Chapter 15
Chapter Fifteen
Maple
“She’s fully healed from the concussion. No visual changes or effects from bright light.” Doctor Ahmed swung by early this morning to perform another exam on Grandma Gracie. He was finishing up as I arrived at Sunny Shores Tuesday morning.
“Fit as a fiddle, I say!” Grandma crows, wildly waving her cane in the air. “Nancy better watch it. I’ll kick her ass at pickleball this afternoon.”
“Grandma!” I spin around, hands going to my hips. “You’re not cleared for pickleball yet.” I turn right back around to the doctor. “Right?”
I catch him checking his watch, but he smiles. “Not yet, Gracie. Cleared for everything but vigorous exercise.”
I don’t even have a chance to sigh with relief before Grandma is blurting out, “Is sex considered vigorous exercise?”
My gasp is covered by Doctor Ahmed’s chuckle. “Depends how you do it, I guess.” Grandma joins him in laughter while I shake my head, wondering why the elderly begin to lose their filter with each passing year. My embarrassment is banked just a smidge, seeing her sparkling humor come back to life.
“Grandma, why don’t you get ready for the chili cook-off and I’ll walk the doctor out.”
Grandma agrees and shuffles to her room, probably to add thicker eyebrows with the brown makeup pencil I bought her. She wasn’t too happy I threw out the black eyebrow pencil, claiming Kardashian eyebrows are all the rage still. She looked like she had caterpillars trying to crawl off her face before I took control of the situation.
The doctor walks swiftly to the front door and I race after him. “Doctor!” He pauses and I hurry to express my worries. “I’m glad she appears healed, but she still thinks the physical therapist is my fiancé. Isn’t that a little weird? I mean, she’s known him for a couple years now. Shouldn’t her memory be better if the concussion is gone?”
Doctor Ahmed winces slightly. “It is concerning, yes. Her concussion is gone, but we still have the underlying dementia to assess. I’d like to do a brain scan, which I’ll order as soon as I get back to the office. In the meantime, try not to upset her.” He reaches out and puts his hand on my arm. “I promise you we’ll keep investigating. If the dementia is advancing, there are things we can do to either halt or slow its progression.”
My shoulders fall away from my ears. “Thank you, Doctor.”
He gives me a reassuring smile and walks out the door. I shut it behind him, feeling slightly better about things. Guilt over not being here to monitor Grandma the last few years, along with lying to her about Holt, is quite the buzzkill after an otherwise memorable weekend.
I pull out my phone and shoot a quick message to the family text string letting them know Grandma has recovered from the concussion but I’m planning to stay to evaluate the dementia. Mom’s the only one who responds.
Mom: Great news! Hey, I heard the oncology unit at the hospital needs a front desk person starting in October. You’d be perfect! Let me know. I can set up an interview for you.
I roll my eyes and stuff my phone back in my pocket without responding.
“That little hussy!” Grandma’s irritated voice comes from the bedroom. I race inside to find her tossing paperbacks off her nightstand. Several already lie in a heap on the floor, pages bent. I pick them up and set them on her bed, trying to smooth out the pages. One in particular, looks old. A leather-bound diary of sorts.
“What’s wrong?”
Grandma whirls on me, moving well without her cane. “Pat must have stolen my book! It was right here last night!” She points at the nightstand, now bare of any books after her tantrum.
“Which book?” I ask as calmly as I can. Doctor Ahmed’s direction to keep her calm is fresh in my mind.
“The one with the short-haired Fabio.” Grandma’s face scrunches up in a cute scowl. I know better than to grin, however.
“I think that one’s in the living room.” In fact, I know it is. I saw it when Doctor Ahmed was finishing with Grandma’s exam. I was embarrassed it was sitting out in the open, what with a purple alien in a loincloth grinning evilly while a buxom woman lay across his lap. I tossed it under the couch cushion. “Since when did you switch to alien romances?”
Grandma doesn’t look convinced, but follows me out to the living room where I retrieve the book and hold it up to her. “Huh. Could have sworn that was on my nightstand.” Her expression clears like the tantrum never happened. “You should read that when I’m done. Might pick up a thing or two.”
She winks, looking just like the grandma I remember from our summers together. Then her expression clouds. “Did we miss the chili cook-off, honey?”
I can only hope my smile masks my worry. The confusion and forgetfulness seem to be increasing. Threading my arm through hers, I point us toward the door and push the worries aside. “No! Let’s head there now.”
We take our time, enjoying the path that leads to the recreation center. Sunny Shores must spend a lot of money on landscaping. The place almost looks like they’re vying with Disney’s Magic Kingdom for best kept lawn. I have to hand it to Holt: he runs a beautiful facility. I end up having to roll up the sleeves of my plaid flannel shirt. Grandma waits patiently while I untuck the bottom from my shorts and tie the sides together, leaving a good inch or two of midriff showing. Maybe wearing costumes to the chili cook-off wasn’t a good idea.
Stepping inside the rec center, several rows of six-foot tables are set up with red-and-white checked tablecloths. Dozens of people are already chopping vegetables and manning their crockpots. The residents who aren’t cooking are sitting around drinking coffee and socializing. Grandma Gracie points to Pat and Nancy, so we head that way. I try not to grimace at the smell of cooking meat that permeates the air. Surely someone here will produce a vegetarian chili, right?
“Did you finish Captain of the Alien Breeders ?” Pat asks loudly as soon as Grandma takes a seat in their circle. I shake my head at their antics and excuse myself from the conversation.
I quickly get distracted by seeing the bombshell redheaded nurse feeding Holt a bite of chili at the far end of the room. I head that way, irritation bubbling up in a way I haven’t felt since Macy Bechtol shoved her tongue down Holt’s throat around a bonfire when I was thirteen years old. The nurse giggles and has the audacity to reach up to his face to wipe away a drip of chili. Thankfully, Holt pulls back and wipes it himself.
“Hey there. Ready to get cooking?” I say breezily when I feel anything but. Holt agreed to help me with Grandma Gracie’s chili. There’s more sausage and beef in it than I prefer, but I want to stay true to her family recipe. Plus, I’m kind of hopeless in the kitchen.
Holt smiles at me before placing his hand on my lower back. “If you’ll excuse us,” he says, not looking at the nurse. My ruffled feathers smooth down a bit as we walk away, Holt clearly focused on me and not her. He looks amazing in the plaid shirt that matches his eyes. Still think the chaps would have been a nice touch though.
“She looks…nice,” I say, still shooting for an easy-breezy tone.
Holt side-eyes me, then pulls me behind the table marked with a tented card with the number ten on it. “This is us.” He spins me around so his hands are on my hips and my gaze is locked with his. “That’s Megan and she means nothing to me.”
Relief floods through my veins. “It’s okay if she does. I know we’re just temporary.” I’m a liar. And probably not even a good one based on the way Holt’s eyebrow lifts in challenge.
“While we might be temporary, we’re exclusive. Right?”
I nod. “Definitely.”
Holt plucks a kiss from my mouth. “Then let’s get to cooking, woman.”
I pull out the vegetables from the paper grocery bags, chopping them up while Holt empties the sausage and ground beef containers into the pre-heated crockpot. I wrinkle my nose as the smell of burnt animal floats by me. Holt tries to wave away the scent but there’s no use.
“You know tofu would be good in chili too.”
Holt stirs the meat. “I asked around this morning and Daphne is cooking up a vegetarian chili. You could try hers. Number twenty-six.”
I lean into his strong arm. “Thanks.” I can’t help but think he’s considerate in a way Dexter never was.
“Oh shoot.” Holt hands me the spatula. “Stir this for a bit. I forgot Pamela asked me to walk her down here. Debbie’s been extra busy with the cook-off, which means she doesn’t have time to babysit me with reminders.”
He looks sheepish, which I don’t like. He’s got a brain that doesn’t work like the rest of us. He shouldn’t feel bad about that. “I got this,” I say confidently, stirring the meat with a gusto that turns my stomach.
He rushes away to find Pamela while I distract myself from the meat by staring at his impressive ass in scrubs. When he exits the rec center door, I turn my head left and see Megan was watching him leave also. I narrow my eyes at her as she glances my way. She narrows hers right back. I stir the chili a little more aggressively. She stirs hers. I dump in my chopped vegetables and she salts her chili. We have our own little standoff from twenty feet away.
I dig into the grocery bags and find the seasoning Grandma’s recipe calls for. Ripping off the top of the cumin, I measure out one teaspoon and sprinkle it in my crockpot. Glancing up, Megan puts a spoon to her mouth, taste testing her recipe. Her smug grin is annoying. I grab the bottle of chili powder and rip the protective seal off, only to tug too forcefully and end up dumping a dust cloud of indeterminate amount into the crockpot. I watch in horror as it dissolves into the chili. I can hear Megan’s laughter all the way over here.
“Shit, shit, shit,” I mumble, putting the lid back on the chili powder and stirring quickly. Maybe more salt would help? I sprinkle in some of that and hope for the best. Grandma always liked her chili spicy anyway.
I look down at the pot and frown. Something’s missing. I go through the grocery bags and find the cans of red kidney beans. Aha! Of course. My favorite part of chili. The hand-crank can opener is finicky, but I manage to get all three cans open while only spilling the contents of one of them.
Holt slides back to my side. “What did I miss? Oh shit!” He hurries to stir the chili that’s bubbling. He turns down the crockpot with his other hand.
I wince. I kind of forgot to stir as I got the cans open. “Did I mention cooking isn’t my thing?”
Holt just smiles. “Not really my thing either, but after the fire department came to the cabin twice last year, I set timers to remind myself to turn burners off.”
I dump in the kidney beans and decide not to mention the chili powder incident. “Maybe I need to use your anchoring technique too.”
Holt looks down at me with affection. “I like that you say that without any sarcasm.”
That makes me frown. “Of course I don’t say that with sarcasm. It’s a valid technique that helps you. Why would I make fun of you?”
Holt shrugs and keep stirring. “You’d be surprised,” he mutters.
I don’t have time to ask him what that means because Debbie takes to a microphone at the front of the room, telling everyone that we have three minutes left before we all have to exit the room and let our chili simmer. The judges will be by around four to taste test and announce the winners.
Holt and I clean up our table, cover the crockpot, and head for Grandma Gracie. We follow her and her friends to the pickleball courts where Grandma heckles Pat about her technique from the sidelines. Holt tries to explain the rules, but I’m too distracted watching his muscles flex while he plays with Grandma’s friends. Because yes, he’s lost his shirt again due to the heat this afternoon. He’s just too cute with these old ladies.
“You can’t enter the kitchen, Pat!” he exclaims.
“That’s where women are supposed to be, right?” she fires back.
Holt’s mouth drops open. “I would never say that!”
Pat cackles and calls a redo on the point. Grandma calls her a cheat and Nancy gets hit in the forehead with the pickleball because she was too busy checking out the chip in her nail polish to pay attention to the game. Eventually, Holt declares no one a winner and guides us all back to the rec center to hear the chili cook-off results. Sadly, his shirt goes back on.
There’s a commotion by table ten when we step inside. One of the judges is gulping back a glass of milk while another judge is mopping his forehead with a handkerchief. They quickly move on to table eleven. Holt leans down to whisper in my ear, “Is Grandma Gracie’s recipe super spicy?”
I nod vigorously. “Yeah. Always burned my tongue.”
Holt studies my face. “Why do I feel like you’re not telling me something?”
I look away, but he cups my face and turns me back toward him. My sigh is hefty. “I may have dumped in too much chili powder because Megan and I were having a chili standoff from across the room.”
Holt is frozen for a second, then tosses his head back and roars with laughter. Debbie shushes him with the microphone and the judges whisper their results in her ear.
“Third place goes to the Hostetlers!”
Applause fills the room. A cute old couple dressed in matching aprons take their mini gold trophy from Debbie.
“Second place goes to Nurse Megan!”
I roll my eyes while the woman prances to the front to accept her trophy. She reaches for the microphone for an acceptance speech or something, but Debbie hip-checks her out of the way. Megan turns her smug smile in our direction. I pretend not to see her.
“And now for first place in our Second Annual Chili Cook-Off…”
I hold my breath, wondering if there’s any hope we won.
“Daphne with her vegetarian chili!” Debbie booms. We all clap as Daphne takes her trophy.
I lean into Holt. “I can’t even be mad. A vegetarian option won!”
He goes to whisper back but gets cut off by Debbie. “We have one honorable mention for hottest chili. That goes to our very own Holt McGrath and Maple Thatcher!”
My jaw drops and Holt’s eyes go wide. “Of course you won hottest.” He wags his eyebrows before breaking into a silly grin. “Come on. Let’s get our trophy!”
I reach back and loop my arm through Grandma Gracie’s. “Grandma! We won! Kind of.”
She follows me slowly to the front of the room and we let her receive the trophy. After the applause dies down and Debbie instructs everyone to fill up on their favorite chili, Grandma looks up at me, confusion painted across her wrinkles.
“My chili isn’t supposed to be spicy.”
I pat her arm. “I may have improvised.”
She shakes her head, smiling at me like she did when I’d burn a whole sheet of cookies back when I was a kid. “My silly girl.” Then she leans in close and adds, “That was actually Hank’s recipe, you know.”
Her friends close in on her with congratulations and I don’t get to ask her about this mysterious Hank.
Gracie’s diary
(62 years ago)
Dear Diary,
We graduated yesterday. Finally! I’m done with high school and ready to live my life. Mama and Daddy threw a family celebration after the ceremony. I didn’t dare invite Hank, but I desperately wanted to. I missed him, even as my family surrounded me with gifts and celebration. It was a good day, but it would have been better if Hank could be around.
This morning, he and I met up at the lake. He had a clump of dogwood flowers in his hand like usual. We both ran straight into each other’s arms, so excited to be back together. The flowers dropped to the ground. Hank lifted me up and spun me in a circle. When he set me down, he dipped onto one knee and pulled out a simple gold band. I gasped, tears instantly sliding down my cheeks.
“I love you, my Gracie Mae. I don’t have a single thing to offer you except everything that I am. Will you marry me?”
“YES!”
I nearly tackled him to the ground. He was chuckling as he straightened us both. He slid the ring on my finger and we looked down at it with awe.
“Let’s tell our parents today,” he said firmly.
Fear made my stomach clench. Mama and Daddy would not be happy I was marrying so young. Then again, I couldn’t see myself living without Hank. I cupped his handsome face, needing a little time. He was an honorable man. I knew our activities weighed on him. He didn’t like us being a secret.
“Just give me today. Let me be happy with this secret of ours. I promise we’ll tell them tomorrow.”
Hank stared deep into my eyes, then gave a small nod. “Whatever you need, Gracie.”
And then he kissed me and I forgot all about what our parents would say when they found out I’d been sneaking out with Hank behind their backs. They had old-fashioned ideas about a man and woman not even kissing before they tied the knot. Me and Hank? We’d done a whole lot more than kiss…
But everything would be fine.
Tomorrow we’d tell them.