I nod. “See, don’t you love her?”
She nods. “I do.”
“Whenever Gram arrives somewhere, it’s a big production. There’s always the red sassy lady scarf to take off and fold. Leather driving gloves that she insists have to be removed finger by finger.” I show her on my own hand. “So they don’t get stretched and lose their shape. Me, personally, I think she’s stretching them out on purpose, just so I’ll buy her a new pair. She loves the smell of new leather. A duster jacket. I’m surprised she doesn’t wear a pair of those race goggles. Hmm, I think I just thought of Gram’s Christmas present!” I take a drink from my water jug, happy that I can make Chloe feel better if only for the length of my story.
“The day she came with the wagon was no different. As she removed her riding attire, I started in on the fried chicken she’d brought. Gram really knows her way around a kitchen, by the way. She gave my arm a final pat, which signaled that she was going to visit with her daughter-in-law. There was none of the usual mother-in-law drama between them. The only thing those two ever fought about was how many birthday presents I deserved. Gram always wanted to add five to whatever number Mom came up with. I know how bad it pained Gram to plant a kiss on Mom’s cheek and watch her jerk away with a frown, even in her sleep.
“If Mom was herself, she would’ve thrown her arms wide and hugged the life out of Gram. But she wasn’t herself, not then, not ever again.” I stop and clear my throat.
“Gram pulled a brush out of her purse and started fussing with Mom’s hair. ‘Mase, is she in pain? Isn’t Courtney her nurse today?’ She reached for the call light, but I held up a chicken bone to stop her. ‘Don’t ask. Yes, Courtney’s taking care of her, and I think you can cross her off the marriage material list. I was kinda hard on her earlier.’ I shoved a biscuit, dripping with butter, in my mouth whole and talked around it. ‘We’ve had an awful morning, but the afternoon’s getting better, Thanks Gram.’ I saluted her with another chicken leg.
“‘Don’t talk with your mouth full.’”
Chloe interrupts, like she’s got a secret. “Wait. Fun fact, Courtney is my chemo nurse.”
I can’t believe it. “You got to the Abigail Dixon Cancer Center?”
She nods. “It’s so comfortable there. I’m glad I picked it from Yelp.”
I’m horrified. “Chloe, did you pick your doctor from there, too?”
Giggling, she says, “No silly. I just found the doctor with the most letters in his name and picked him.”
I laugh with her, hoping she’s pulling my leg. “Chloe, that’s supposed to be the most letters behind his name.”
She shrugs and holds up her hand.
“Yes, Chloe.”
“I do have one complaint. The bathrooms are too small. It’s a place that gives IV medication, so anytime you have to pee, it’s always with an IV pole attached. And since the door won’t close with the wheels in the way, everyone gets a free show. Make a note, please.”
“Just did. Sent a note off to my buddy; he’s the architect. Joel, one of my teammates from college, who I might add would’ve never have thought of the IV wheels since he’s never been sick a day in his life. I’m sorry about that, Chloe. I hope you’ll accept my apology and refrain from posting that on Yelp.”
She looks guilty. “Too late. Sorry.”
I laugh. “No worries. How is Courtney?”
“Great. She loooves you. Wrote a letter to The Spin Show and everything defending your honor.”
“Wow. I’m…scared?”
“No, not like that. She only speaks highly of you, my Grace.” She bows.
“She should. I pay her enough to run the place.”
“And you chose well. Leave poor Court alone.”
“It’s weird that she knew you before I did. It’s a small world. I’m glad I gave her the raise she wanted or she might have told you that I was some kind of Grinch.”
“Never. Not in a million years would I ever believe it or would she ever say anything like that. You are a true giver.”
“Wow, thanks, Chloe.” For some reason, I blush before continuing.
“She was there, one of the nurses Gram cooked for every day. Oh, and she knew Gram before you will, too. They get together once a month. That part’s coming.”
Chloe covers back up and settles in.
“I wasn’t sure if she was trying to feed the whole army or just the soldiers in California. That day, she really stepped up her game. Maybe my memory’s playing tricks on me and I’m remembering it wrong, but it’s likely there really was that much food. Her wagon was full of aluminum trays of fried chicken. There were industrial-sized drums, vats of Mojo potatoes and biscuits and gravy piled up high. I grabbed the two-handled bottles from the cart. “Really, Gram? Who’s drinking the whiskey?” She’d brought two of our biggest jugs of moonshine and whiskey.
She clucked like a chicken, grabbing the alcohol from my hands and shoving it back under a tray of biscuits. ‘Shhhh. Here. Stop touching stuff. I had it all organized.’ She looked around. ‘And keep your voice down. It’s for the nurses. They’re people, too, you know. It’s not for now, silly. It’s for later, when they clock out. I just don’t want them to get in trouble for taking it. I’ve been smuggling a bottle or two in every day and nobody’s told me not to yet. So until I’m asked to stop, I’m bringing it in.’
“‘Every day!’ Incredulous, I couldn’t help but add, ‘Great. You’ll make alcoholics out of them yet. Is this how you keep the business running so well? Recruiting now?’
“She rolled her eyes. ‘You know I cook when I’m…blue. I couldn’t sleep at all last night, so I stopped trying and started working.’ She grinned. ‘Besides, you know supper’s always better—’”
“With spirits,” Chloe finishes.
I tap my nose.
“‘Now be a good boy and smile pretty, dammit. Go find someone to make me grandbabies with.’”
I give Chloe an apologetic look. “I apologize in advance. She’s probably gonna want you to incubate one for me.”
“No time for that, go on.”
“So I took the wagon like a good grandson and got moving. I probably frowned or made a face, but only when her back was turned. I don’t want a shoe upside my head. With Gram, there’s never been any backtalk, sass, or attitude. She commands, you do, no questions asked. Our family left the South sixty years ago, but she brought it with her…to Southern California and raised this fine, young, southern gentleman. End of story.”
Chloe nods. At least she doesn’t deny that I’m a gentleman. I haven’t offended her yet. And then she realizes. “Hey, that’s not the end. Go on,” she grumbles.
“I know I did drop and knocked out about fifty push-ups before I walked out of that room. It’s something I do. To get my blood pumping. Kinda calms me down. I did it before I talked to you the first time.” She’s impressed.
“It made me nervous to head into the nurse’s station with food. I never knew if I was gonna make it out of there alive. You laugh, but hungry nurses are no joke. Believe me, they can’t keep their hands to themselves either. Their hands were all over me…”
“Don’t you mean all over the chicken?” Chloe jokes.
“Touché. Chloe.”
“An announcement went out over the loudspeaker. ‘All staff, report to the nursing station.’ Respiratory showed up smelling like cigarettes—they’d been out on a smoke break, but heeded the call to action. The same dignified, overworked doctor that had told me about my mom’s cancer spreading to her brain comes through and puts a biscuit in each of the pockets of his lab coat. Grabbed a soda and a chicken leg. Courtney tried to give him a plate, but he said, ‘No time.’ To me he said, ‘Send your Gram my best, Mason.’ I nodded, stunned. It was like I was seeing them without their badges on.
Chloe looks blank, either she’s high or doesn’t understand what I mean.
“Okay, for future reference, hospital staff love anything free. Doesn’t matter that it’s
not balanced, nutritious meals. In fact, the unhealthier, the better. Pure carbs, doughnuts, cookies, brownies. They need the sugar since they don’t stop for twelve hours. Got to keep the staff fueled.” As I’m thinking back to the wonderful staff that helped my mother on her last journey, Chloe clears her throat.
In a husky voice, she asks, “Will you bring food…and whiskey for my nurses, Mason?”
I look up into her wide eyes pooling with tears. My voice sounds rusty when I say, “It would be my honor, Cancer Girl.”
She grins with her whole face. My heart squeezes. “You make me sound like a super hero. Cancer Girl!” The yawn that follows concerns me. “I’ve kept you too long. I don’t want you using the I’m-too-tired excuse to back out of having lunch with me and Gram tomorrow.”
She doesn’t get it right away, just keeps protesting, between yawns, that she’s not too tired. “I’m not tired, Mase. I swear. It’s just this friggin’ futon.” She punches at the black lumpy cushion. It doesn’t even move. That’s it. First stop, the futon store.
“Plus, I don’t sleep much anymore. I kind of hover, you know?” I nod, remembering my mom in that state, till the hovering became the norm. She might as well have said, “I don’t live much anymore.”
Then it dawns on her. “Wait, Mason. Lunch with Gram? Are you sure you’re not going to propose?”
I throw my head back and laugh. “Not yet.”
But she’s already thinking. “I’ll have to wear a mask if we go somewhere crowded.”
“We won’t. We’re going to the kennel. No germs, well, except dog germs, if those count.”
Her eyes light up. “They don’t!”
“You’ll have to stay out of the reptile room, but I already talked to Gram. You’d be letting down a poor old lady if you don’t fulfill her never have I ever.”
Eagerly, she asks. “What was it? Her never have I ever?”
“To meet you, of course, silly.”
Her smile is so bright, so vital. In this moment, if you told me she was dying, I’d tell you, you were high.
“All right already, I’ll go. It’s getting too thick in here to breathe.”
“Do you want me to finish?”
She nods, snuggling into the pillows. “I might hover. Don’t get offended.”
I chuckle. That will never happen. I lie back on the couch and toss my polo ball in the air. Up and down, until I fall into a relaxing rhythm, tossing the ball at regular intervals, speaking in a lower tone. My inside voice. Maybe she’ll find her way out of hovering and move to actual sleep. I used to do this for my mom when she couldn’t sleep. “My mom hovered, too, Chloe.”
She nods and thinks about what she’s going to say. “When you have cancer, you don’t want to waste time sleeping. Time is not your friend. So you hover…trying not to miss a minute.”
I think about this. When Chloe explains it like that, I get it. “Chloe, this meet and greet we’re doing feels kinda like therapy. ’Cause it’s helping me. You’re helping me to work through some of my grief. Do you know I’ve never talked about this with anyone, not even Gram?”
“I will take your secret with me to the grave,” she says. When I’m quiet, she turns to me, holding her fingers together. “Too much?”
“Never.” Then because I don’t want to admit—to her or myself—that I already cherish her too much and that there’s a spike piercing my heart. One that twists just a little bit, burrowing in deeper every time I think about her passing. I start back in on my story, just for her. The absolute sorrow I usually feel when I think back to my mother now reduced to sadness because of Chloe.
“Where was I? Oh yeah, last year. Feeling like the master of my own universe, ready to graduate—as a valedictorian—while my mother lay dying down the hall. That really puts things into perspective, I’ll tell you.”
Then I realize what I said and grab my ball, looking to Chloe.
“Who you telling?” she asks in a way that doesn’t make me feel like a giant horse’s ass.
“Getting ready to head out in the world, stake my claim, F#ck It List not even thought up yet. But in there, pinned to the wall by a bunch of hungry staff, I thought about nothing else but making sure everyone got some. ‘Did you get a biscuit?’ and ‘Here’s the ranch to dip the potatoes in.’
“When the wagon was empty, even the alcohol, I saw Gram framed in my mom’s doorway. Just beaming. She saw it. The moment I let everything, the whole huge burden of shit I’d been carrying around with me for I don’t know how long, I let it go. Dropped that fucker. I was happy. I grinned back.
“Staff flitted in and out of the station like sparrows, lighting on the biscuits, hopping over to the chicken, and then off to the birdbath to wash up and get back to their patients.
“That’s hospital etiquette rule number two, Chloe. Nurses never sit to eat. Never comment on how fast they wolf it down without swallowing. When there’s food around, they make pit crews look slow. And don’t worry if they’re in an emergency, they can save a guy’s life with one hand while eating a chicken leg with the other. Not really, but well, you get it.”
“Noted,” she says.
“Gram timed the food perfectly. The night-shift nurses started trickling in, frowning that they had to be at work instead of at home, sitting around their own dinner tables with their family. One look at all the home-cooked food, and backpacks and attitudes hit the floor.
“I watched Courtney psst at Tanya, my mom’s night nurse. They did some secret eye thing and made those bottles disappear into somebody’s backpack.”
“Like this?” Chloe makes her not-high face, and keeps nodding at something in the corner. She should never make that face again.
“Uh, something like that,” I jeer.
“While I was cleaning up, mostly putting Tupperware in the wagons, I heard them talk about meeting up for breakfast…and shots. I knew Gram would never ask, so I let them know. ‘My Gram, the one who cooks all the food, loves shots. Oh, and breakfast.’
“They smiled and rushed my Gram, pulling her out of the gloom and into the light. ‘You have to come! Sausages and shots! We’ll meet at IHOP at eight. You’ll come, won’t you?’
“Gram was embarrassed—a fuss was being made, after all—laughing and nodding, but the look of pure happiness on her face at just being asked made my heart swell with pride. I’d made that connection.”
I stop the ball and look at her.
“That’s what I’m good at Chloe. Connecting the dots.”
I turn to the screen when she doesn’t answer. Her eyes are closed.
“Hover well, Chloe,” I say before reaching to turn the TV off. Maybe I’ll do some laps, I’m too keyed up to sleep.
I hear a sleepy voice. “Did Gram go? With the nurses to the beer breakfast?”
I snort. “Thought you were asleep. Yep, she still meets up with them once a month for the monthly Soggy Pancakes meeting.”
“I’m not sleeping.” With some difficulty, she moves to sit.
“Chloe, you need a break.” And then I add. “I feel like I’m keeping you from your own life as I relive mine. Plus, it’s late. You need sleep.”
She takes a drink. “I’m interested, Mason. You should do a behind the scenes on VH1. You know how to tell a good story. You can tell me a little more. What time are we leaving to Gram’s?”
I get a warm feeling. We. I don’t want to let her go either.
“How ’bout I have my driver pick you up at noon, does that suit you?”
She grins. “Suits me fine.” As she’s tucking herself in, I try to remember what it was Gram said exactly. It will come to me. “I know why Gram wanted me to take the food to the station.”
When I don’t finish, Chloe says, “Why?” She’s so put out that I laugh.
“Because she didn’t want to get mauled. Every time I wheeled the empty cart back into the room, my shirt would be untucked, my hair a mess. Everyone gave me a pat or a hug till there was nothing left of me!”
<
br /> I hear giggles under the covers.
“I looked like I was holed up in the linen closet with a frisky nurse instead of hanging out with them while they ate free dinner.”
From under the covers, she teases me. “Did you get Courtney in the linen closet?”
I blush instantly. “I don’t kiss and tell.”
“Yes!” she yells.
“Okay, okay. I’m not done yet. And because this is Gram’s story, I have to do her justice. When I got back in the room, Gram was happy as a clam as she rinsed her containers out in the sink. ‘The way you work a crowd, Mase. You might just be the politician I’ve always hoped for. You exude charisma.’” I laugh. “Gram has a way of turning any event I’m a part of into either my political platform or an engagement dinner. The end.”
“Mason! No, it’s not. It’s not even ten yet. If you leave me now, all I’ll do is sit here, staring at my cat’s tail and think about your Gram anyway. You might as well tell me yourself.”
I grin. “There’s nothing I’d rather do than talk to you. Except eat. I’m hungry.”
Chloe
I watch as he stacks about a hundred French toast sticks on a plate in a sun shape and pops them in the microwave. “Are they good?”
He nods, pouring syrup in a bowl.
“I only ask because I’m a hell of a button-pusher. Those look like something I could definitely manage.”
He nods and takes the plate out. “Careful,” I yell, but it’s too late. He jumps back and puts his fingers in his mouth with a pained look on his face.
“Run them under the water quick. I tried to tell you the plate would be hot.”
He does as I ask, holding his fingers under the water for a second. I’m flabbergasted as I watch him cut the sticks in half and dump them in the half-filled bowl of syrup.
He catches my expression. “What? You’ve never heard of French cereal?”
I laugh so hard I have to excuse myself to pee just as he’s heating up another plateful.
Mason
I get settled on the couch as she comes back. “I’ve got another hour in me.”
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