28 McKenna
McKenna
I don’t start crying until I’ve started the car, where I’ve got every last item from my swim locker stuffed in a bag behind
me. Maybe I shouldn’t be driving in such a state, but since I’m clearly not the best at making good choices, I chalk this
up to one more error of judgment on my part. By the time I reach Juniper Groves, my eyes are so red, there’s no way to hide
I’ve been crying.
Grabbing a t-shirt from my swim bag to dry my face, I take a deep breath. The scent of chlorine emanating from the shirt is
as familiar as it is crushing when it fills my nose. Glancing in the rearview mirror again, I twist my wet ponytail into a
bun, and it only accentuates how beaten down I look. I should wait a few minutes and let my features return to a less alarming
state, but I’m desperate to talk to my grandmother.
Ever since I was a little kid, Glory’s had a way of taking whatever I’ve done wrong and helping me rearrange the pieces on the board.
Like that time senior year when I got fired from Monte Pizza for pouring a pitcher of Dr Pepper on the manager who’d been getting handsy with waitresses.
After lecturing me about all the better ways I could have handled the situation, she sat with me while I updated my résumé and made a list of other restaurants where I should apply.
She was the one who suggested I start looking for work closer to Meadowbrook so I could keep the job into college, and that’s how I ended up waiting tables at the Sizz.
There were countless other incidents like that, where Glory managed to turn another one of my shitty situations into an excellent opportunity.
Thinking about all that now, I feel like I can’t waste another second outside of her wise presence. I quit waiting for my
post-crying aura to fade and hurry out of the car. When I approach reception to check in, I don’t recognize the woman at the
desk today.
“Where’s Rhonda?” I ask, perhaps too abruptly. She’s been so warm to me every time I visit, and I was looking forward to seeing
a friendly face.
“This isn’t her shift,” the dark-haired woman responds. “I’m Tanya, here every weekday morning.”
Of course I wouldn’t know who’s on duty during this time because I’m always at swim practice. She chews the wad of gum in
her mouth aggressively and looks up at me expectantly.
I tell her I’m there to visit Gloria Jamison, and she makes a few clicks on the computer in front of her.
“The residents are just finishing up breakfast, but I see you’re on the approved list. You can go on up.”
Upstairs are several sitting areas, with floral upholstered sofas arranged across from sturdy, hard-backed chairs.
I move down the hall and end up in a mostly empty breakfast room.
Only a few stragglers remain, reading their morning newspapers over cups of coffee.
I’m about to turn toward the living quarters—“the apartments,” as they call them—when I notice Glory at a table tucked into the far corner of the room.
She’s sitting by herself, shaking her head back and forth.
Even from across the room, I can see something isn’t right.
“Glory,” I say as I reach her.
She looks up at me with wide eyes. “Can you help me?” she asks.
My chest tightens at the vacant look in her eyes.
“Of course. Anything you need.” I lean down and start to give her a hug hello, but she stiffens. “What’s wrong?” I ask.
“I can’t remember where I’ve put my shopping list. Larry’s going to kill me. I thought I had it here.” She looks down at her
half-eaten bowl of oatmeal. “But there’s nothing. He’s going to be so angry.”
“Who’s Larry?” I ask, hoping I can bring her back from wherever she’s gone. Maybe a change of scenery will help. “Why don’t
we go look in your apartment?”
She winces at the suggestion and then looks at me with a hard expression. “My apartment? I can’t take you to my apartment.
I don’t bring strangers home.”
“Glory, it’s me, McKenna.”
“No,” she says, pushing her chair out from the table. “I won’t go with you. No.” She’s still shaking her head as she stands.
I reach out for her arm, and she yanks it away.
“Don’t touch me!” she snaps.
I know this is her disease talking, but the pain of it stings just the same.
“Glory, please, it’s me, your granddaughter.”
“I have to . . .” She turns back toward the table as if she’s checking for something, and then looks back at me. “I can’t find it. Not here.” She moves around to the other side of the table, tilting the little napkin dispenser and the plastic salt and pepper shakers, looking under each one.
She looks toward the room’s exit, mumbling something I can’t make out. And then I catch sight of Mauricia, one of the nurses,
hurrying toward us.
“Hold up there, Gloria,” Mauricia says in a loud, overly upbeat voice. “I was hoping I could walk along with you to your room.
Do you mind waiting on me for just one moment while I have a word with my friend?”
Glory looks back at Mauricia, her gaze still steely. But after a second, she gives a curt nod.
The nurse tips her head to the side, indicating I should walk a few steps with her.
“I’m so sorry, McKenna,” she says. “She’s been like this all morning. We took her on an early morning walk before breakfast
and the agitation died down, but she hasn’t come back to herself yet.”
“But she will, right? Come back to herself, I mean.” I ask every time I see her like this, and I always get some version of
the same answer.
Mauricia glances at Glory, who’s gone back to rearranging things on the table, still looking for whatever list she imagines
is missing. “Most likely. But once the fits start coming like this, no one can say which lucid moment is the last. I’m so
sorry, sweetie. Why don’t you let me get her settled back in her room, and you go hang outside a bit? Maybe in another twenty
minutes she could be ready for a visitor.”
I wander out to the garden, where wide walkways are surrounded by the kinds of flowers I generally hate.
They’re the same types everyone brought when my mom was dying: orange-red daylilies, yellow zinnias, some pink coneflowers.
None of the less common ones that Glory loved adding to her garden, like chocolate cosmos, or our favorite, the blue morning glories.
I’m the only one outside, so I settle on a bench, hoping I won’t have to be alone with my thoughts for too long.
Leaning my head back to let the sun warm my face, I start running calculations in my head again, the same ones I’ve been going
over since I left the bank. Except now I have to recalibrate, accounting for the fact that without my spot on the team, I
no longer qualify for any scholarship money.
Back when Glory and I first started exploring different colleges, I’d been so shocked by how much it could cost, even as an
in-state student. By then, my heart was already set on becoming a nurse, and I was so grateful that my swimming had done just
what my mom always promised it would. Thanks to all those years of practice, I’d been granted a golden ticket, with access
to a life I’d never have been able to afford otherwise. I’d been so close to the finish line.
Until I went and ruined it all.
I’m filled with so much shame that it’s hard to breathe. What my mother would think if she could see me now. Imagining her
reaction, I feel a million splinters shooting through my veins. After all the things we sacrificed so I could follow my dreams
and get a nursing degree, I’ve landed at a place where it may have all been for nothing.
With the proceeds from the house, I should have enough to pay the ongoing expenses for Glory’s care and either my tuition or my housing, but not both.
I wish I could just move in with Lark or Rae, but their rooms are so tiny already.
I’m lucky as it is that they’ve agreed to house me for the few weeks until school starts.
I can hardly ask for two more years of hospitality.
Maybe if I rotated between all my different teammates, I wouldn’t be too much of an imposition on any particular person, but the idea feels ridiculous.
Even though all my earthly belongings are currently stuffed inside the trunk of Glory’s car, I do need a place to live.
As I scroll through apartment rentals on my phone, I’m floored by how expensive they are. Page after page, everything is so
far outside my budget that it’s laughable.
When I glance at the time, I realize I’ve been waiting more than half an hour for Mauricia. I should probably go back in,
check to make sure Glory’s okay, but my phone rings, Lark’s name lighting up the screen. Even though I knew she’d call at
the first opportunity after witnessing the scene at the pool earlier, I’m still so relieved to be hearing from her.
“Hey,” I say into the phone, holding back a sob. Maybe she can talk to Coach. Maybe if the whole team rallies behind me, he’ll
reconsider.
“McKenna, how could you?” Her voice is harsh, accusatory, not at all the soft embrace I’d been waiting for.
“How could I . . . ?” It takes me a second to catch on. “You’re taking Coach’s side?” I balk.
“You realize that your actions put the entire swim team at risk. This affects all of us, you know. We’re all connected.”
“But I didn’t do it!” I argue. “How could you even think that I would?”
“Darian saw you.”
“Darian? What are you talking about? He saw me what?”
“You were at the dumpster, soaking wet, like you’d been out in the rain for a good long while. Looking a wreck. He saw you.”
It takes me a second to piece together what she’s saying, and then I get it. “No, Lark! I was picking up food at Chipotle.”
“Which just so happens to be not so far from the club,” she says as if she’s solved the case.
“Yeah, and neither is my house! I wanted Chipotle for dinner, so I used their dumpster for some of the last crap I had to
toss before the move. What was Darian even doing in town? And why are you talking to him?”
“That’s not really the point right now.” Her voice is all sharp edges. “He knows what he saw.”
“That’s it?” I demand. “He places me at a dumpster, with wet hair, during a rainstorm, and that’s enough to convince you I’m guilty as charged?”
“I’ve seen you when somebody pisses you off, McKenna. I know how nuts you can get, and I know how mad you were about what
happened.”
“Yeah, sometimes I yell, but I don’t go around destroying property. Is this seriously what you think of me?”
“Look, I don’t know if you did or if you didn’t mess up the pool at the club.
Whether it was your grandma’s old gardening supplies you were chucking into that dumpster or empty gas cans, it’s almost beside the point.
I saw how you acted with Coach with my own eyes.
Landing yourself in the middle of all this drama, it’s seriously problematic.
It isn’t good for any of us. You know as well as I do that swimming and the team always come first. That’s where your focus should have been, and it’s where my focus needs to be.
Vandalism, destruction of property, assault .
. . I’ve worked too long and too hard to be associated with anything like that, and I don’t doubt for one second that you’d say the same if the tables were turned. ”
Her words are such a shock, I find myself gasping for breath. None of this makes any sense. My entire world has become unrecognizable.
“But I would never get involved in things like that! You know I wouldn’t!” I shout back at her.
“Actually, I don’t know, McKenna. I don’t know that at all. Rae and I saw all that cash falling out of your wallet last month at the Sizz. Before
the yard sale, before you sold the house. That was really just from swim lessons? Who knows what cagey shit you’ve been doing?
I don’t mean to be a bitch. Really, I don’t. But I can’t risk letting you bring me or the team down along with you.”
“What? Everyone feels this way?”
“You know how it is, McKenna. I’m sorry.”
“Wait, we’re just, like, done? After everything?”
“Work out your shit,” she answers more gently. The sadness I detect in her voice hits me like a brick to the face as she adds,
“Find somewhere else to stay. Believe it or not, I will be rooting for you to find your way.”
“Somewhere else to stay? I don’t have anywhere . . .” I stop speaking as I realize she’s hung up.
At some point during our conversation, I stood, though I don’t remember doing it. I look around the garden in confusion. As
I start replaying the conversation in my head, Mauricia finally emerges from the building.
Thank goodness, because there’s never been a moment when I’ve needed Glory more.
But as Mauricia approaches me, she says, “I’m sorry, sweetie, but your grandma’s fallen asleep. It took a while to settle her, and I think the agitation was just too much for her.”
“I can wait,” I say.
Mauricia hears the sogginess in my voice and puts a hand on my arm.
“There’s no telling how long she’ll stay down, or who she’ll be when she wakes up. I’m sorry, honey, but I think it’s best
to prepare yourself. She was your caretaker, but now you’re hers. Roles have a way of reversing like that, whether we like
it or not. Now it’s time to just focus on how you can give her the comfort and peace she needs.”
But I don’t have anything to give her. I don’t have anything at all.