“What are you guys doing here?” I was delighted to see them.
“We thought you might like some company,” said Katie. “And we thought your grandma might need some Atlas-love.”
“Where’s Jill?”
Katie’s eyebrows did a little dance. “Out with Dan,” she whispered under her breath. “Went late last night right after we talked to you. Stayed out all night. Called at like five A.M. to ask if I could watch Atlas all day too. We were up, so we got in the car and came here.”
“How did that happen?” I hiss-whispered back.
Katie shrugged. “Her phone rang around eleven, and she just left.”
“Are you all going to bring me that baby or just stand out in the hall chatting amongst yourselves?” my grandmother’s voice boomed out from her room.
She was a different woman from the one whose hand I’d held the night before. She sat up against fluffed pillows on a made bed, fully dressed with brushed hair, rouged cheeks, and street shoes on feet crossed casually at the ankles (the sin of shoes on the bed lost to the sin of looking weak in front of one’s granddaughter I guess). In the shuffle of depositing flowers and food, fetching water for the former and ice for the drinks, much hugging and settling, I noticed that her eyes shone warmly, that her smile was real and easy, that she seemed herself again. She brushed off the hushed how-are-yous, looked me right in the eye. “Child, I’m fine.” Certain, decided, nearly annoyed that anyone would suggest otherwise. “Now give me that baby.” My mother relinquished Atlas to her mother’s arms.
And there followed, finally, okay okay okay. My grandmother babbled at Atlas who babbled back. My mom and dad asked Katie questions about Peter, about Ethan, about what was up with Jill and Daniel and Diane, about Jason and Lucas’s soon-to-be-baby, about wedding plans, about school. My grandmother chimed in too, never taking her eyes off Atlas. She knew a great seamstress who could do a last-minute wedding dress. She was sure Diane was sorry and had only everyone’s best interest at heart. (“It’s hard work sometimes to be a grandmother,” she said. “You wait. You’ll see.”) She thought it was just great that two nice young men could have a baby nowadays, and nobody could say boo about it. She was feeding Atlas tiny pieces of cheese sandwich—pushing them into his mouth and then scooping them off his chin for reinsertion, her own tongue miming the intake and rejection.
When the doctor walked in, we all jumped up in a fumble of lunch leftovers, scooping at the corners of our mouths with napkins, hurriedly tucking food boxes and trash out of sight, wiping the traces of laugh from our faces like we’d been caught sneaking food in class or laughing too loudly in the stacks at the library or passing notes during the (I sweartogod so mind-numbingly boring) lecture on “Verse and Vertigo” by a visiting Ivy League professor of Victorian poetry. Not that anything like that has ever happened to me.
“I’m glad to see you’re feeling better.” The doctor nodded at my grandmother though to me he leaked insincerity and seemed to be saying, “I’m glad you’re feeling better because what I am about to say will ruin the rest of your life.” Or, “How on earth can any of you be smiling when this is the worst news ever in the worst place ever, and none of you has any reason whatsoever to feel any joy ever again?” Or, “RWAAA, HAAAA, HAAAAA.” What he was actually saying was, “We have to wait for the oncologist, who won’t be in until Monday, and for the results of some tests which we should have by morning. We would like to keep you here for at least the rest of the weekend so you can get some rest, and we can keep an eye on you.”
“If anyone in this hospital thinks I am staying here another night, they are going to be sorely disappointed since there is no way in hell,” said my grandmother calmly. “As you can see, I am already packed and ready to go. My family is here to take me home. You can call me when you get the test results. In the meantime, I will rest very nicely at home thank you very much.”
The doctor looked taken aback. He was probably not used to anyone, let alone a tiny old lady, talking to him like that. I wanted to take her determination to be home as sure sign that she was healthy, that the kind of cancer she had was the kind you could live with, symptom free, for years and years. But a nagging voice where my spine hit my brain pointed out two things: (1) her determination to be home might as well be a bad sign as a good one, a secret knowledge that there was nothing they could do for her here, that she’d rather spend her time at home, that there was much there she suddenly had to take care of, and (2) that it didn’t matter how much pain she was in, my grandmother would grit her teeth and ignore it. She would have her way.
We brought her home. My parents spent the afternoon getting her settled and resettled. Katie and Atlas headed south. I called Nico and told him to meet me on the beach at Stanley Park. Our beach. “Come alone,” I said. I waited for him against the log where we first kissed. (Was it actually the same log? It was close enough.) I looked out across English Bay, sunlight pirouetting on the water, over the kayakers and water taxis and tourists towards the mountains out beyond. It was beautiful. Did I feel the majesty of nature, the mystery of God, the tiny insignificance of life and humanity and the brief flash of time during which they overlap for us? I did not. I felt bitter and angry, closed off, small, and miserable.
“Do you want to cry?” said Nico, hugging me, holding me.
“No,” I said.
“Do you want to drink?”
“No.”
“She’ll be okay,” said Nico, bless him. “She’s a very strong woman. She’s got a lot of fight in her.”
“Yes,” I said.
“You’ll be okay too,” said Nico. “You’re also very strong. You have lots of people who love you.”
“Yes,” I agreed.
“What can I do?” said Nico.
“Sit with me,” I said. “We don’t have to say anything. I don’t want to say anything.”
So we sat and didn’t talk, sat and remembered, sat and thought about other things. Living with women and babies, you forget how nice it is sometimes just to sit and be, quietly. Finally, Nico said softly, squeezing my hand, “We need comfort food. Let’s go get Indian.”
“Okay,” I said. It was too hot for Indian food, but misery made me very agreeable.
At my parents’ house in the middle of the night, into dead silence, dead sleep, the phone rang (tore, screamed, threw things). Before I was even awake, my brain was screaming, “NOT YET.” I held my breath and from my childhood bed listened to my mother’s half of the conversation. It included sentiments such as, “Thank you so much,” and, “I’ll be right there,” so I knew everything was at least sort of okay. My grandmother had gotten up to go to the bathroom, fallen, and then, unable to get back up, banged on the floor until the folks downstairs finally dragged themselves out of bed to find out what the hell was wrong with this woman and either help her or kill her depending on what they found. They called 911, and only eleven hours after she’d left it, my grandmother found herself back in the hospital.
We had her back home by eight A.M. Bruised hip, hand, wrist, shoulder, but otherwise okay. Warnings from more doctors. The medicines she was on now were making her weak and dizzy. No walking without a walker. No staying on her own. If she wouldn’t stay in the hospital (she would not), she had to consent to round-the-clock nursing. If she wouldn’t consent to round-the-clock nursing (she would not), she had to consent to one of us staying with her at all times.