Chapter 46
46
Kieran
Lila crossed her arms over her chest and stared at me over Granddad’s bed.
“What?” I said, keeping my voice low to not wake him.
She crossed one leg over the other and tilted her head to the side, one eyebrow raised. Granddad had been in the hospital for four days, and since everything had blown up with Sybil, Lila’s eyebrow hadn’t lowered once when she directed her attention to me.
“Why the fuck are you giving me that look?”
“Why do you think?”
I cracked my knuckles, readjusting my position in the uncomfortable chair next to Granddad’s bed. My lower back ached, and I desperately wanted to shower off the scent of the hospital. On top of that, I’d wanted to punch a wall for days, to break or smash something, and the anger wouldn’t go away. “I don’t want to talk about it and I’m not the fucking bad guy here. I’m fine.”
“Okay. I see that you believe that. But why did you, who have been allergic to showing emotion for most of your life, just drop two f-bombs in thirty seconds?” She glanced at Granddad, who was still snoring softly over the beeps of the monitors. “Because Sybil isn’t the bad guy, either. Last week, you said you were lucky to have her.”
“I was,” I said. “Turns out it was bad luck.”
“Stop being so fucking overdramatic.”
“I thought you were concerned about f-bombs,” I said.
“Only when you use them.” Lila grinned. “I say the word liberally, like a fucking lady.” My sister had our mom’s smile—not that I’d seen the original in years—but Lila’s face was like a balm, and my shoulders lowered, easing out of the defensive stance I’d been holding for days.
“I’m angry,” I admitted. “I’m so angry.” I held my arms out, palms toward her. “Because my whole goddamn life just imploded at the hands of my…” Girlfriend. I wanted to say “girlfriend,” but it was so inadequate, both for what I felt and the extent to which what she’d done was like a knife to the chest. Because it seemed like the love of my life had cut the cord holding me to my future, that the woman I’d known at my core was my soulmate had taken a torch to everything I’d worked for since childhood. And I was still relieved. Relieved the decision was made for me and I didn’t have to confront how uncertain I’d been feeling lately about being a doctor, and that feeling made me angrier than anything. And I didn’t know how to fix it. I didn’t know how to fix anything, and I felt helpless. “At the hands of Sybil,” I amended. “Granddad’s heart stopped in front of me because I wasn’t paying close enough attention to his health, and now I have no choice but to stay and run the shop. Am I not allowed a few ‘fucks’ in that situation?”
“You were really hard on her, Kier.” She chewed her lower lip. “But you’re right. You get seven more ‘fucks.’?”
“Thanks.”
Granddad stirred and we both stared at him, Lila breaking first and crossing to my side of the room around the foot of the bed. Her fingers brushed over my shoulder, and she wrapped her tattooed arms around my midsection from behind. “It sucks,” she admitted. “Be as angry as you want. I won’t say another word.”
“I don’t believe you.”
“That’s smart,” she said, giving me another squeeze and nudging my arm out of the way so she could sit on the arm of the chair. “I’m going to have a lot more to say.”
“She’s like her grandmother in that way,” Granddad croaked from the bed, stirring from his nap.
“You’re up,” she said, jumping up to hand him a cup of water, angling the straw to his mouth. “How do you feel?”
“Still alive,” he said, resting a palm on her hand. “So, pretty damn good, all things considered.”
I studied the monitors as I’d been doing, determined not to miss anything again. “Are you in pain? We can call the nurse,” I said, standing next to Lila.
“I’m okay,” he said. “Why does Lila have so much to say to you? Besides saving my life—thank you for that, by the way. Don’t think I’ve said that yet.” He cleared his throat and gave me a weak smile, and I motioned for him to take another drink. “What did you do, son?”
“Nothing,” I said with a wave. “Nothing that matters right now. We’re just focused on you getting well.”
He nodded. “And what did Sybil do to earn you being hard on her?”
“Were you listening to our whole conversation? I thought you were asleep,” Lila said, settling back on the arm of the chair.
“Ah,” he said with a chuckle. “Old granddad trick. I’ve been pretending to be asleep for years. You wouldn’t believe the things you two admit when you think I’m not listening.”
“Son of a bitch,” Lila said with a laugh, taking his hand that hung near the side of the bed. “That’s genius.”
“I’m not just a pretty face.” He patted her hand, seeming almost like his old self despite lying in a hospital bed hooked up to all these monitors. “Now, will you tell me why you’re fighting with my future granddaughter?”
I adjusted the blanket at the foot of his bed. “It’s a long story.”
“Well, then,” he said, kicking my hand lightly from under the blanket. “It’s a good thing I’m confined to a hospital bed. And my heart might explode if I disobey doctor’s orders again, so I’ve got plenty of time to lie here and listen.” He laughed at his own joke, but I couldn’t bring myself to fake a laugh.
“We broke up.” Had we? I suppose it was implied in me storming out after telling her how badly she had screwed up. My stomach roiled at the memory of her expression, the way she crumpled even as she tried to pull herself into a tighter and tighter ball. She’d texted and called, all some version of an apology, but I couldn’t read her messages without getting angry all over again, without being reminded how everything I thought I could stand on was turning to dust.
“No,” he said. “How can that be? You two are so good together. I assumed she’d go back to Texas with you, really.”
I tried again to adjust the blanket, and he pushed my hand away with his foot. “I’m not going back,” I said, giving up and taking the chair Lila had been occupying. “You know you can’t take the shop back over, right? I’ll stay and run it.”
Granddad looked at Lila with wide eyes like he hadn’t heard me correctly. “How hard did I hit my head?”
“It’s…it’s a long story, but I can’t go back to school, and there’s no one else to run the shop.” I looked down at my hands to avoid his inquisitive stare. “So I’ll do it.”
Lila returned to the chair and sent another raised eyebrow my way, but she didn’t say anything else.
“No.” Granddad pounded his fist against the bed. “Absolutely not.”
“Calm down, Granddad,” I said, eyeing the heart monitor. “Your heart.”
“Exactly.” He pointed at me, his body looking frail but that one finger steady and aimed at me. “You and your sister are my heart, and I’ll be damned if you’re giving up on your dreams to take care of me. Not going to happen.” He let his hand fall and took a slow breath. “And if Lila offered to drop out of school and run the shop, you’d say the same fucking thing. So, no.”
The room was quiet for a moment with only the beeps of the monitor and the whirring from the compression bands around his legs. “Granddad took one of your ‘fucks,’?” Lila said, and after a beat, Granddad laughed, I laughed, and Lila smiled, and I noticed his heart rate lower as the tension in the room seemed to dissipate.
He patted the bed and I stepped closer, taking the hand he offered. “I requested a deferral for my reenrollment,” I said. “Asked the committee to allow me one more year, which they usually don’t do.” He nodded, letting me finish. “And Sybil called the school and offered to donate a lot of money for their new building if they approved my request.”
Lila winced, despite her earlier insistence that I was overreacting.
“They took that as a bribe, which it was, I guess. And officially rescinded my offer to reenroll for ethics violations. So it’s not that I’m not going back to school. I couldn’t even if I wanted to, and it’s unlikely I’d get into any other medical school, not with that kind of mark on my record.”
“Oh no,” he said. “I’m sorry, son. I don’t know what to say. And Sybil must feel awful.”
“They’re not really talking right now,” Lila said.
“I see.” Granddad squeezed my hand. “And you’re mad.”
I nodded, though even as I agreed, I wasn’t sure whether I was mad at her or just mad at myself for not being able to fix this and forget her. Or for not having been brave enough to make my own choices sooner about medical school. If I could fix this, I could focus on something again, and maybe that would make it easier to push her smile, and the way her fingers felt against my face, and her lucky pennies out of my memory.
“You know, I love Sybil. I think she cares about people. And she loves you.” He raised his bushy eyebrows for emphasis. “I think she’s someone who acts on her gut, and you’re a thinker, a logic guy.”
“We’re polar opposites.” I loved her energy and creativity and how being with her felt like being in the center of a storm together, but that would never work long-term. “We’re wrong for each other.”
“When you come at a problem from two angles, gosh, that can be a great position to be in. But I do think she’s always going to be someone who makes impulsive decisions, and yes, this time it was a really bad one and there were consequences, and I get that you’re angry, and you should be angry.” He squeezed my hand, and I knew he wanted to wave his arms around and pull me into a hug, but the squeeze was enough. “I’m not saying that you have to forget or forgive what she did, but I know you and I think that you want to. And don’t fool yourself into thinking decisions made solely with this,” he said, lifting a finger to his temple, “aren’t sometimes bad decisions, too.”
I shook my head, even as the rightness of what he was saying and how well he knew me landed on me. I did want to forgive it all. I didn’t want to feel this way, but I couldn’t picture looking at her and not seeing the uncertainty of my future, even though I hadn’t been certain before this, and her question from that night in the cabin, about why I wanted to be a surgeon, came back to me. About Dr. Wagstaff’s questioning whether I wanted to be a doctor. And now the only question I was left with was whether I could be with someone this impulsive. I paced the small space. I couldn’t. It wasn’t even a question. I couldn’t, no matter how good I felt when I was with her.
Granddad kept going, pulling me back from my own spiraling thoughts. “If it means being with who you love for the rest of your life or losing her, I have to believe it’s worth taking the time for a conversation.”
I nodded and looked at his hand over mine, where his IV was attached. “I’ll think about it.”
“And we’re selling the shop,” he said, patting both our hands. “I can’t run it, and you two have lives to lead. The card for that real estate developer is on my nightstand. Not sure what the building is worth, but give him a call.”
“Granddad,” I said. “We don’t have to sell it. You love that place.”
He nodded. “I do love it. I built it with my Rosie, but it’s just a place.” He patted our hands again. “Place isn’t family, and neither of you love it like I do. So we sell.”
“Are you sure?” Lila asked, shooting me a quick glance filled with concern.
“Absolutely.” He nodded once, resolute, and rested his hands over his stomach. “Now, I’m two for two on good advice. Let’s talk about this Marcus fellow.” He gave Lila a sly smile, earning a groan from my sister.
“We’re just friends.”
Granddad laughed, and I was going to join in the teasing, though Marcus had been the one blocking me from getting to Sybil the other day, so he probably wasn’t my biggest fan now, either. Before I could say anything, a woman holding a clipboard knocked on the door. I recognized the blue plastic from Granddad’s last stay in the hospital and braced myself for the discussion of the bill. “Mr. Anderson? A moment?”
In the hall, she introduced herself. “I have some forms for you to sign and review,” she began.
“We set up a payment plan the last time,” I said. “I worked with Angela in billing and—”
“Oh,” she said, holding up a small hand. “There’s been some miscommunication. Your grandfather’s medical expenses have been taken care of.”
I stared at her while I tried to decipher what she meant. “We paid off the bills from his last stay, but—”
“No, there’s a note on the file to bill a Sybil Sweet. It’s all been arranged. I just need to review a few things with you as his power of attorney.”
I didn’t focus on anything else the woman said because I kept mentally tripping on Sybil doing this, and she must have done it after the blowup, after I screamed at her for what she’d done to try to get me back into school. My face was hot, and I nodded at the rest of the woman’s explanation, relieved once she handed me the paperwork to review on my own later. When she walked away, I pulled my phone from my pocket and navigated to Sybil’s number.
Kieran: You didn’t have to pay his medical bills but thank you for being so generous to us. I don’t know how to repay you.
I expected a quick response. Sybil always checked her texts immediately. Sometimes it drove me nuts when I was talking to her, but now, when I was on the other end of the phone, I was eager for that contact.
Kieran: And I’m so sorry for yelling at you.
Eagerness turned into anxiety as I stared at the message until it shifted to read. And then nothing. There weren’t ticking clocks in the hallway of the hospital, but it felt like there were as I paced back and forth. I thumbed through the forms the hospital administrator had handed me in a half-hearted attempt to read them, but my attention was always on my phone screen until finally the dots appeared.
Sybil: This is Emi. I took Sybil’s phone because she was getting so upset about you not responding and spiraling about ruining your life.
Sybil: So, I can tell her you texted, or you can figure out a better way to begin this conversation because I think you both deserve more than a text.
Sybil: And how is your Granddad? Lila gives Marcus updates but Sybil’s worried sick about him.
I smiled to myself at the snappy, almost leveling tone of the first text and the care in the second. Sybil’s friends were so much like her, and I missed her so much it had become an actual ache.
Kieran: He’s doing better. Outlook is good. Thank you and Deacon for helping with the shop.
I thought about how much had changed in my life from three months ago. I wouldn’t have called anyone to help three months earlier—I wouldn’t have had anyone to call. And now I didn’t have to call—Sybil’s people showed up for us, no questions asked; our neighbors showed up; we even got a nice note and get-well-soon flowers from Maria at Channel 13. Things were being taken care of without me orchestrating any of it, and it was okay. Things were more than okay, actually, I thought as I looked through the glass on the door at Lila and Granddad laughing, and then returned to my phone.
Kieran: And please don’t tell her I texted an apology. I’ll figure out a better way to start this conversation.