15. Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Fifteen
E mma
I slide open the curtain to the hospital room and I freeze when I see the familiar figure sitting up in bed.
"Grandpa! You're awake!"
"Hey, kiddo!" He grins at me and I barrel towards him, barely holding myself back from throwing myself into his arms. Thelma, one of the cardiology nurses, called me up to tell me that my Grandpa was awake. But I don't think it fully hits me until I see him now.
Joy soars in my chest, as my eyes greedily take him in, noting the color in his cheeks. Dark bags sit underneath his eyes, and his face seems to have gained new wrinkles. But he's awake and that's all that matters.
I hated seeing him unconscious in that bed, all wan and thin and weak. That's not the grandpa I'm used to. The man I know is a boisterous ball of constant activity, fishing or walking or disturbing passersby with his tales of the supernatural.
I resist the urge to hug him, so I don't disturb his heart, but I take his hand in mind, squeezing it with all the emotion inside me.
He squeezes it back, his smile widening.
Emotion chokes my throat, and I feel close to crying. But I hold it back, the same way he did when I was a kid. He was strong for me then. It’s time for me to be strong for him.
"Were you worried about me?" he asks, and I shake my head.
"Nah," I say and swallow again to erase the hoarseness from my voice. "I knew you would be fine. My Grandpa ain't the type to let a little heart attack get him down."
"You’re damn right," he harrumphs.
I sit by his bed, careful not to jostle him too much. I give into the urge to touch his cheeks, savoring the warmth emanating from him. "But how are you holding up? Really?"
"I’m doing okay," he says. I notice his voice is a little shaky and it's accompanied by a light cough. "Except I feel like a thousand-pound elephant is sitting in my chest half the time, which the doctor says is normal."
"They booked you in for the surgery in two days,’" I tell him. "The doctor says that’s the earliest they could get you in. You should feel good as new after it's done."
"Hopefully I can get out of here before the fall festival," he says. "I promised that old woman that I would beat her at the next Apple Shoot. And if I don’t show up, she'll never let me hear the end of it."
I smile. Apple Shoot is a very popular game, native to Laketown, that occurs during the fall fest. Like its name suggests, a bunch of people go into the forest and toss apples into baskets that get increasingly farther away. At the end, whoever gets the most apples in their basket wins.
Poppy has a steady arm and has won every single year. But Grandpa challenged her after the last Apple Shoot, and this is his year to square up.
"Speaking of Poppy, I think she came to see you when you were out of it," I mention.
"She did?" His eyes widen in surprise.
"Yeah. I caught her on the way out."
He muses on this piece of information. "Probably came all this way to make sure I hadn't croaked."
"Funny, that’s the same thing she said." I grin at him. "But I’ll let her know you haven’t when I see her next."
My grandpa harrumphs and then his eyes get soft again. "Sorry about all this kiddo."
"What do you mean?"
"Well, this can't be fun for you. The last time you were in a hospital this long was that day..." He trails off but I know exactly what he means.
"That day" is code for the day that my parents died in a fire. It’s the only way Grandpa refers to it.
"Actually," I correct, "the last time I was in the hospital this long was when I got my root canal taken out and they had to sedate me because I wouldn’t stop screaming my head off."
"Oh, I remember that." Grandpa smiled again. "Jesus, I hadn't heard you scream that loud since the day you were born. But you are such a baby when it comes to pain. You get that from your daddy."
I smile and brush some strands of hair back.
"You know he ran in to save people," he says. "Your father that is."
"What?" I'm stunned by the abrupt change in tone and conversation.
Grandpa gets a far-off look in his eye. "The day of the fire. According to the eyewitnesses, he came out of the hotel at the start of the fire, with your mother. But then he heard people were stuck on the second floor and he ran back in to save them. And then your mother, hotheaded as she is, refused to stay in place and went in after him."
His eyes get a little watery and he wipes them.
"Your daddy managed to save a bunch of folks before he got caught up in the fire. Your mother refused to leave him there and the smoke inhalation did her in too."
"Oh my God." I cover my mouth with my hand, shock overtaking me. "I never knew any of this."
"Because I didn't want you to," Grandpa says. "I thought it would hurt you to know that they could have survived if they hadn’t gone back in. If your father wasn't such a damn hero and if your mother didn't love him so damn much, they would be alive. I thought you would be mad or hurt if you knew. But now…"
He shakes his head. "After that last brush with death, it doesn't feel right taking that secret to the grave."
"Oh, Grandpa." Despite my best efforts the tears are now flowing down my cheeks and choking my breath. Truthfully, I don’t know how to feel.
On one hand, I'm proud of my parent's bravery and their shining love for each other.
But at the same time, Grandpa is right. There is something devastating about knowing that they could have survived the fire, if they had chosen to save themselves instead.
Selfishly, I wish they had.
I can't hug Grandpa, so I settle for laying by him. He scoots over to accommodate me.
"Tell me how they met," I whisper.
"I must have told you that about a hundred times, kiddo."
"I know. But tell me one more time."
He sighs dramatically. "Alright then. Well, it was a cold, stormy night…"
When I get to the Tiki Bar, it's packed and the crowd is loud and furious.
Just like I knew they would be.
It seems like everyone I know in town is here and the entire conglomeration is looking towards Poppy, who stands on a table gesturing emphatically.
"We must take a stand." Her voice booms. "Show that city boy asshole that he can't just come here and destroy our tradition. That may be where they do things where he's from, but that's not Laketown."
"Yeah!" A rousing chorus ensues.
I head over to the bar, observing the tables.
A soda in one hand, a beer here and there. Practically no one ordered food or expensive drinks.
It's definitely not enough for the Tiki Bar to do more than break even today.
Poppy catches my eyes when I walk in and pauses in her speech.
There's a question in her gaze.
I nod and give her a comforting smile.
Her expression doesn’t change much, but I think I note the relief in her eyes before she turns back to the crowd.
"We've dealt with bigger and badder, haven't we?" she says. "What did we do when the government wanted to build a railroad right through our park? We sent them packing!"
"That we did," Lou says from the back, nodding.
"And when that asshole wanted to tear down Baker Woods? I tied myself to that damn tree every day and night until he got the message."
"You're a badass, Poppy." This one is from Nate Huntley, who is probably on his third round of beers from the loopy smile he gives her. Pastor Allan, who is sitting beside him, shoots him a disapproving look.
"My point is," Poppy says. "Every single time someone comes into this town and tries to take something from us, we find a way to kick their asses back out. And that's exactly what we're going to do with this man. We're going to more than defeat Declan Tudor. We're going to destroy Declan Tudor."
"Yeah!"
Another round of whoops echoes across the room, with people throwing in several words of approval. Some level of guilt hits me as I sit staring at their reactions, the fervent anger in the crowd.
This doesn't sit right with me.
Even though I think what Declan is doing is wrong, I don't like the idea of them destroying him.
For the first time in my life, I feel like an interloper in my own town, like I'm on the outside looking in. My loyalties are a mess.
And frankly, I don't think it matters whose side I'm on.
I don't see this ending well for anyone.