Chapter 2 Hope #2
For that matter, I didn’t really have a job.
I was working as a temp at a graphic design firm, where I mostly updated websites.
I used to run the ridiculously upscale art gallery Kurt and I had bought with my mother’s inheritance, but we sold that—for a huge loss, I might add—as part of the divorce settlement.
We also sold the extravagantly expensive home Kurt had insisted we buy—a house with a mortgage far greater than its value, thanks to the real estate market crash—and I currently would be homeless if a friend of a friend hadn’t sublet me her apartment while she spent a year in New Zealand.
As a result of the divorce, I had no home, no job, and next to nothing left of the considerable amount of money I’d inherited.
Money that, in hindsight, was the real reason Kurt was so keen on marrying me in the first place.
He’d burned through it at a rate that would have horrified me if I’d know the full extent of it—but I hadn’t, because I hadn’t wanted to see it.
Like an ostrich, I’d kept my head in the sand.
I still try very hard not to think about that, because it makes me feel like even more of an idiot than I already do.
Anyway, I landed at the New Orleans airport around three in the morning, then rented a car and made the hour-long drive to the Wedding Tree Parish General Hospital to find Eddie and Ralph already there.
The three of us had been keeping a bedside vigil, taking turns dozing in the room’s two recliner chairs and talking with a constant stream of visitors, ever since.
“What’s the last thing you remember?” Dr. Warren asked Gran.
“Talking to Mother.”
Eddie pressed his lips together as if he were trying not to cry.
I awkwardly patted his back. Even though he was my mother’s brother and a generation older than me, there was something boyish about him that brought out my maternal instincts.
Maybe it was his babyish cheeks or his teddy bear build—but most likely, it was the way he wore his tender heart on his sleeve.
He squeezed Gran’s hand. “Mom, Grandmother’s been dead for more than forty years.”
“Oh, I wasn’t talking to her down here,” she said in a don’t-be-silly tone. “I was talking to her up on the ceiling.”
Eddie blinked, his eyes overbright and moist. “Do you remember falling?”
“No.”
“Do you remember going to the shed? That’s where your neighbor found you.”
“What on earth was I doing out in the shed?”
Eddie shrugged. “Beats me, but it looked like you’d taken a shovel off the hook on the wall.”
I saw a glimmer in Gran’s eyes. She remembers, I thought—but instead of explaining, she turned to Dr. Warren. “When am I getting out of here?”
“That depends on where you think you’re going.” His craggy face creased in a friendly smile.
“Home, of course.”
“Well, we’ll talk about that later. You’re here for a while, Mrs. McCauley.
You sustained a serious head injury, and we need to keep an eye on you and make sure you don’t have any bleeding or swelling in your brain.
You’ve also fractured some ribs. We’ll have to see how you do when we get you up and around. ”
“But I’ll get to go home, won’t I?”
Dr. Warren patted her leg through the blanket. “We’ll talk about all your options later. Are you in any pain?”
“My head feels like it’s cracked open, and it hurts to breathe.”
“I’ll order something to make you more comfortable. Just relax and get some rest, and I’ll be back to check on you later.” He said something to the nurse. As she fiddled with the IV drip, he scribbled on the chart, then signaled for us to follow him into the hall.
“How is she?” Eddie asked as soon as the door closed behind us.
“I’d say she’s doing very well, considering her age. There are no signs of a stroke. But she’s had a severe brain injury.”
“She’s awfully confused.” Eddie folded his arms across his chest as if he were trying to hug himself.
Dr. Warren nodded. “That’s to be expected.”
“How long will it last?”
“She’s likely to improve, but at her age, and with this level of trauma . . .” He paused. His face got that apologetic-sympathetic-uncomfortable look people get when they have to deliver bad news. “I’m afraid this was a life-changing event.”
A life-changing event. A chill went down my arms. Such simple, everyday words, yet put together in that order, in this situation, they were catastrophic.
The doctor flipped through the chart. “She was living alone?”
Eddie and I both nodded.
“I’m afraid that’s no longer going to be possible. You’ll need to make other arrangements.”
“She’s very independent,” I said. “Can’t we wait and see how her recovery goes?”
The doctor shook his head. “The fact she fell indicates that living alone is no longer a safe option. When you add in the effects of severe brain trauma, well, it’s just not advisable.”
“What if she won’t agree?” Eddie asked.
“You’ll need to convince her.”
“What if we can’t?” I asked.
A tense pause stretched in the air. “If a person is deemed to be a danger to herself or others, Social Services will step in. It’s preferable, of course, for the family to reach a resolution.
” He looked at Eddie, then at me, his eyes full of that apologetic-sympathetic-uncomfortableness again. “Does she have any family in town?”
Eddie shook his head.
“Well, then, I suggest you contact Pine Manor.”
“Gran hates Pine Manor,” I protested. I’d gone with her to visit some of her friends who lived there last Christmas.
On the way out the door, she’d grabbed my hand. “Promise you’ll give me cyanide before you let Eddie put me in this place,” she’d begged.
I can’t say that I blamed her; the place smelled like old carpet, canned peas, and pissed Depends.
“Well, it’s the only elder care facility in Wedding Tree,” Dr. Warren said. “But there are some fine nursing homes and assisted living facilities in Hammond and Covington.”
Eddie shook his head. “There’s no point in moving her someplace where she doesn’t know anybody. If she has to move, she’ll come with me to San Francisco.”
“That’s your call, of course.” He closed the chart and pushed his wire-rim glasses up on his nose.
“In any event, she’ll be here for several more days, so you’ll have a little time to reach a decision.
If need be, we can temporarily put her in Pine Manor or a similar facility until you complete your arrangements.
” He slid the chart into the plastic holder on the back of the hospital room door.
“I’ll check back on her in the morning.”
Eddie rubbed his jaw as the doctor’s loafers thudded down the hall. “Ralph and I have tried to talk her into moving to California for years. She can live with us, or move into an assisted living center.”
I’d sat in on many of those conversations—the last one being during the past holiday season. “As I recall, she wasn’t really opposed to moving.”
“No. The problem is, she insists on sorting through everything in her house here first. She keeps saying she’ll do it, but the truth is, I don’t think she even knows where to start.”
Ralph’s lips curved in a wry smile. “Well, it is a daunting task.”
“Beyond daunting,” Eddie sighed.
They weren’t kidding. Gran had grown up during the Depression, and her mantra seemed to be “Never know when this will come in handy.” She’d mended socks and underwear, saved bread bags and twist ties, and reused sheets of aluminum foil long before recycling was trendy.
Her home was clean and orderly—she was by no means a candidate for Hoarders—but every drawer, every closet, every shelf was stuffed.
“We should hire one of those estate liquidation companies,” Ralph suggested.
“I tried to talk her into that a couple of years ago,” Eddie said.
I remembered it all too clearly. “It was the Thanksgiving you were in London, Ralph.”
Eddie nodded. “She threw a fit. I’ve never seen her like that.”
I’d never seen Gran so agitated, either.
She’d thrown her napkin on the table, her face flushed, the cords standing out on her neck.
“I won’t have some stranger pawing through my things!
” she’d hissed. “I’ll do it myself, and that’s all there is to it.
” She’d left the table in the middle of Thanksgiving dinner and refused to sit back down until we promised to drop the topic.
“Well, she doesn’t have a choice now,” Ralph said.
“Maybe she does.” I was thinking aloud, and was a little surprised to find the words coming out of my mouth. “Maybe I can stay in Wedding Tree and help her.”
Eddie put his arm around me. “Hope, honey, that’s a sweet thought, but it’s just not practical.”
“Why not?” The idea felt like a beacon in my brain, clear and bright, shining through the fog of depression and lassitude and indecision that had immobilized me since my divorce. My pulse rate kicked up.
“Hope, it would take months,” Ralph said gently.
“I’ve got the time.” The light in my brain gained additional wattage. Heat flowed through my veins.
Eddie’s arm tightened into a squeeze. “I know you want to help, but you haven’t thought this through, honey.”
What he really meant was, Here Hope goes again, making another rash decision. It hurts to admit it, but I have a bit of a track record of acting first and thinking second.
There was that time on my college study abroad program when I didn’t make the plane home from Athens because I’d decided to run by the Acropolis one last time, and the professor in charge called Mom, who insisted he file a missing person report—but something got lost in translation and the police thought I was a fugitive wanted by American authorities, and I ended up spending two terrifying nights in jail.
And the time I lost the rarer-than-hen’s-teeth entry-level job at the Art Institute of Chicago that my mother had pulled all kinds of strings to get me, because I changed around an exhibit to showcase Renoir’s little-known Vase of Flowers instead of his more famous Two Sisters, which, in my opinion, is overexposed.