Chapter Fourteen Lillian
Chapter Fourteen
Lillian
I hated hospitals. With good reason. I’d spent too many terrifying hours in them after Rosalynn’s injury. And even while I had faith in the health care professionals we’d chosen, I also understood that some injuries were beyond fixing.
Like my husband’s lungs. The transplant had bought him more time, but now we were at the end of the line. My second chance at love was over.
My throat tightened with a grief that could swamp me if I let it. I didn’t have that luxury. The hospice manager had assured me that my husband was stable. But the sooner Rosalynn finished in the emergency room, the closer we would be to reaching our destination.
Tasks and routines had always powered me through a crisis, so I shifted my attention onto my daughter while we waited for a nurse to take her for a CT scan.
The EMS tech who’d evaluated Rosalynn at the crash site hadn’t found anything more than a bruise on her shoulder from the seat belt but still recommended a trip to the emergency room.
I didn’t even want to consider that the little snot who’d run into us on the interstate could have reinjured my daughter.
At least the police had been clear about fault in writing their report, even though Chet and Chester tried a couple more times to dodge liability. My brief experience with that father reminded me of one of my mama’s sayings . . . He thinks the sun comes up just to hear him crow.
The van was still drivable, thank heavens, but Chester’s insurance would be footing the bill for the repairs and medical expenses. I didn’t feel one bit bad about that. If not for him, we would have been at our hotel enjoying supper.
Based on my daughter’s pale face, I recognized she was in pain, a level beyond her everyday chronic pain. Dusty refused to leave her side, lying on the floor by the exam table with worried brown eyes. She’d mentioned neuropathy pain before the fender bender, and I hoped that was the only problem.
I’d pushed her too hard and hadn’t paid close enough attention, too distracted by Elsie’s crisis and all the heartbreak waiting for me at the hospice center. “Rosalynn, would you like something to eat or drink?”
Elsie glanced up from her phone. “I can run to the vending machine if you want. Mom?”
“I’m not hungry. The thought of food makes me a little queasy,” she said with a grimace. “I think we’re going to need to find a place closer by to stop for the night. I hate to lose our other reservation, but . . .”
The urgency pulsing through me took on a panicked edge. Clearly, forcing the vulnerable words out had been a struggle. But that was my girl. Ever reluctant to cry uncle. Which made her recovery tough in some ways, then and now.
“I agree,” I said, before I tapped Elsie on the knee as she sat huddled in a chair with her phone. “Could you start looking up hotels nearby that have an ADA room available? We all need a decent night’s sleep.”
Rosalynn reached for her cell, tucked under her leg. “Mother, I can manage a Google search. I’m just tired and a little achy, not incapacitated. I’m not sure Elsie would know what to look for anyway.” She typed along the keyboard, mumbling, “Why did Elsie think she was ready to leave home?”
Elsie waved without looking up. “I can still hear you. And I’m searching. We can make it a contest to see who finds the best digs for the night.”
Their banter made me smile. A wise person cherished pockets of joy. My mama told me that.
My mama also would have been out in the halls pestering the staff. “I wish my mother was here. She would get these folks moving.”
Shaking her head, Rosalynn forked a hand through her tangled dark hair. “People didn’t tell Della Avery no.”
“Wait, are you saying she was scarier than the both of you?” Elsie gave an exaggerated fake shiver. “That’s terrifying . . . and a little badass.”
“Thank you. I think,” Rosalynn said. “I wish you could have met your great-grandmother. Nana Della was one in a million.”
I pressed a hand against an ache in my heart that never quite went away. “Mama was special.” And before I could stop myself, I admitted, “I was always a little jealous of how close you two were.”
Rosalynn frowned. “I didn’t know that. How come you never told me?”
“That would have sounded ungrateful,” I said, another of Mama’s phrases chasing through my mind. It’s a poor frog that won’t praise her own pond.
Elsie set her phone aside for once. “How come?”
I scooted my chair closer to them both. “My mom moved in to help.”
“Oh, uh, right.” Elsie nodded, sliding to the floor next to Dusty. “She came for a while after Mom’s accident.”
My granddaughter didn’t interfere with Dusty—his vest was on—but she seemed to draw comfort from being near him all the same as she listened.
“Nana Della stayed with us full-time after that, actually, until she passed away the summer before I went to college.”
Losing Mama to a surprise heart attack had almost destroyed me. Like someone had cut the umbilical cord too soon and left my spirit to starve.
Then I had refocused myself into action—as usual—and returned to college to pursue a law degree. At first Rosalynn had accused me of enrolling simply to keep track of her.
She’d been wrong.
Okay, not totally wrong, but a person could accomplish two goals at once. Return to college. And watch over my child.
Helicopter parenting can’t be eradicated in a day.
Elsie leaned so close to Dusty, she must have been able to feel his body heat, even though the dog kept his focus on Rosalynn. “I knew she was around a lot, but I didn’t realize she lived with you for that long. Did she have a remote job?”
Rosalynn laughed wearily. “That wasn’t much of a thing in those days—”
Her words were cut short by a nurse coming to wheel her back for a CT scan. Rosalynn passed Dusty’s leash to Elsie, giving the dog a release cue. “Take care of my boy for me, please, until I get back.”
“Of course.” Elsie grabbed the leash. Once the door closed, she scooted closer, plunging her fingers into his fur. “So tell me about your mom’s job.”
Her voice drew me back to the moment, offering a reprieve from worrying about those tests. “Until Mama moved in with us, she drove a school bus.”
“A bus?” Elsie asked, wide-eyed. “For real? How have I never heard this?”
I’d done a poor job passing on the stories of our generations of women, something I needed to rectify. We deserved to be remembered for our resilience, our gift to one another as ingrained as our bright green eyes. “My father died in a car accident when I was three.”
Perhaps another reason today’s wreck had me so off kilter. On Dad’s birthday and every major holiday, we made a pilgrimage to the bridge where the wreck had pushed his car into the water. We threw flowers in the river, and Mama put a fresh coat of white paint on the wooden cross by the road.
“Grammie, I’m sorry. That had to be so hard.”
I rubbed my arms to ward away the chill of those Christmases spent tossing red carnations and evergreen into the tide.
“They didn’t have any savings. They were young, living paycheck to paycheck.
Mom drove a bus since she couldn’t afford day care.
She just strapped me into a booster chair behind her seat. ”
Elsie gasped. “Isn’t that illegal?”
“Not back then where we lived.”
“Jeez, you had it rough,” Elsie said softly, like a teen who saw no greater tragedy than riding the school bus.
I was thankful for all forms of free transportation growing up. “I didn’t see it that way as a kid. I could sleep if I needed to, and Mom bought me earphones so I could listen to music or books on tape.”
Elsie rubbed a thumb over her phone, a talisman of sorts. “Too bad you couldn’t have an iPad, or whatever you used to watch shows back then.”
“In the Dark Ages, you mean?” I laughed, opting not to remind her we only had cartoons on Saturday mornings back then. “When you’re a kid, perspective can be less complicated.”
“How so?” Elsie asked.
“To make extra money, my mother would drive for sporting events, field trips, and concerts. We got in for free. Mom and I would hang out together, watch football games, eat hot dogs and popcorn. And nachos, the kind with oozy cheese that in no way has actual dairy products.”
“That sounds pretty cool,” Elsie said wistfully, her gaze skirting toward the door.
The simplicity of those days swept through me. “I lived for the halftime show with the marching band. I dreamed of playing the flute and leading the pack once I grew up.”
Elsie shifted as Dusty draped himself over her legs. “I never knew you played in the band.”
“I didn’t.”
“Oh, well, the orchestra.”
I shook my head. “We didn’t have the money for the instrument or lessons. Still somehow Mom always found a way to show me culture for free. I didn’t appreciate that when I was young.”
But then did a child ever fully appreciate the sacrifices made by a parent? Not while they were small, because they were supposed to be children. Instead, too often, they were in a rush to grow up. Like Elsie and her whole emancipation scheme.
Somehow, I had to make her realize she needed to cherish this last year at home with her mother. For her sake. And yes, for Rosalynn’s as well. Because with the wisdom of my mother, I recognized that Rosalynn and Elsie weren’t ready to severe that invisible umbilical cord.
Time was precious. All the more reason I didn’t want to waste a moment of it by telling my husband about a job offer I absolutely would never consider taking. In no universe did I want to become a Virginia representative in the United States Congress.