Chapter 32
32
DULCE
“ S o how did it go?” my grandmother asks.
Katie dropped me off after I told her what happened, leaving out the part of the miscarriage. I keep telling myself it’s for the best. The sun hadn’t come up and it was already over.
“It was perfect. I have more orders than Katie and I can handle,” I tell her with a smile. “I can finally get a van for deliveries.”
“That’s great,” she says and then coughs up blood. My heart sinks. “I’m sorry.” She folds the napkin, hiding the truth. “It’s nothing.”
“It’s…something, Grandma.” She gives me a wan smile like she isn’t bleeding from the inside the way my heart is bleeding out as I lose her.
I stayed up with her until my eyes couldn’t stay open. We talked. I laughed. We cried. More blood came up from her lungs. I cuddled next to her, holding her hand like a child with its mother.
She was the only person I had, and she was leaving me.
“He’ll be good for you, Dulce,” she says weakly. “I know it. Ford…he’ll take care of you.”
I sniff.
“Yes, Grandma,” I say in a small voice. “I love you so much.”
“And I love you, Dulce. You go live your dream, baby girl. You don’t have to worry about me anymore.”
Her life was slipping through my fingers, and all I could do was hold on.
“Don’t go,” I whisper. “Please… don’t leave me.” I close my eyes as hot tears run down my cheeks.
Mary walks in at six o’clock the following morning. I don’t realize I’ve been talking to my grandma for so long, holding her hand frozen in place. Holding on to the last moment. The last time she took a breath.
“I made the call,” Mary says. “They should be here any minute.”
The monitors begin to go off. Her O2 starts dropping, and I know this is the last time I’ll hear my grandmother speak. Hear her last breath.
“I love you, Grandma.” I bury my nose in her shirt. “You rest now with Mom and Dad.”
The ambulance came ten minutes later.
While she died in my arms, I don’t regret any of the lies I told her.
She passes on peacefully, with no worries about me, and that’s all I wanted. She’s held on for me for so long, and it’s time for her to go.
“Time of death, seven twenty-three a.m.,” the Mary says.
I hear the gurney as they wheel her out with a white sheet covering her body.
I turn around, not wanting that to be the last image of her. Mary squeezes my hand. “I’m so sorry, Dulce.”
I nod, but my heart is breaking.
“She was a wonderful lady.”
I try to speak past the lump of grief in my throat. “She was. I’m going to miss her so much.” I look at her through a blur of tears. “Thank you, Mary. For everything.”
“It’s not every day I get to spend time and take care of my best friend. Thank you for welcoming me into your home and giving me the best years with her. Do you need anything?” Mary asks.
My grandmother wanted to be cremated. She didn’t want to be worm food. She wanted her resting place to be in an urn next to my parents.
“No. I’m going to get some sleep.”
She nods. “I’ll call Katie and tell her.”
“Thank you.”
I hear loud banging coming from the front door. “Dulce!”
Hearing Katie’s voice, I look at my phone on my grandmother’s nightstand and see that it’s dead.
I drag my feet, rubbing sleep from my eyes as I open the door.
“Whoa!” Katie says in surprise, rushing inside. “Shit, I don’t know what to say because anything I can say won’t change it, but you look like shit.”
I turn around, not caring that I look like shit but knowing she is just trying to cheer me up.
She shuts the door. “When’s the last time you took a shower?” she asks cautiously.
I don’t remember. I crawl into my grandmother’s bed, where I’ve slept since they took her three days ago.
“I don’t know.”
She points at my phone with the black screen. “Are you planning on charging that?”
“No.”
She sits on the edge while I lie on my side, staring mindlessly at the wall.
“Do you want me to pick you up something to eat?”
I shake my head. “No.”
“You have to eat,” she says quietly.
I shrug.
“The bakery needs you. I tried to make the cakes, but they suck. I mean, they taste okay, I guess, but it’s not the same.” I remain quiet, and she continues, “Ford called this morning. He said he wanted to talk to you and that you were not answering your phone. I hope it’s okay that I told him. He said he was coming. He had to get track time or whatever that means, but he’s coming.”
I sigh. “I don’t care.”
When you have no one left, you kind of stop caring.
“Trust me, I wanted to tell him where to stick it, but I figured you wanted to do the honors.”
“I don’t want to see him, Katie. If he comes, I won’t answer. I plan to change my number.”
“That bad?”
“It’s not like I have a big contact list,” I mutter.
Sad but true. I only had her number, Mary, Danny, Ford, and my grandmother. That list has gotten smaller. It’s only Katie and Mary.
When I leave Airy, it will be none. Katie and Mary will have moved on, leaving me with no one to call. No one to come home to. No one to listen.
I have to move on now that I’ve sorted my grandmother’s remains. It was pointless to hold a service. It wasn’t like many people visited her.