Chapter 12
Days pass in a blur, a hazy fever dream of hospital bedside vigils, a few rushed hours in the bakery—making barely enough Swedish pastries to reopen Konditori for limited hours—and some semidelirious hours of sleep in my bed every night.
Farmor remains unchanged, and the bakery’s books grow a little more grim every day.
Even though we take turns leaving the hospital to bake (neither of us willing to leave her there alone), it’s not enough, and we don’t have—nor can we afford—extra staff to keep it open for normal hours.
With each day that passes in this pseudolife we now live, my exhaustion seeps deeper within me, settling into my bones—my skin stretched thin over too much fear and stress for one body to contain.
The only pinprick of light in all the overwhelm is that ever since the night Hunter waited in the hospital to help me, we’ve settled into a cautious truce—a cruel irony since that was the very thing Farmor asked me to consider before she collapsed.
Regardless of the tragic impetus, there’s a hesitant cordiality between us .
. . not quite friendship but at least not the resentful cohabitants we were before her stroke.
I’m wary of trusting the reprieve in his rudeness; I handle him with the caution I would a rolled porcupine, bracing for the moment his quills will come back out to pierce me.
When I stumble into the condo one night, sometime after eleven, bleary-eyed, exhaustion throbbing through my body like a wound, he’s sitting on the couch, lamplight softening the angles of his face and blurring the brush of -stubble along his jaw.
“Hey.” The low rasp of his voice does something to my stomach.
“Late night?” I manage to make my voice sound normal.
“Yeah.” He rubs two fingers in a small circle on his -temple. “Any change with your farmor?”
“No.”
Before I can go up the stairs and collapse into bed, he surprises me by moving beyond the usual small talk.
“Have a sec?” he asks.
I pause with my hand on the banister. “Uh, sure?”
“I know you’re tired, so I’ll try to be quick. But I have something I’ve been wanting to show you.”
My stress-addled brain can’t be certain, but I think that means he wants me to come over by him. So I do. On strangely shaky legs. From exhaustion, like he said, obviously.
Hunter’s hazel eyes are warm in the lamplight, the amber and green threads darker than usual in the muted glow. There’s an eagerness in his expression that takes me off guard, causing my heart to fumble a beat.
“I’ve been working on a few ideas for the bakery that I think could get a big response. I put together some spreadsheets detailing—”
“The bakery?” I cut in, baffled. “That’s what you want to talk about?”
Hunter glances up from the small stack of papers he’d been reaching for on the table between us. I notice what looks like a color-coded pie graph on the top sheet out of the corner of my eye.
“Well, yeah.” The gleam in his eyes dims. “I know you and your mom are doing what you can to keep it open right now, but all of this is going to cause a hit to business. I thought it might be useful to get some extra marketing and advertising going to help drive business up for the hours you are open. Then your profits won’t suffer more than they already are. ”
A swell of anger burns away some of my exhaustion.
“With what money? I’ve done what I can with the little extra we had to work with for the last couple of years.
But now there’s really nothing I can use for any additional advertising.
” After having it closed for the first two days, and limited hours ever since, I’m praying we’ll have enough merely to cover all our expenses and payroll—let alone more marketing.
“I figured this situation would cause a decrease in profit, which is why the ideas I’m pitching are super affordable. If you’d look—”
“No.”
Hunter’s mouth snaps shut.
“I can’t do this right now. I’m sorry. I’m sure your ideas are great, but we can’t even afford super affordable right now.” I swallow back the admission I almost spilled: I don’t know if I’m going to be able to pay for the flour shipment next week unless I take a pay cut.
He chews on his bottom lip as if he wants to say something else, but instead, he only nods.
“Okay. I’ll leave these here . . . in case you ever want to glance over them.
” Then he slaps both his hands against his thighs and stands, tall and shadowed across the table from me.
“Better let you get to bed.” There’s a shortness in his voice, and he won’t meet my eyes anymore.
I’ve hurt him, I think. But I’m so tired. Stressed. Overwhelmed. Scared. Farmor’s pale, frighteningly still face flashes through my mind. “Yeah. It’s been another long day.”
Neither of us says anything else. I turn and hurry toward the stairs.
When I hear the front door open and close a little later, I exhale the breath I’m holding and let my head drop back against the wall of my room.
I jerk awake before my alarm the next morning with a pounding headache from a slew of nightmares, which I, thankfully, can’t really remember this time. I assume the headache is from the lack of restful sleep and all the stress that has invited anxiety to become my constant companion.
I text my mom to make sure there haven’t been any changes in Farmor’s vitals, but Mom doesn’t respond.
Maybe she’s asleep, I tell myself, refusing to let the memory of a different morning when I woke to no calls from the hospital rise.
Still half delirious, I stumble through the motions of getting ready to go back, peeling off my T-shirt, using a baby wipe to do a quick “bath” before I remember to take my morning pills. When I swallow them, it hurts.
A pit opens in my stomach.
I whisper a Swedish curse under my breath. A headache, I can write off and blame on sleep and stress. But a sore throat? That one I can’t ignore.
No, no, no. This can’t be happening. Not now. Not when we could lose Farmor any minute. I pull out the thermometer I have in my top drawer and put it to my forehead, my heart in my throat as I wait for the beep.
99.6.
Because of my transplant, any virus or infection I get is potentially life-threatening.
Every. Freaking. Time. I blink back the stinging in my eyes.
The last thing I want to do is text my mom about this, but I have no choice.
Even though telling her I’m sick is the equivalent of pulling the fire alarm at a middle school.
Hey . . . I woke up with a headache and sore throat.
I look at the words I’ve typed out, then, with a sigh of resignation, hit Send.
It doesn’t even take thirty seconds before my phone rings. I guess she is awake after all, just ignoring my texts about Farmor.
“Hey, Mom.”
“How sick are you? Do you have a fever?”
I hate the worry, the tightness, in my mom’s voice, especially when Farmor is already in the hospital. But I can’t lie to her. “It’s only 99.6; nothing to get too worried about,” I downplay it.
She cusses under her breath this time. “I can’t believe I forgot to get you a mask when we were in the ER.”
“It’s not your fault, Mom. I forgot too. And that was last week; it might not even be from that.” I sink down on my bed.
“I don’t know what to do. Farmor is . . .”
“What?” I ask, my stomach filling with acid. “What’s going on?”
There’s a long pause. “Nothing really.”
“Mom, don’t you dare lie to me. Not right now. Not about this.” My free hand fists in my sheets.
“The doctors finally admitted they aren’t happy with her numbers.
They thought the craniectomy would relieve more pressure by now.
But she’s fine, Liv. She’s not getting worse, I promise.
” I can hear the pleading in her voice. “Right now, we have to focus on you. There’s nothing we can do for Farmor except wait. ”
The pain in my head sharpens, but I’m unsure if it’s from whatever illness I have or because Mom ignored my text this morning and didn’t tell me the whole truth about Farmor from the start.
“Do you have Tylenol there to keep you from spiking a real fever? Or guaifenesin to keep your lungs clear? Lavender or peppermint oil to put on a cool compress for your headache?”
“I . . . I’m not sure. I’ll have to go check.”
“Go check right now and then call me back. If you don’t, I’ll hurry to the store and bring you what you need.”
“You can’t leave Farmor!” I protest.
“Olivia, you are my daughter! I love your farmor, but there is nothing I can do for her. I can help you—and I’m not going to let you get any sicker if we can help it.”
“Okay,” I agree with a sigh but also no small amount of relief. Even though I’m frustrated with her, I also need her to keep me steady—and healthy. “Thanks, Mom.”
We hang up, and I grab my heart-covered robe, slipping it on over my tank top and shorts before heading downstairs.
Unfortunately, I can find only Lou’s ibuprofen, which I can’t take. Resigned, I text my mom, and she responds that she is already in her car on her way to check on me, and she’ll stop and get what I need.
I feel equal parts relief that she’s coming and guilt that she had to leave Farmor all alone.
After unfolding a throw blanket to wrap around my bare legs, I sit on the couch to wait.
The throbbing in my temples is bad enough to keep me from drifting off.
I don’t dare turn on the TV, and I didn’t think to grab a book.
As I sit there, my gaze falls on the small stack of papers Hunter left on the table.
A hot bolt of guilt strikes me through the gut; I shouldn’t have been so rude last night.
He clearly put a lot of thought and work into suggestions to help the bakery, if the color-coded graphs are any indication.
I should have at least let him show me what he came up with.
I’m debating grabbing the papers and looking them over when there’s a knock at the door.
“Hey,” I say softly as I let my mom in.