gran’s, and backed out.

I went back to holding Gran’s hand and telling her I loved her. Then Frank came in with Bernadette, so I had to tell her good night.

“Don’t let the bed bugs bite,” I chanted with a smile as I kissed her forehead, the same motions she made when tucking us in as little ones.

“I asked at the desk; there’s a pizza place we can walk to from here,” Matthew was saying in the waiting area.

“What about your bag?” Zach glanced at me. “Matthew’s staying.”

“Bernadette’s staying,” I replied.

“She can’t, she was here all yesterday and since six this morning,” Matthew protested.

I shook my head. “Well, she says she’s staying. She won’t let me stay with her because she wants the rest of you to let her do it.”

“Neither of you should stay. You’d be sleeping on a chair and can’t be with her anyway,” Zach said, wearily. He’s obviously been through this with Matthew already.

“We should all go sleep and come back first thing in the morning,” I said, not that I believed it. I believed the rest of them should all go sleep and come back first thing in the morning, and let me stay there. Just in case.

“I don’t know if they’ll even let you stay,” Zach added.

“How can they stop us? We’ll just be in this area, out of their way.”

No one was saying the obvious. That the only reasons to be there were in case she woke up or in case she died, and every brief conference with Dr. Erie was making the first possibility seem more and more remote. I sure as hell didn’t want to say it, even to myself.

“Zach, if Bernadette’s staying, I’d rather Matthew stayed with her. Frank will, too. I still think you should both go home, but I made Bernadette promise she’d let you or Frank take her home in the morning for a shower and a nap. There’s plenty of time for a nap before the eleven a.m., and we’ll be here, and I think Matthew should promise the same thing.”

“God, Ashlyn, when did you start telling your mom what to do?” Matthew asked. I cringed. “Oh, honey, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean it like that. I’m so glad to see you talking to her about this stuff.”

“I know,” I said quietly. “I know what you meant. It’s just too strange. I never could have had that talk with her a week ago, and now Gran’s in ICU, and we’re talking, and I don’t even like it, because, I don’t know why, I just don’t like it that we’re talking when Gran’s in ICU, like ... like this coma is such a bad and drastic thing it’s forcing Bernadette and I to talk about stuff. I’d rather we just were still all normal with each other, even though normal with Bernadette wasn’t the best place for us to be.”

I don’t think Matthew and Zach even heard much of that, since I mostly sniffled it into Caleb’s chest, but Matthew took my hand and said, “I know, honey, I know,” and Zach rubbed my back and said, “It’s okay, Ash, it’ll be okay.”

It was dark as Zach merged onto 45 North. Caleb and I slumped in the back seat, holding hands loosely, and I studied the back of Frank’s head in the streetlights. He’d gotten balder, and grayer, but not a lot. Mostly his hair was still thick and wavy brown. The same color as mine; the same texture as Zach’s. I’d always wished it had been the other way around.

“This is killing her,” Frank said, apropos of nothing.

Zach glanced at him. “Bernadette?”

He nodded. “Your mom. She keeps trying to figure out what she did, how, somehow, she caused Gran to have this aneurysm.”

I started up, but Caleb tugged me back down. “No one caused it,” he said, firmly.

“That’s what I keep telling her. Dr. Erie says the same thing. It just happened.”

“Why doesn’t she believe it, then?” Zach asked.

Frank sighed. “Because she can’t. She’s so used to taking responsibility for your Gran that she wants to take this on board, too.”

I couldn’t speak past the vise on my throat. What responsibility did Bernadette ever take for Gran? I was the one who did that, who made sure her life was running smoothly, who helped her set up the computer to deal with her finances, who checked in with her every day when I was living in town, and emailed her while I was away. I was the one who she depended on, on the rare occasions she let herself depend on anyone. Bernadette just made her a casserole once in a while and called her to talk about Bernadette, Bernadette, Bernadette. And Zach.

I looked out the window, clamping my lips together. I was the one who’d caused Gran’s stroke. Bernadette had nothing to do with it, and acting like she did was just grandstanding in a crisis. Same as she had after Pappa’s funeral, throwing her sobbing self across his side of the bed so Gran didn’t have a hope of finding his scent on his pillow later.

I didn’t have anything to say to anyone until we were sitting on the guest bed, door shut, lights off, and relatives gone quiet in the other rooms.

I closed my eyes and tipped my skull back against the headboard.

“Ash? You okay?”

I shook my head.

“I know. I mean, I know you’re not okay. But, do you want to talk?”

I sank down, then, hugging one of the pillows, and looked at him. Caleb Kendall. There was something in his eyes, something sweet beyond just the love, something that took my spirit and gently wrapped it in cotton and held it warm against his own.

“Oh, love, I can’t begin to say the mess of stuff on my mind.”

“Do you want to try, or do you just want to go to sleep?”

I sighed again. “I want to, I don’t know. I want to talk, but some of it’s too painful, and some of it’s so, I guess, so petty it makes me mad at myself, and I don’t want you to see how ridiculous I am, and I’m sure you’re sick of my crying all over you, too.”

“No I’m not.”

“Well, you should be. I’m sick of my crying all over you.”

“Well, I’m not, regardless. You can cry and scream and tell me whatever you want, and I’m not, no, I’m not, Ash, going to think worse of you for it. I love you. I like you. I know you’re in knots, and I know you’re blaming yourself for things not your fault. They’re not. I’ve been listening to the doctors all day, and I’m telling you. It’s nobody’s fault, okay? Not yours or your mom’s or your grandfather’s or anyone. So stop thinking that, okay? Please?”

I shook. Not my head—all of me. I shook. “I can’t.”

“Well, do.”

“No, Caleb, I can’t. It was hypertension, they said it was hypertension. You heard them. That’s stress. Stress, Caleb. And she’s never had stress before, no high blood pressure, nothing. Her heart, her heart was in great shape.”

He pulled tissues from the box on his side of the bed. “This wasn’t her heart, Ash. It was her brain. It’s a brain attack, you can have the best heart in the world and still have one, okay?”

“Not five days after your granddaughter tells you this horrible news and not have it be related.”

“Yes, you can.”

“No.”

“Ash. Ashlyn, listen. You can, okay? She can. I listened to those doctors, okay? It’s not good, where she’s at now. It’s not good, and I can’t even tell you how sad that makes me for you, for you all, but I swear, you can’t go blaming yourself.”

I let him tell me that. I mean, he wasn’t going to agree with me, no matter what I said, we both knew it. We settled under the covers and I let him rub my back until I fell asleep, but I only did it for him.

But at two o’clock, I was wide awake again, Caleb’s warmth the only thing keeping me in bed beside him. I knew, then, what I’d have to do, and the knowledge, thinking about it, stung my dry desert eyes, until once again, I fell asleep.

We were all up, showered, somewhat fed, and waiting in the chairs for them to let the first two of us in by six the next morning. Gran had had an uneventful night. Although there was now another patient in the bed next to Gran, the shift nurse said, just for the six o’clock visits, we could still go in two at a time. Starting at eight, we’d have to follow the rules. Matthew and Bernadette, bleary and subdued, went first.

“How are you feeling?” Caleb whispered as we waited.

“Humph. Don’t ask,” I muttered back. Even without the tears and guilt, there were the nights on end of short, bad sleeps and the diet of coffee and sugary bread.

“Poor baby,” he answered with a hug to my shoulders. He’d almost said ‘babe’, but caught himself in time.

It was my turn, Uncle Matthew indicated with a half-smile at me when he emerged from behind the swinging doors. Caleb pressed my hand as I stood, and the strength of his touch carried me through the now-routine procedure of getting in the ICU ward and navigating past the profusion of gurneys and equipment to Gran’s semi-private room.