Chapter 9
9
DULCE
A s I walk in the front door, Mary is already getting her things together. “I’m home,” I call out.
“Hi, sweetheart.” Mary greets me with a smile.
“How is she?” I ask with a worried expression, my stomach in knots.
“Hanging in there,” she says with a polite smile.
These past few months, my grandmother has been getting worse. I know it’s only a matter of time. She has lasted way longer than expected since the doctor put her on hospice the last time he saw her. He gave her six months, and that was four months ago.
“Is she awake?” I ask hopefully. She is usually asleep after her dose of pain meds when I make it home late. I had to stay later than usual to place an order for more supplies since Ford bought me out.
“Yeah, I think she’s waiting for her bath.”
Grandma met Mary at the doctor’s office when she went in for a routine checkup. On the twenty-ninth of June, the day of my parents’ wedding anniversary, the doctor diagnosed her with cancer. In my sophomore year of high school, she started chemo, and things began to go downhill fast.
“Alright, I’ll get to it,” I tell her, placing my bag on the chair right outside her room. “Could you lock up for me?”
“Sure thing, love,” she says, walking toward the front door. “If you need me?—”
“You’re a phone call away,” I finish for her.
She puts on her sweater and grabs her keys. “Dulce?”
“Yes?” I ask, masking the emotions clogging my throat whenever I walk home. I know it’s only a matter of time before she’ll be gone.
“Are you…okay?” she asks with a worried expression.
“I’m fine,” I lie.
“Don’t forget to get a checkup at the doctor, you hear?”
I swallow thickly. “I know. I mean, I will.”
“Good.” She smiles. “I’ll be here in the morning.”
“Oh…um, Mary?”
She pauses before she closes the front door. “Yes, love?”
“Could you stay with her a little later Friday night?”
“Is everything okay?”
I lick my lips nervously. I’ve never asked her to stay later, especially on a Friday night. I owe it to her to tell her why. She was there for me when?—
“I promised Dan—Officer Mays—I would go out to dinner with him on Friday.”
Her brows gently rise. “Oh…” Her eyes twinkle. “Is it a date?”
A flush creeps up my neck. “I think so.”
“You finally accepted.”
I accepted before Ford showed up when I was making the batch of cookies.
“I did.”
It’s no surprise. Everyone knows Danny, and all the ladies are drawn to him. Some call the police station to report things, hoping he shows up to the call. There is no doubt that he is handsome. The kind of man who makes you feel safe.
“I think he would be good for you, Dulce. He seems to like you. You’ve known each other for some time.”
I give her a wry smile. “I know. I felt bad all the times he asked me, but I didn’t want to leave Grandma alone.” It wasn’t the only reason. The truth is, I’m unsure about Danny. He has been there since it happened, and there is no question he is attractive, but I’m afraid to trust anyone. You don’t know how people are underneath; it's only what they end up doing when you least expect it.
“You don’t worry about that. I’ll keep an eye on her while you’re gone. You deserve a night out. He’s been patient with you. There is no doubt about that. You shouldn’t feel guilty about leaving her to have a few hours to yourself.”
He hasn’t seen you running naked with blood and dirt dripping down your body in the middle of the night, screaming at the top of your lungs.
“I know. Thank you, Mary.”
“My pleasure.”
When she closes the door, I walk into my grandmother’s room. I made sure it was repainted, and the floors were redone. I also bought her a new bed with an adjustable frame. It’s the nicest and most updated room in the house because I want her to feel comfortable.
“You’re here,” she says with a pained smile. Her hands are folded over her stomach.
“I am. How are you feeling?”
I look at her weathered hands. Her blue veins are like road maps under her thin skin. There are dark circles under her eyes. She tries to smile, but I know she’s in a great deal of pain. She tries to skip her morphine dose every evening to see me come in from work. If she takes it, it knocks her out, and it’s like I missed a day speaking with her. I’m glad she took it prom night.
She doesn’t know what happened. In her mind, I went to prom with Ford Keller and had the most magical night.
“Like I’m ready to go out dancing,” she says with a glint in her eyes.
“You want to borrow my heels?” I tease.
“You got those black ones I like?”
“Better, I got the kind with the red soles.”
She laughs, her light brown eyes shimmering with love. Then she grimaces from the pain, causing the light in her eyes to dim. Her life is like a light going out slowly.
I don’t have any heels, but it’s a little game we play. I help her get ready like I’m helping her prepare for a night on the town.
“So who is it this time?” I ask.
“Tonight, I’m going out with Jim Coates,” she says with conviction.
“The owner of the supermarket?” I ask in disbelief. “The old man with the thick gold chain like he got it off the set of an Italian mob flick?”
“He didn’t always look old, Dulce. He was handsome. You should have seen him in his prime. He was smooth and a gentleman with the ladies. He could charm the skirt of any girl back in the day. ”
“Old Jim?” I make a face. “He’s a grouch. Every time I see him, he looks like he got a flat tire coming into work.”
She smiles, but I see something in her eyes—like she’s keeping a big secret. “Wait…how do you know so much about Jim Coates?”
“He kissed me junior prom,” she admits. I can see it in her eyes that she’s telling the truth.
“Where was Grandpa?” I ask, confused.
My grandparents grew up in this town. My mother married her high school sweetheart.
“He went with a girl named Dolores.”
“But I thought?—”
“I met your father in high school, but I wasn’t his girlfriend until the second month of our senior year.”
“How come?” I ask curiously, tugging the blanket off her.
“He was screwing the girl who hated me,” she says with a bite in her tone.
“So you went with Jim Coates to junior prom.”
“Damn right, I did. It’s why he gives you a discount.” She sighs. “If you ever wondered why the old man was nice to you. Now you know why.”
I grab her nightgown and toiletries. Pull her wheelchair. I catch her gazing out the window like she’s reliving a memory. Now I know why the old man gives me a discount. He always said it was because our businesses were in the same strip mall and wanted to help out the locals.
“So how come you didn’t end up with Jim?”
“I turned him down.”
“Why?”
“Because I was in love with your grandfather,” she confesses.
“Did you and Jim…” I trail off when she looks up. I can see it in her eyes. She would never have slept with Jim if she had been in love with Noah Webster.
“What’s this I hear about a date Friday night?” she asks, changing the subject.
My cheeks heat. My ears burn, and my lips break into a shy smile as I push the wheelchair against the bed. “I’m going out to dinner with Officer Mays.”
I carefully transfer her to the wheelchair. Our eyes meet. My heart sinks when she sees the truth written on my face. “You don’t look excited.”
“I am,” I lie like a piece of cake you’re forced to try yet don’t want to hurt the person’s feelings by telling them that it’s horrible.
“I know when you’re excited. I saw it that night.” I glance at the picture she has of me in my mother’s prom dress on her nightstand. I quickly blink back the moisture from my eyes. How happy I was in the photo only to have it crushed by the horror as soon as I stepped out of the house. “He isn’t Ford Keller.”
“No, Grandma. He isn’t.” I don’t want him to be.
“I heard he’s back in town,” she says like she was in the bakery with me when he showed up.
“Gossip travels through trees around here.”
“It sure does,” she says as I push the wheelchair to the bathroom, wiping the tears that manage to escape behind her back. I hate that I keep secrets from her. The weight of them left an indelible stain on my soul next to the scars. “Has he been by to see you at the bakery?”
“He has…” I turn the water on, drowning the thoughts of Ford. The thoughts of that night.
“And?”
I place the shower chair in the center of the shower and let the water warm the seat. “He ordered.”
“You turned him down,” she says quietly, removing her clothes and placing them on the chair.
“It was one night, and nothing happened. He is not for me, Grandma.”
“You’re right. Mary heard someone at the clinic say he knocked up the mayor’s daughter.”
I drop the body wash.
“I heard she lost it. Everyone said he never liked her. He broke up with her before, though. Who knows,” she says with a little shrug. “She was a snobby thing. Poor girl.”
My hands tremble. “What else did Mary say?” I hope it’s not about that night I asked her not to say anything or the day I had to go to the ER. Please, God. Please…
“Nothing much. She did tell me to keep reminding you to go to the doctor for a checkup. Once a year, Dulce.”
“Yes, Grandma.”
“I remember when I had a period cramp that bad. It looked like pig’s blood spilled all over the toilet. It went away after I had your mother.” She looks up. “Did you know that?”
I shake my head and give her a weak smile. “No.”
It wasn’t period cramps, but I can’t tell her. I could never…tell her the truth.