Chapter 15 Coast to Coast #3
According to the clock in the waiting room, it was three in the morning.
When I passed through the hospital doors, it took me a couple of minutes to get my bearings.
I’d toured around the University campus with Skippy before, but I’d never paid much attention to the medical complex.
Eventually I figured out where I was, and walked about ten minutes through the quiet little streets to Skippy’s place.
I pulled out my dying phone to verify that I was in front of the right house, because it would suck to accidentally wake a stranger at this hour.
Right after I rapped on the window glass, I heard movement inside the room.
So I climbed the little wooden stoop, and Skippy appeared at the door in a kimono.
He and Ross lived in an old Victorian that had long ago been broken up into cute, creaky little apartments.
Wordlessly, he let me in. When I stepped into the living room, I saw a Graham-shaped lump asleep on the pull-out couch.
“Thanks,” I whispered.
“How is she?” he mouthed.
“She woke up, and spoke a little. But she looks awful.”
Skippy winced. “Tomorrow you’ll know more.”
“Yeah.”
He pointed toward the back. “Help yourself to anything in the bathroom. I’m going back to bed.”
“Skippy, thanks,” I said again.
Big parts of the day had been lost in my stressed-out haze.
But I knew that the people in this room — the sleeping one, and the kimono-wearing one — had been pulling puppet strings in the background, making my nightmare just a little more bearable.
Hours ago, I’d caught Skippy waving maniacally from the other side of the ICU glass.
When I’d gone out to see what he wanted, he’d shoved a paper carton of pad Thai into one of my hands, and a pair of chopsticks in the other.
Then he’d pointed at a bench. “You can’t go back in there until you eat that,” he’d said.
It had been easier to comply than to argue with him.
Now, Skippy leaned in to give me a quick squeeze. “Any time, honey. You’d do the same for me.” He turned away then, heading back to bed. We didn’t have to say anything more, because we both knew it was true.
I kicked off my shoes, and turned my attention to Graham, who had somehow zapped me from Connecticut to Vermont like a superhero. Even though we’d spent four hours in a car together, I felt as though I hadn’t talked to Graham in a year.
Dropping my jacket and jeans, I crawled onto the bed beside him.
The pull-out sofa was the usual disaster — a thin mattress over dubious springs.
But I’d never been so happy to be anyplace.
It would have been polite to just lie down quietly and go to sleep.
But that wasn’t good enough for me. I curled into Graham, tugging him into my arms.
“Are you okay?” he asked sleepily. I watched him wake up fast, his eyes snapping open, assessing me. “What’s wrong?”
I shook my head. “I just miss you. Maybe I should have just let you sleep, but I love you too damn much.” If the people in my life were going to start collapsing everywhere, it suddenly seemed important that I let them know.
He put a heavy palm on my cheek. “Love you, too, Rik.” The sentiment just rolled off his sleepy tongue. Then he let out a colossal yawn. “What time is it?”
“Three? Four?” I yawned, too.
“How is she?”
“Woke up. She sounds awful, but she’s there, you know?”
“Thank God.” His arms came around to squeeze me. “When I picked up that phone today, and Skippy told me what happened, I panicked.”
I tucked my body even closer to his, my mouth just beside his ear, so we could talk quietly. It was so still here. That’s how Vermont always sounded at night — quiet enough to hear your own thoughts. “That part of the day is hazy for me,” I admitted. “Thank you for getting me up to Burlington.”
“It’s hazy for you,” he repeated.
“Yeah. I was freaking.”
For a minute he didn’t say anything. He just nuzzled my neck. “I don’t think the team will forget it anytime soon.”
“What do you mean?”
Graham kissed my jaw a few times before he answered. “I don’t have to agonize over staying in the closet anymore.”
“What?” I pulled back so I could see his face.
But Graham’s eyes were closed, and his face was serene. “Just didn’t have time for the cover-up today. I kind of let it all hang out. For me, anyway.”
I traced back in my mind to try to figure out what he meant. “In the locker room?” It hadn’t been my sharpest hour, but I didn’t remember any words exchanged, other than Graham asking to borrow a car. “It couldn’t have been that bad.”
He gave a sleepy, half-shrug. “Doesn’t matter. Don’t care anymore.” He tugged me back down onto his body. “Middle of the night, Rik. I’m only good for sleep or sex.”
Smiling, I rubbed up against him. “I guess it would be rude to fuck on Skippy’s sofa bed.”
“Sofa might not survive it,” Graham mumbled.
“Good point.” I pulled up the blanket and lay down in Graham’s arms. Sleep clobbered me immediately, and I was out.
I woke up the next morning to the sound of Ross making coffee about ten feet away in their little kitchen.
Graham’s big thigh was practically wedged into my ass, and I was clinging to the edge of the bed.
I was either going to have to become a more assertive sleeper, or share only king-sized beds with him.
With both my feet, I shoved his leg out of the way.
“Unnrgh,” he said.
“So true,” I agreed. And Ross laughed over the burble of the coffee maker.
Skippy came barreling out of the bedroom a few minutes later, and began organizing us in his Skiptastic way. “Graham can shower while you call your uncle,” he ordered. “Let me find a couple of Ross’s t-shirts for both of you.”
I gave Ross an apologetic look, and he just shrugged, sticking a piece of toast in his mouth.
“…Ross and I have class later this morning, but I want to run into the hospital with you, so I can report back to Mom. Now come over here and eat something quick.”
Graham and I let Skippy march us around. As a result, thirty minutes later we were both more refreshed and better fed than would have otherwise been possible.
Ross tucked their little poodle into its duffel bag and put it over his shoulder. Then we all went outside to walk to the hospital together.
On the way into the building, Graham took my hand and gave it a squeeze. Oddly enough, he didn’t let it go. We all approached the information desk together, where I learned that Gran had been transferred from the ICU to a regular room on the fourth floor.
“It’s good news that they moved her, right?” I asked as all four of us waited for the elevator.
“It’s awesome,” Skippy agreed.
Graham squeezed my hand, which he was still holding. Weird.
On the fourth floor, we looked around for the right set of room numbers. And I was so eagerly scanning the signs that I didn’t notice the woman standing outside a room at the end of the hall until we were almost upon her.
My mother.
As we moved toward her, I watched her mouth fall open.
Nice to see you, too, Mom. “How is she?” I asked without preamble.
“What is he doing here?” she asked.
Beside me, Graham’s body went completely still. But he did not remove his hand from mine.
There was a nasty silence, and then I felt Skippy push past my other side, as if to get a better look. “That’s her?” he asked. For obvious reasons, he’d never met my mother. “That’s the crazy bitch who calls herself your mom?”
“Skip,” Ross warned. “Simmer down.”
“You think I should be polite?” My ex-boyfriend spat. “Fine. Thank you, Mrs. Rikker, for kicking your son out when he was sixteen. Because if you hadn’t, someone else would have had to take my virginity.”
My mother gasped, and clenched her fists.
And it seemed entirely possible that I was about to witness a physical altercation between my mother and my ex-boyfriend, who was currently wearing a pink t-shirt reading Power Bottoms for Jesus.
The dog, sensing trouble, chose that moment to let out a high-pitched yip.
And Graham squeezed my hand as if he meant to solder himself to me.
At that moment, I felt as if I was looking down at my whole life from above. And what I saw was hysterical. A gurgle of inappropriate laughter contracted my stomach.
“Don’t laugh, Rikky,” Skippy said, his voice tight.
But why not, right? Because the only thing really wrong was the fact that my grandmother had just had a stroke. All the rest was, as Coach liked to say, noise.
Ross put two meaty hands on Skippy’s shoulders and eased him back. “You’re upsetting Bella,” he said. “And if that happens, we’ll get thrown out of here.”
“It would be worth it,” Skippy snapped.
My mother spoke again. “You are not welcome here,” she said. And something in her tone made me pay attention. To my horror, she was pointing at Graham.
I didn’t even know that it was physically possible to go so quickly from zen to absolutely enraged. My chest squeezed like a vice, and I actually gagged for a second on my own haste to shut my mother up. I was finished being wounded by her. But you do not get to say that shit to Graham.
But it wasn’t me who told her off. And it wasn’t Skippy, either.
“Oh, hell no,” Graham spat. His hand finally let go of mine, but only because he wrapped it around my shoulder instead.
“That is not even true.” His voice was shaking, the same way mine would be if I even tried to speak right now.
“It took me six years to realize that I am welcome here, and you are not going to change that.”
My mother’s face was bright red. “You’re not helping,” she whispered. “Except to condemn him to hell.”