Last Words: A Diary of Survival

by Shari J. Ryan

  “I’ve worked hard, sir.”

  “Good for you,” I tell him. “Emma, I know I just met both of you, but I think your grandmother might be onto something here. How long have you two known each other? A year or so?”

  “A week,” Emma says, appearing embarrassed as she places her hands over her cheeks to hide the pink warmth glowing across her face.

  “Well, love isn’t measured by time, sweetheart. There’s nothing to be ashamed of because if it’s meant to be, it’s meant to be, and there’s not much you can do to change that. Life is too short and precious not to take a chance on love.”

  “Charlie, do you need to stop anywhere before we arrive at the hospital?” Jackson asks me.

  “Actually, do you mind if we stop at a pastry shop first? I’m quite hungry,” I tell him.

  “Absolutely,” Jackson says.

  He kindly pulls into a small parking lot in front of an old-fashioned bakery. “I’ll just be a moment.”

  The shop is somewhat empty, and I’m able to check out within a matter of minutes. “Did you find what you needed?” Jackson asks as I slip back into his car.

  “I did. Thank you very much,” I offer.

  It doesn’t take long before we pull into another parking lot—it looks like the doctor’s parking area. Jackson opens my door first and runs around to open Emma’s door too, though she’s already opened it by the time he gets there. “I told you that you don’t have to keep doing that,” she says quietly along with a soft love tap to his arm.

  “I want to,” he says.

  She rolls her eyes at him and laughs. “You’re a goof, but a chivalrous one.”

  She is her grandmother.

  Emma appears more nervous than I am as we take the elevator up to the eighth floor. I feel like the world is moving toward me in slow motion as we walk down the hall. I’ve been waiting so long for this day that I’m scared I may wake up from this dream again, and as usual, it won’t be real. We turn the corner, and in an instant, it feels as if time stood still. It doesn’t matter how many years have passed. It doesn’t matter that she has white hair and that there are lines on her face. She is still the most beautiful woman I have ever seen.

  “Amelia, my darling. You look as beautiful today as the last time I saw you,” I say as I walk toward her. The surprised glimmer in her eyes tells me that Emma wanted to keep my arrival a secret, which makes me happy. I’ve wondered what the look on Amelia’s face might be if we were to run into each other unexpectedly. This was the look I imagined.

  “Charlie?” she says, recognizing me immediately. Her eyes are open wide, and tears trickle down her cheeks.

  I take her hands in mine and immediately feel the undying connection between us. I remember the sensation running through my body as if it were only yesterday that I laid eyes on her for the first time.

  I haven’t cried since that day when they took me away from her, but the tears are flowing freely from my eyes now. I’m not ashamed to cry because I’ve been holding it in, waiting for this day for seventy-four years.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  Emma

  I didn’t tell Grams I found Charlie or that he would be here this morning, just in case it didn’t happen. I couldn’t bear to disappoint her. However, I also wanted to see the look on her face as he walked through the door. Mom and Annie aren’t here yet, which is a good thing because I think they might interfere with Grams and Charlie’s reunion, but I have to be here for this because Grams entrusted me with her secret.

  “Emma,” Jackson whispers into my ear. “Maybe we should give them a minute.”

  “I can’t leave,” I whisper back. Both of us are standing at the door, and I know Jackson wants to hear what happens just as much as I do.

  “All right,” he says.

  “Amelia,” Charlie says her name again as if he just wants to hear it out loud. He’s caressing her cheek and wiping her tears away. He leans forward and gives her a long hug. Grams closes her eyes, and her lips quiver as her chest rises and falls.

  I’m having a hard time breathing just watching them. The honor of watching a love story that has spanned seven decades is nothing I’ll ever forget. After a moment, Charlie turns and takes ahold of a chair by the bed, pulling it up beside Grams and takes her hand within his again.

  Charlie is gazing into Grams’s eyes, and it looks like he is struggling to find the right words to say. “I brought you something,” he tells her.

  “You brought me something?” Grams asks, trying to laugh against her tears.

  “I was worried you might be hungry,” Charlie says as he hands her the pastry bag he had been carrying.

  Grams peers inside and cups her hand over mouth. “Charlie Crane,” she says, weakly.

  “A sweet roll for my sweetheart—your favorite,” he says.

  Grams’s eyes well up again as she continues looking at the fresh pastry in the bag. She swallows hard and finally looks back up at him. “I thought you died, Charlie. I waited in Switzerland for a year, but when you didn’t come back to me, I assumed you had been killed, so I made the decision to move here. I thought if by God’s grace you were still alive and you were ever going to find me, it would be here—where our dreams were supposed to come true.”

  Charlie rests his hand on Grams’s and encloses her fingers in his. “I was sent to prison for ten years when they took me away from you that day. I was so angry that they ripped us apart, but I saw you get far enough away that I had some relief knowing you would be able to escape. When I was released, I looked everywhere for you. I wasn’t sure if you were even alive, but I didn’t stop, Amelia, not until I found you.”

  “Oh Charlie, my sweet Charlie. It took seventy-four years, but you found me, my love,” she says.

  Charlie looks down at their hands for a moment before gazing back up at her. “Amelia, I have to be honest with you about something.”

  “What is it?” Grams asks with wonder and her voice cracks with a sound of weakness.

  “I—I found you a long time ago,” Charlie says. He takes a deep breath and looks back up at her. “It didn’t take seventy-five years, Amelia. I wanted to have you back in my life so badly, but I saw you at an airport one day with your family, and I accepted the fact that you were happily married with two daughters. I wasn’t going to interfere with the life you made for yourself. I just couldn’t be that selfish.”

  I gasp, making my presence known at the doorway, and Charlie turns around as Grams stares at him with her mouth wide open. “Give us a moment, will you, sweetheart?” Charlie says to me.

  Jackson pulls me from the doorway but just around to the wall so we can still hear their conversation.

  “You’re a doctor, you know, you shouldn’t be spying on patients,” I tell him.

  “Shush, I can do what I want. This is not a violation of patient privacy. It’s about a love story.”

  “That’s my grandfather in there,” I tell Jackson. “I think he’s Mom’s dad, and she doesn’t even know. I know the truth, and she doesn’t. That’s not fair to her.”

  “Em, your grandmother may not want your mom and Annie to know, and you have to respect that. That information could destroy them.”

  “Grams wouldn’t ask me to keep a secret like that,” I tell him.

  Jackson leans forward, bringing himself down to eye level with me. “She kept a secret for seventy-four years. I wouldn’t be so sure.”

  I rest my head against the wall, exhaling despair. I can’t keep that kind of secret from Mom. I hope Grams tells them the truth.

  “Charlie, how could you? And what do you mean, you saw me at the airport?” I hear Grams speaking louder than before.

  “I was at the airport in Rhode Island one day many years ago, and I saw you from a distance. I couldn’t believe it was really you, but it was. I was so happy, so overjoyed. I headed toward you, but as I got closer, I saw you were sitting there with your family. You were smiling and laughing. You were happy, Amelia. I saw it with my
own two eyes. That’s all I wanted for you,” he explains.

  “Charlie Crane,” Grams scolds him. “That wasn’t for you to decide by yourself. You should have given me a choice. I deserved a say.” Grams’s voice was growing louder by the second, and I couldn’t tell if it was out of anger or pain, but she didn’t sound happy. I didn’t see their reunion going this way.

  “You’re right, but at the time, I thought I was doing the right thing. Please forgive me?" Charlie begged.

  A few more loud exhales bounce off the wall of her room before either speak again. “There’s something you need to know, Charlie, something you would have known had you come up to me in the airport that day,” Grams says.

  I move an inch closer to the door, needing to make sure I don’t miss any of this. “What is it?” he asks her.

  “We have a daughter,” she says, her words shaky, but firm.

  There’s deafening silence in the pause between them. “As well as a granddaughter.” Again, there is silence.

  “I have a daughter?” he musters the word as if his tongue is lodged in his throat.

  “Yes, her name is Clara.” I was right…Mom. Mom has no clue.

  “All this time, I’ve had a daughter, and she grew up without me. Dear God,” Charlie says with muffled words.

  “But who was that man I saw you with?” he asks.

  “My late husband,” she said. “Max and I became friends when I moved into my first apartment in New York. He lived in the same building, and he was always bringing food for us, and toys for the girls. He just loved spending time with us, and he was a good man. As our friendship grew, he told me he’d help me with everything, and I wouldn’t have to take care of my family alone. He asked me to marry him, and I said yes.”

  “He married you even though you had a daughter with another man? Did you love him?” Charlie asked.

  “Of course, I did. He helped me take care of my family. What’s not to love?” I roll my eyes at a comment only Grams could come out with.

  “That’s not what I’m asking you, Amelia,” Charlie says.

  Grams’s voice lowers to a whisper. “Let me finish the story, Charlie. Max was homosexual. You know it wasn’t common back then for somebody to admit to that, and nobody knew the truth except me. We had a good life together. I was married to a man I could laugh and cry with, and we took care of each other. It was easy. It was nice.”

  As I peek around the corner, Charlie looks dazed. I’m sure it’s a lot for him to take in all at once. First, he reconnects with the love of his life after decades of being apart. Then he finds out that she’s been waiting for him all these years, while he was staying away so she could be happy. What kind of cruel irony is that? “What about you, Charlie? Did you ever marry?” Grams asks.

  “No,” he says, simply. “No one ever held a flame to you. I dated a few women, but honestly, I gave up trying after a while. I was meant to be with you, and if I couldn’t have you, I was surely meant to do something different with my life. I always felt like losing you was my punishment for the wrong I did in this world.”

  There is a sudden silence between them. It’s killing me, and I can’t stand out here wondering what’s going on. I turn the corner, going back into the room even as Jackson is trying to keep me where I was.

  Instantly wishing I had just listened to him, I quickly return to the hallway and press my back up against the wall.

  “I told you to leave them alone,” Jackson says. “What’s the matter?”

  “They’re kissing,” I tell him.

  “That’s a man who knows what he wants,” Jackson says, his eyes filled with mirth. “I could see it as soon as I met him.”

  I elbow Jackson gently in his side “Stop that,” I say.

  “Hey, give him a break. He waited more than seventy years to kiss her.”

  With a deep breath and my eyes closed, I knock on Grams’s door because I’m worried about the effect on her heart if she gets too excited.

  I open my eyes after a long second, finding two sets of eyes gazing at me with pride. “Emma, my dear, you are my granddaughter,” Charlie says as he approaches me with his arm stretched out wide.

  He holds me tightly, and I return the embrace. I don’t know this man other than what I’ve read, but if he was good enough for my grandmother to love, then I want nothing more than to get to know him.

  “Apparently so. I just found this out myself last night,” I tell him.

  “Your grandmother is good at keeping secrets,” he says with a proud smile.

  “Hey, doc?” Charlie calls out.

  Jackson walks right in when called, in case they had any doubt he was standing in the hall with me.“Yes, sir?”

  “What can we do about getting this woman back on her feet?”

  Jackson seems caught off guard as he runs his fingers through his hair. “Well, there are two options. Both are risky, but one is more dangerous than the other. We can do nothing and hope that the progression of Amelia’s condition is slow. The other option is surgery, which would consist of replacing the aortic valve. It’s a risky procedure in a younger person, but even more so for Amelia because of her age.”

  “If I don’t have the surgery, I’ll be dead within a year, right?” Grams asks.

  “No, not necessarily. It could be longer, but probably not by much. I just can’t predict or make any promises.”

  “Do the surgery,” Grams blurts out without even giving it a moment’s thought.

  “Amelia, are you sure about this? Don’t you want to discuss it with your daughters first.”

  “Daughters? Wait…” Charlie says, shaking his head and looking confused.

  “I saw two little girls with you in the airport that day. Who was that other little girl? Do you have another daughter? Who is her father?” Charlie asks.

  Grams’s lips press firmly together as she takes the time to look at each of us. “You said you would be her papa, so she’s just as much your daughter as she is mine,” Grams says to Charlie.

  “Lucie?” Charlie asks.

  Grams smiles and bites down on her bottom lip. “Yes, I changed Lucie’s name to Annie so I could keep her safe, and then I kept her as my own.”

  “Oh my goodness, you raised these two precious girls without me?” Charlie asks with a profound look of sadness on his face.

  Grams looks upset for a moment, maybe thinking Charlie is angry, but his expression changes quickly, and he lifts his face to look directly into her eyes.

  “You still amaze me, Amelia. What a wonderful thing you did for your girls,” Charlie says with pride written on his face.

  Relief spills through Grams’s eyes as she continues, “Annie doesn’t technically belong to either of us,” Grams says, and I immediately understand why it’s so important for the truth to remain hidden from Mom and Annie. It would hurt them so much. Looking at it from the outside, I find immediate understanding of what love is.

  Love is keeping someone safe, taking a bullet for them, and letting them live in happiness. I get it now.

  “You’re right, Amelia, she may not belong to us by blood, but she belongs to us by love. We loved her then, and I love her now just like you do.”

  “You haven’t changed a bit, Charlie Crane.”

  Charlie leans forward and shamelessly kisses Grams again, without a care in the world, even though we’re standing here watching.

  “So, about the surgery,” Grams says as she wipes away her tears again. “How quickly can I start the rest of my life?”

  “Amelia, are you sure about this?” Jackson asks.

  “Jackson, come here,” Grams says, waving him over.

  He walks over to her, and she takes his hand in hers.

  “I’ve already handed you a part of my heart,” she says, pointing at me. “Now fix the other part. You’re the best cardiologist in this hospital, aren’t you?”

  “Well, I—”

  “Quit being so humble,” Grams says. “Fix my damn heart, Dr. Beck.
I need more time.”

  “As long as you are aware of the risks involved. I understand where you’re coming from—I’ll perform the surgery, and you know I’ll do my very best,” Jackson says. “I’ll have the pre-op tests done this afternoon, and we’ll schedule you for surgery tomorrow morning.”

  “On a Saturday?” she asks.

  “For you, I’ll make it happen,” he tells her. “I know better than to stand in your way on this.”

  “Okay, just remember, you promised to marry Emma before I die, so keep that in mind tomorrow. You don’t want to go breaking promises to an old lady now, do you?”

  “No, ma’am,” Jackson responds. I can see how nervous he is, and yet, I believe I may be more nervous, but hopeful at the same time. This could give Grams a second chance at life, and while she may be ninety-two, her will to live is stronger than her weakened heart.

  “I have some scheduling to do,” Jackson says. “I’ll be back in a bit to check on you.” Jackson turns to shake Charlie’s hand. “Again, it was a pleasure to meet you, Mr. Crane.”

  “Well, he’s a keeper,” Charlie says to Grams as Jackson leaves the room.

  “Exactly what I told Miss Emma over here,” Grams says with a raised brow.

  “Listen to your grandma; she knows what she’s talking about,” Charlie says. I guess he’s got the right to say what he wants. After all, he is my grandpa, and they sure do look good together.

  “When do I get to meet my daughters?” Charlie asks Grams.

  Grams fidgets with a thread on the bed sheet, appearing lost in thought for a moment.

  “Charlie, the girls believe that their father passed away ten years ago. They loved him dearly and mourned the loss of him for a long time after his passing.”

  “You didn’t want to hurt them,” Charlie says, understanding more than I would ever be able to. “You were right to keep this secret, and it would be unfair to disrupt their lives now.”

  “I’m afraid they would never forgive me,” Grams says to Charlie. Charlie and Grams both look over at me. “Emma, this is a big secret. It’s a lot to ask of you to keep it for me. Is it going to be too much for you? Because I would understand if it is.”