Chapter Forty-Four
Forty-Four
Josie
My phone buzzes on the nightstand, vibrating so loudly that it nearly falls off the edge. Half asleep, I grope for it in the dark. The bright screen stings my eyes as I squint at the messages. There’s a missed call from Mom—the last person I want to hear from—followed by a flurry of frantic texts.
Josie, wake up!
Wake up!
Are you even there?
Why are you ignoring me? This is an EMERGENCY!
Your Nonna is at Shelton General. It’s serious. Get here NOW.
The last text, received just moments ago, reads: Please hurry!!! I need you.
I’m out of bed before I can think, my heart racing as I throw on the first clothes I can find. Not Nonna. Not yet. I am not ready.
I yank my jacket off the chair, grab my keys, and head out the door. As I pass through the living room, I pause, caught off guard by last night’s wreckage—the empty carton of Ben they must have dropped after Mom gave up on them.
Great. Crisis averted.
On my way back, I see a commotion outside Nonna’s door, and my heart slams against my ribs.
Then I hear my mother scream.
I break into a sprint, but the nurse from earlier steps into my path, blocking me.
Inside, monitors are pinging, a doctor shouts, and another rushes into the room. I lunge forward, but the nurse—unreasonably strong for her size—holds me back.
“Let me in!” I demand, but she doesn’t budge.
I hear Mom’s voice, shrill and cracking. “Do something! You have to do something!”
And that’s when my fear turns to full-blown panic. I crane my neck and catch a glimpse of the monitors. The flat line. A piercing, steady tone that fills the room.
“Get everyone out,” a doctor yells, motioning to my hysterical mother. “I can’t work like this.”
The nurse abandons her attempt to keep me away, and instead heads to Mom.
Unlike me, she treats Mom with kid gloves—folds an arm around Mom’s shoulders and leads her gently outside.
If I wasn’t so terrified, I’d be impressed with her ability to intuit the situation—she knows immediately that my mom is chaos.
Inside, the doctor shouts commands: “One, two, three—charge!” The paddles jolt Nonna’s body. We wait an interminable minute and watch the heart monitor.
No beat.
The doctor does it again. And again. Time loses all shape. Minutes? Hours? I’m not sure I’ve taken a single breath.
And then the room goes quiet.
“Time of death 12:25 p.m.,” the doctor says in a calm, even tone. Like my entire world hasn’t just crumbled to dust. Like I haven’t lost the one person who has loved and nurtured me and tried her best to keep me safe since birth.
The doctor turns to leave, her face totally blank, and as she walks away, her foot catches on a pillow—the one that was just cradling Nonna’s head minutes ago.
I grab it, and a sob rips out of my throat, a sound I didn’t even know I could make.
The doctor barely even pauses, barely looks back, just slips out the door.
“Nonna?” I whisper, my voice trembling as I finally manage to edge around the machines and reach my grandmother.
But when I see her, still and lifeless, the floor beneath me gives way.
A tightness wraps around my chest and squeezes until I can’t let in the air.
The room spins. I grip the bed frame, gasping, but it’s no use.
Nonna’s gone. Her face—not peaceful. She is not peaceful; in death, her mouth is twisted in rage.
She looks so different than even how she looked just before I left the room to get Mom her fucking snack. Then, at least, Nonna seemed calm and purposeful.
But this—this is the image that will stay with me, the last one I’ll ever have of my nonna, my favorite person in the world.
Her tired, gentle face burns itself into my memory as my breath catches.
Everything’s shrinking, like the whole world’s collapsing in on itself and all I can do is cling to scraps of her: the smell of Sunday dinners she’d make from scratch, her laugh when she’d catch me sneaking hard candies from her bag, the way we’d lie on our backs at night, side by side, whispering wishes to the stars through my bedroom window.
Now, though, it’s all slipping through my fingers, leaving only the silence where she used to be.