Chapter 20
Wesley felt like a million bucks as they pulled into Birdie’s house. He’d had the best time with her. Except... Some of the glow dimmed as he realized that she really hadn’t given him an answer, and this might be leading to disaster. He didn’t want it to, but he’d always been careful to make sure he didn’t allow himself to get into a deep relationship where there was going to be pain at the end.
He thought again of the girl that he had a fake relationship with in college.
Was there something wrong with him? Was there something that was broken inside of him that he was afraid to have relationships? He thought he was doing what the Bible said, what God wanted him to do, but it was so different than what everyone else did, and while he didn’t doubt himself very often, he found himself wondering now. Was he doing the right thing?
He couldn’t answer that with a straight yes, and it concerned him.
Usually he could.
Maybe he just needed to get back in the Bible and remind himself of what was important. Not allowing himself to be emotionally entangled with people who didn’t actually want to have serious relationships, and not being with anyone unless they were thinking of marriage... It was crazy, but he found those principles in the Bible far more than he could find any justification for dating. And it just seemed wise to not give away little pieces of his heart to every girl that came along. But to protect it for the one girl that he was going to spend his lifetime with .
He wanted a whole heart to give her. Something pure and beautiful. Something that he could give without regrets or thoughts of anyone else.
Maybe his idea was too perfect. Like a socialist utopia that sounded good on paper but was impossible with a world steeped in sin and selfishness. After all, who wanted to give up stuff that they’d worked for in order to help people who didn’t work eat? Jamestown had been a miserable failure when they tried that, and he didn’t see it ever working, except possibly among a group of pure Christians, maybe like the early church in Acts, but even he didn’t know any modern Christians who were dedicated enough to actually pull that off.
“There’s something on your steps,” he said as they pulled into the cottages. He always pulled into hers first when he had her with him. Even though it wasn’t that far of a walk from his cottage to hers. He just believed that it was best to drop the girl off. To get out and walk her to her door. To make sure that she got in okay. He wasn’t going to change that now, even though they were so close together it was almost pointless.
“I see it. Actually, is that a person?”
“It’s your grandma!” he said, wanting to accelerate the car, to get there faster, but it was almost time to stop, and it was silly. He checked himself just in time and eased into the spot. But he was out of the car almost the instant he had it in park.
“Gram?”
“Goodness. I thought I was going to have to sit here until midnight.”
“What are you doing?” Birdie came over, kneeling down beside Gram who was half sitting, half reclining on the ground in front of the steps.
“There’s a meteor shower, and I’m watching for shooting stars.”
“Really?” Wesley looked around. He hadn’t noticed any shooting stars while he had been on his ride with Birdie, but well, all the shooting stars that he’d seen had been in his head for those few seconds he’d almost kissed her.
“Gram? What meteor shower? What are you talking about? Are you okay?”
“What’s your name?” Wesley asked, kneeling down at Gram’s head, since there wasn’t enough room to get to her other side. She seemed to be propped on the steps a little.
“It’s Polly,” Gram said, “and no. I broke my leg. I’m lying here because I tried getting up and the pain was just too much.”
“You broke your leg, and you’re joking about meteor showers?” Birdie said. “And you think I was a difficult child. ”
“You were a difficult child. I’m just trying to lighten the moment.”
“We’ll lighten the moment after we get you taken care of.”
“Should I call 911?”
“I think around here it would be just as quick to get her in the car and take her to the hospital ourselves, unless we can’t, or if she needs a stretcher.”
“I don’t need a stretcher. If you guys can help me get up, I can get myself to the car, and you can take me on in to the hospital.”
“Why didn’t you call Gramps?”
“I left my stupid phone in the house. I yelled, but I bet he has his hearing aids out. It’s past his bedtime.”
“He probably does. I’ll text him later and let him know what we’ve done, unless you don’t want me to go?” Wesley stopped, thinking that maybe he was making a lot of assumptions that he shouldn’t be making.
“No. Please. If we can get her in the car, I’m not sure I can get her out on my own, although there’ll probably be staff there... I’d really like to have you.”
“Sure. Let me get the car as close as I can, and then we’ll worry about getting her up, okay?”
“I’ve got stuff in the oven. And you need to turn it off. It’s probably burning by now,” he heard Gram saying as he walked away to the car.
“Gram, what am I going to do with you?” Birdie said, although as he sat down in the car, he saw her reluctantly get up and run up the stairs and into the cottage.
She was right back out just a moment later, and he saw that she grabbed a blanket and her purse.
He figured that probably had something to do with either getting her warm or getting her in the car, but he wasn’t sure which one.
Gram probably needed both.
“We need to watch she doesn’t go into shock,” he said as he walked over and met her at Gram’s side.
They knelt down together.
“I thought the blanket might help us get her in the car, but I can grab another one and we can put it over top of her once we get her in.”
“Sounds good to me. ”
“Gram, we’re going to put this underneath you, and we’re going to try to lift you up. Okay?” Birdie said, leaning over her grandma as she did so.
“That’s fine. I can lift myself up. It’s the lower part of my leg that’s broken,” she said, proving that by putting her hands underneath her and her good foot on the ground and pushing herself up.
She did it so quickly that it took Wesley a moment to realize he was supposed to be moving with the blanket.
He knew that Gramps was rather infatuated with Gram, but he thought that the man might have some difficulty keeping up to her. She was definitely a lady who didn’t sit around much.
“Can you pull it down a little on that side,” he said as he got it around behind her back, but it needed to be pulled down underneath the rear. Birdie was the better person to do that.
“I got it. I want to make sure I have enough left on this end, without getting too much underneath.” She muttered those words as she worked on getting the blanket straightened out and pulled out underneath Gram’s thighs.
“I’m glad you don’t weigh a thousand pounds, Gram,” Birdie said softly.
“I don’t know how she doesn’t with all the baked goods she’s constantly making. I’d definitely weigh that much if I could cook like her.”
“Me too.”
“Would you stop talking about my weight? Women are kind of sensitive about that subject, in case you didn’t know.”
“And she’s still just as cantankerous as ever,” Birdie murmured, looking at him, like they were having a private conversation without her.
“I’m right here,” Gram said, and Wesley figured that was coming.
“I see you, Gram. Now, if you can move yourself just a little bit to the side, so I can get on the other side, I think we can pick you up with this blanket.”
“All right,” Gram said, and she did try to move herself, succeeding in getting a few inches to the side, and then she said, “Ouch!”
“What’s the matter?” Birdie said immediately.
Wesley figured she probably bumped her leg somehow, but he didn’t say that. If it made Birdie feel better to ask her what was wrong, he’d listen .
“I bumped my leg.”
“How did you do this? Fall down the steps?”
“No. I forgot to turn the light on, and instead of going back in and flipping it on, I figured I could just keep going. I wanted to take that trash to the garbage can. Anyway, I forgot that there were four steps instead of three, and after the third step, I started to walk, and the ground was a little further away than what I expected.”
“But you are right next to the steps,” Birdie said as they adjusted the blanket between them, each of them getting a firm grip. Wesley thought that he could probably pick her up in his arms, but he thought the blanket might be a good thing to have underneath her if they needed to slide her over the back seat of the car.
“I moved myself over there. No one else was coming to save me, and I figured you guys might be out ’til midnight on your date.”
“It was not a date,” Birdie said immediately.
“Okay. Whatever. He came, he picked you up, he took you somewhere, and I assume he paid.”
“I did pay. But I wanted to.”
“Just because you want to doesn’t make it not a date. In fact, I think that makes it even more of a date.”
He hadn’t thought about things like that. But they didn’t talk about that anymore. “Are you ready?”
“Yes. Once we have her up, I might need to adjust, and if I do, I’ll just say ‘down.’”
“All right. If you say ‘down,’ I will try to match my side with yours.”
“You guys are making me nervous. Have you done this before? I feel like a guinea pig.”
“Gram. You are a guinea pig.”
“Well, maybe you should practice on someone else. Is Gramps asleep?”
“We need to get you to the ER. As spry as you are, you could still end up dealing with some shock, and we don’t want that. Not here.”
“On three?” he said.
“Yeah.”
“One, two, three!” They both picked up at the same time, gently elevating her until she was far enough off the ground that they didn’t think her leg would get bumped.
“All right. We’re going to walk as smoothly as we can to the car.” It was just a few feet away, but he knew that any jarring would hurt her leg, no matter how it was broken.
“All right. That hurts,” Gram said as they took a step .
“Maybe we should have checked to see if she had any back injuries.”
“I told you I moved myself. I don’t have back injuries. It’s just my leg!”
“I think we would have run into some opposition if we would have tried to do that,” Wesley said reasonably.
Birdie must have thought so too, because she didn’t argue anymore.
He really wanted to grab the blanket and not have Birdie working so hard, but he resisted the urge, and not just because he thought she would be offended. But he really did think it would be better for Gram to be in the car with the blanket under her butt, in case they needed to move her. It would hopefully be less jostling to her leg.
He ended up having to put his arm behind her back and underneath her anyway, but he was able to grab the blanket and move her as he reached in and slid her.
He could tell that Gram had her teeth clenched and was trying hard not to cry out.
“I’m gonna go around behind you and slide you the rest of the way in.”
She nodded but didn’t say anything.
He met Birdie’s eyes as he stood, and he hated the pain and concern he saw there. He was doing his best, but he wasn’t going to be able to keep her from not feeling this.
He found himself wanting to protect Birdie from anything that might cause her pain.
He couldn’t remember ever feeling something that strong before, but he tried to tamp the idea down and just focus on what he needed to do as he opened the back door on the opposite side of the car and grabbed the blanket.
“Hold your leg up,” he said to Gram, low in her ear and as gently as he possibly could.
“I got it up,” she said.
He took a breath and then gripped the blanket in both hands and tugged slowly and steadily.
To his relief, the blankets slid easily on his leather seats, and the old lady’s rear came over to the other side.
“I don’t think it’s going to be comfortable in any way to sit there, with your leg on the seat, and you’re going to get tired holding it up. Is there anything that you can think of that would make it feel better?”
“Maybe if Birdie sat back here with me and held it up?” Gram said, sticking her other foot on the floor and keeping her broken leg in the air .
Wesley guessed, if it was broken indeed, it was just a fracture, possibly a hairline one at that. But he didn’t doubt the pain. If they were very blessed, maybe she only sprained her ankle. But they wouldn’t know until they got to the hospital and had X-rays.
“I’ll do it,” Birdie said. “Is there anything that anyone needs before I get in?”
She looked at Gram, and Wesley assumed that was who she was talking to.
He took a moment to send a quick text off to Gramps, to let him know where he was going to be for the next few hours.
In his experience, hospitals didn’t typically send a person home with a cast on, but it probably depended on who was on duty and what kind of break it was.
After he sent the text, he got in the driver’s seat and waited just a few moments until Birdie got settled and said, “I’m ready,” as she slammed her door.
He jerked his head and put the car in gear, knowing that the lane out was rather bumpy, and it was going to be a little bit until they were on a smooth road. Michigan had fierce winters and went through periods of freezing and thawing in both fall and spring, and it was difficult to keep the roads nice.
Thankfully the road to Blueberry Beach had recently been repaved, so he hoped to not encounter too many bumps, but he knew it was going to be a stressful ride for Gram.
“Keep me appraised if you feel like we need to call an ambulance because she’s going into shock or something, I think it’ll be okay if we meet them somewhere.”
He really had no idea. In the city, he would call an ambulance, because the sirens would make it so that they could definitely get places faster, not to mention, parking at a hospital in town could be complicated. But the Blueberry Beach Hospital would be just as easy for him to reach, and since there were no volunteer EMTs anywhere closer, it just made sense.
But sometimes things that made sense weren’t always the best choices, and sometimes he didn’t know what he didn’t know. That was always a danger.
Still, he made the best decision he could with the information that he had, and Birdie seemed like she agreed.
It was a long ride, and Gram moaned twice. Each time, it ripped at his insides and shot pain straight through him. He hated to think of the sweet lady who was always helping others suffering and in pain.
But there wasn’t anything he could do except keep driving. He was already driving way faster than he should. But finally, the lights of Blueberry Beach came into view. It was just a little bit further until they got to the hospital .
He pulled up to the hospital emergency doors, the blue light overhead shining on the windshield, and he spotted a wheelchair in the foyer between the two double doors.
“I’m gonna run in and get that wheelchair, and then we can maybe put her in that?”
“Yeah. Good idea.”
He could carry her in, but every step he took would bounce her leg. It would be better for her to ride in a wheelchair, even though he thought either way would be painful, since it would be hard to rest her leg against anything and not have it hurt.
The outside door opened, and he was able to grab the wheelchair from where it rested between the two.
There was a lady sitting at the desk, and she saw him. He lifted a hand and then pushed the wheelchair out.
He didn’t know what the protocols were. Every hospital was probably different, and he wasn’t exactly familiar with ERs. He’d gotten hurt a good bit playing hockey, but someone else had always been taking care of things. He hadn’t had to make any decisions on his own about where he was going to get care. At times, he had to make decisions about how he was going to heal, but most decisions were made for him. And he had never really appreciated that until now.