I rushed over to my notebook, where I kept my schedule, quickly reviewing what I had planned for this week. “I’m going to come home this weekend. I’ll leave early Friday afternoon, and I’ll head to you once I get into town. Which hospital are you at?”
It was only Monday. Assuming she would still be admitted and I could get enough work done over the next couple of days, there was a chance I could even skip out a little earlier.
“Oh, honey, I hope you’re not coming home just for me.”
I didn’t want to lie, but I certainly didn’t want her to feel any guilt either.
“I’ve been needing a break for the last several weeks, and home is the perfect place to go.”
“It really will be wonderful to see a familiar face.” I could hear her smiling, and that caused my heart to ache even more. “Boston Medical, honey. Room 226.”
“I’ll see you on Friday, Gran.”
She was silent for a few seconds and then, “Take care of yourself, Ashe, and drive safely.”
“I will.”
I hung up and placed the cordless phone back on the receiver.
I needed to call Dylan and tell him I’d be crashing on his couch this weekend. I wasn’t sure he’d even be home—he could be flying. I didn’t want that to be the case. I really needed some time with my best friend. And I also had to phone my parents, who would be disappointed I wasn’t staying at their house, but I’d promise them a dinner in Chinatown for at least one of the nights.
I hadn’t thought I’d make it home until the end of the semester, even planning to spend Thanksgiving here.
But this trip was what I needed. A break from the monotony and a reminder that there was life outside of medicine. Maybe it would even make me miss it a little since I could hardly stand the thought of it at the moment, especially as I looked at my desk, knowing how much work I had ahead of me today.
Most importantly, after seeing Gran, it would give me a chance to stop by the police station.
Phone calls weren’t getting me anywhere. It was time I paid this detective a visit.
Since I had been able to leave Baltimore several hours early, I arrived in Boston shortly after dinnertime and headed straight to the hospital. With Gran’s room number written on a small piece of paper in my hand, I took the elevator to the second floor and found the correct hallway, the numbers next to the doors decreasing the closer I got to her room. I checked the paper one final time and slowed as I neared her doorway, trying to be quiet in case she was sleeping.
When I walked in, I expected to find the outline of her thin, petite frame covered in a blanket, her gray hair feathered across the pillow, her arthritic hands resting on top. But the person lying in her place was the right age, just the wrong sex.
Assuming they had moved her room, I went to the nurses’ station, waiting for the RN to get off the phone before I said to her, “I’m a friend of Esther Daniels. She was in room 226. I’m wondering if you can tell me which room she’s in now.”
She stared at me, her shoulders perfectly still, the lines around her eyes deepening the longer she was silent. When she took a breath, I saw something I didn’t want to.
Pity.
Compassion.
“I’m so sorry,” she said. She glanced at her hands that were clutched on top of the desk. When she looked back at me, her expression had intensified. “I was Esther’s nurse for most of the time she was here. She passed away two evenings ago.”
My heart stopped. The air in my lungs was stuck, not releasing and not able to take in any more. “She … what?”
She gently nodded. “You’re Ashe, her granddaughter’s boyfriend, aren’t you?” She didn’t need for me to confirm; her face told me she knew that answer already. “She told me all about you and that you were coming to visit today.” Her hand went on top of mine, holding it for only a second. “I hate that I have to deliver this news to you. Esther was the most wonderful woman.”
“I can’t”—I looked at the floor, my shoes, the long hallway, anywhere, just trying to find something that would take this feeling away—“believe she’s gone.”
“She fought hard, but she was extremely sick. We did everything we could to keep her out of pain.”
I looked at the nurse again, confused. It was like she was speaking a different language. “She was sick?” I shook my head. “I just spoke to her on Monday. She told me she’d been falling and feeling light-headed.”
“She planned on telling you when you arrived; she didn’t want to worry you while you were at school. I know this because I was in the room when she called you—she needed help dialing and holding the phone to her ear.”
The emotion was brewing in my chest, whistling like a goddamn teakettle.
“She had stage four small-cell carcinoma.”
“Lung cancer,” I sighed, my hand in my hair, barely feeling the grip I had on each piece. “I can’t believe this …”
“Poor thing was diagnosed two months ago. She started chemo treatments immediately, hoping to help with the pain, but there was nothing we could do to stop the progression.” The lines around her eyes caved with sympathy. “She didn’t have the strength to fight it.”
Gran had been here all alone, no one to hold her hand through her diagnosis or chemo treatments.
No one to give her any hope.
And every one of my phone calls had told her they weren’t any closer to finding Pearl.
Fuck me.
My arms felt too heavy to hold, and I rested them on the counter, my face wanting to fall too. “I think I need a minute.” My throat was tightening. “I wasn’t prepared for this.”
She rolled her chair several inches away to a different part of the desk and reached inside a large purse. When she returned, her hand landed on my arm. The same place Gran had touched many times in the past with her small, fragile fingers. “She asked me to give you this. If you didn’t show up today, she left me your phone number, and I was going to reach out to get your address.”
In her other hand was an envelope, my name written in very shaky writing on the front.
“She wrote that part.” She nodded toward the cursive. “I helped her with the rest.”
I placed the envelope in my pocket. “Thank you for being there for her.”
She smiled. “She was the loveliest woman. She sang your praises and was so grateful to have you in her life. She was trying to hold on—she told me that every time I came in for my shift.” She breathed, her voice softening. “I’m sorry you weren’t able to say good-bye.”
I didn’t try to speak.
I just held my hand against the envelope, pressing her last words against my body so I could feel closer to her.
And when I felt like I had the strength to move, I took a step back, mouthing, Thank you, and I forced myself to walk in the direction in which I had come.
Fifty-Nine
After
Ashe
“There’s someone on the other side of that wall,” Kerry whispered in my ear, her fingernails loosening, no longer stabbing my skin.