Aging with Gracie

by Heather Hunt

  “I don’t think so, Grace,” Agatha North finally spoke.

  It was then that Grace noticed that the other woman had a nasty-looking knife in her right hand.

  “You ruined everything for us, and now you’re going to pay.”

  As Nurse North advanced toward them, Grace moved away from Theodore in an effort to protect him from the woman’s crazed actions.

  Think, she told herself. What did Kira say about self-defense?

  With a burst of energy, Grace darted to the right, barely escaping the downward arc of the blade. Back and forth, she parried until she was breathing hard, sucking in air to replenish her tired muscles with oxygen. Her lungs filled with the irritating smoke with every breath she took, but finally, she was able to see that Agatha was tiring from her efforts, as well. The woman’s movements were getting slower, her aim more inaccurate with every swipe of the blade.

  Just when Grace thought that she had given up, she glanced to the left and found Richard Watson moving toward Theodore with a murderous look in his eyes.

  As fast as she could, she moved to his side. She was a second too late, though. Instead of stopping Richard with a swift kick to the face as she had planned, she ended up shouldering the brunt of his advance and found herself propelled into the corner of a wall.

  Her head cracked with the impact, and she collapsed onto the floor. A moment later, Grace felt something heavy drop across her torso.

  I’m dying in an old folks’ home, and I’m barely twenty-three years old.

  The words were on a reel, spinning over and over in her mind.

  How can this be happening to me? Please, Lord, help us.

  I am here, Grace.

  The words rang clear through the fog of her mind.

  “It’s okay, Marianne,” another voice interrupted. “I’m here with you, my beautiful girl. The bad people are gone now.”

  Grace tried to move, but it was impossible. The blow to her head must have done some serious damage. She couldn’t even lift her head. As the heat and smoke surrounded them, she knew that it was too late. There was no way that Theodore would get out now. She had failed him. Failed Marianne.

  They were going to die. The thought of burning up with the building was horrifying, but Grace could barely move. And of course, Theodore seemed to have no idea what was going on. He was content to just sit there with “his Marianne.”

  “Please Theo,” she whispered though the harsh smoke. She tried to brace herself against the wall, but her head was spinning so fast that all she managed to do was make herself nauseated. “Go outside. Go get Ellie,” she pleaded.

  It was to no avail, however. He simply sat by her side and caressed the hair away from her face. She felt the tears forming in her eyes and knew that they were caused by much more than the smoke. She was dying. Theo was dying. Her dream was dying.

  She breathed deeply and prayed that the smoke would overcome her before the fire reached her section of the building.

  I am here. Everything will be okay. The comforting voice echoed through her mind again.

  “I’m here. Everything will be okay, my dear,” she heard Theo’s assurance.

  “I’m here, Grace. Everything will be okay.”

  A new voice? Grace was barely conscious now, but the voice sounded so much like Jack’s that she struggled to open her eyes.

  “Don’t leave me, Grace,” the voice said. “Don’t leave me. I love you. Don’t leave me.”

  Grace closed her eyes and surrendered to the pain.

  Chapter Thirteen

  The Visit

  “I’m here,” the voice drifted through the smoky haze that was Grace’s mind. “Everything will be okay.”

  Theodore? Jack?

  No. It was neither of them. The voice didn’t fit. Grace recognized it, though. She’d heard it for years.

  Daddy.

  She opened her eyes to find her father sitting in a chair with his elbows on his knees and his head bowed. The chair was pulled close to the bed where she was lying. In Grace’s opinion, it looked like a hard place to rest. The lines were all wrong, and the upholstery pattern was already giving her a raging headache.

  She must have made a sound because her father looked up and leaned forward to take her hand.

  “Oh, thank you, Jesus!” He squeezed her hand, his eyes darting across her face with the joy of someone who had witnessed a miracle.

  “Daddy?”

  “You’re finally awake, Sugar Plum! You’ve had us worried.”

  “What happened?” Her voice was almost unrecognizable. It was deep and raspy, and her throat hurt worse than it had with the case of strep throat she’d had in college.

  “I was starting to wonder if my little girl was going to sleep the New Year away.”

  “New Year?”

  “Not yet,” he shook his head. “But you were cutting it pretty close. Today’s the twenty-ninth.”

  Grace tried to sit up, but he shook his head. “I need to get your nurse, Sugar Plum. Doctor’s orders.”

  “Where am I?” Grace asked as he walked toward the door.

  Her father had already pressed a button, but he seemed too anxious for the nurse to wait any longer. He opened the door and began to peer down the hallway.

  “Atlanta Medical. They even brought you down here in a helicopter.” He smiled, but Grace could tell that he was only doing it to calm her fears. There were tears in his eyes.

  The sight shocked Grace. She had never seen her father cry, and it was sobering.

  He paused as if to wait for her permission to leave.

  “Go on and get the nurse,” she managed to tell him as she reached to adjust the oxygen tubing in her nose. “You can explain everything when you get back.”

  Five minutes later, Grace found herself being questioned and examined by a nurse whose name badge identified her as “Judy RN”. She was all business and didn’t smile much. Her uniform was neon pink, and although Grace thought it looked great with the woman’s hair color, it was too harsh for Grace to focus on for more than a few seconds.

  She tried to close her eyes, but the nurse refused to let her. Instead, she pried Grace’s eyelids open one at a time and flashed a light toward her pupils. Whatever her eyes did in response, it earned a smile from “Judy RN”.

  Grace sighed more from the chance to finally close her eyes than from the relief that her eyes had reacted the way they were supposed to react.

  “Everything checks out,” the nurse announced. “I’ll give the neurologist a call. He’ll probably keep you for another day or two, but I don’t see any indication that you’ll have to stay beyond that.” She draped her stethoscope around her neck and walked toward the sink.

  “Excuse me,” Grace croaked.

  “Yes, Miss Woodhouse?”

  “Uh, can you tell me what happened?”

  Although her joints were aching and her head was busting, Grace moved to sit up in bed. Her body would have preferred to drift back into oblivion, but her mind was too curious about her predicament to miss the opportunity with the nurse.

  “I mean, I remember the fire, and the fight with Mr. Watson, but after that, everything is a blank.”

  “I don’t know all of the details of what happened. I can only comment on your injuries.” The nurse tucked her hands into the pockets of her jacket. “You have an open head injury. Twenty staples.” She raised her brows as if the fact was impressive.

  Good for me, Grace thought. But that doesn’t tell me anything.

  She reached up to the sore spot above her left ear and found a bandage taped neatly in place. It seemed that someone had shaved part of her head during the ordeal, as well.

  “What else,” Grace asked. “Besides my new hairdo?” She tried for humor but found that it hurt too much to laugh.

  “A decent case of smoke inhalation. Your ABG was pretty bad. Even with the head injury and loss of consciousness, that alone would have kept you in Intensive Care. You didn’t move out of there to this
step-down unit until yesterday.”

  “What is ABG?”

  “Arterial Blood Gas,” she explained. “The smoke caused you to inhale carbon monoxide instead of oxygen. Many times it is fatal. An ABG lets us know how your breathing is affecting your blood levels of things like oxygen and carbon dioxide. We also do a test called a Carboxyhemoglobin─”

  “Thanks, but that’s enough for now.” Grace knew that she’d been rude to interrupt the nurse, but she could only take so much of the medical jargon. It certainly wasn’t helping her headache. “I’m sorry to be rude, but I probably won’t remember what you’re telling me anyway. Plus, I’ve got a killer headache.”

  “You’ve been out of it, dear,” the nurse informed her. “Your CT scan and MRI were clear, but you wouldn’t regain consciousness. You had everyone pretty concerned. Not to mention all of those visitors of yours.”

  “Visitors?”

  “I’ll let your Daddy back in, then I’ll run get you something for that headache.”

  “Okay,” Grace smiled. “And thank you, Judy.”

  “Don’t mention it.” She smiled in return and walked silently toward the door.

  The door squeaked open, and Grace’s father walked back in. He was smiling now. Grace assumed that “Judy RN” had given him the good news.

  “Sugar Plum, is there anything I can get for you? Water? Jell-O?”

  “Tell me what you know about the residents, Daddy? Is everyone okay? Is Theodore okay?” Since waking up and getting her wits about her, Grace had been crazy with worry.

  “Everyone is fine,” he assured her.

  “Tell me the truth.”

  “That’s the God’s honest truth, Sugar Plum.” He took her hand. “Not that I’m happy about you almost killing yourself making sure everyone was safe.”

  Grace looked at him for a moment and decided that he was telling her the truth. She knew in her heart that she hadn’t saved anyone, though. God had worked the miracle at Mansfield Park. He had been there all along.

  Grace tried to deal with the reality of the situation, but she was finally overwhelmed with emotion. Her father looked to be in a similar state.

  Parents were like that, she supposed. They worried themselves sick about their children...especially those who were crazy enough to run into burning buildings. Knowing that the residents were okay, though, cemented it in her mind that she would have done the same thing again. She would have done almost anything to take care of those residents.

  They were her residents…her family.

  The thought was humbling because Grace knew for certain that they would have done the same thing for her...that they had taken care of her during that dark hour. Not only had Theo, in his own perfect way, watched over her during the fire, but the rest of the residents had cared for her and influenced her over the past months in ways that far exceeded anything that she had done for them.

  “Where is Mother?” Grace asked. “Is she here?”

  Grace knew that her mother would drive her crazy fussing over things, but she needed her. Even though Evelyn had a tendency to try and manage her daughter’s life, Grace loved her senseless.

  “She walked down to the cafeteria with two of those women from Mansfield Park.”

  “What women?”

  “Marianne and Elinor? Does that sound right?”

  “Are you kidding me?” Grace started to shake her head in disbelief, but the action made the place above her ear throb like the dickens.

  “They’re staying with one of Marianne’s sons over on Collier.”

  “So Theodore is really okay?”

  “They even brought him along from what I hear. The son’s staying home with him while Marianne visits here.”

  “Those women will never cease to amaze me,” she told him. “Do you know how old they are?”

  “Grace, surely you’ve learned by now that age has little to do with living an active life. Some people just know how it should be done.”

  He watched her in silence then. It was as if he seemed to think that somehow, she would lapse back into the coma that had almost taken her from all of them.

  “Mind if I step out to grab a cup of coffee? I can let your Mama know you’re awake.” He stood and performed a half-hearted stretch.

  “Sure, Daddy.” She held out her hand. “Thank you for being here.”

  “You’re welcome, Sugar Plum.” He gave her knuckles a quick kiss. “You know, there’s a fellow who’s been waiting to see you since they brought you here. Almost a week now.”

  “Jack.”

  Just the thought of him sent a pain through Grace’s heart. She closed her eyes and tried to rid her mind of the image of the kiss she had witnessed.

  “You wanna’ see him?”

  She shrugged. She really wasn’t sure what she wanted when it came to Jack. Of course she wanted to be with him, but she had already resigned herself to the fact that he would be better off with Susan.

  She had enough to deal with trying to absorb everything that had happened over the past week. Grace wasn’t sure she could handle the confrontation, but she also knew that a part of her had to see him. After all, she still loved him.

  “I guess you can send him in.”

  She struggled to sit back up in bed. For a moment, she wished for a mirror, but she decided against asking for one. Instinctively, she knew what he would see. A pale, ghostlike form. A frizzy, half-bald head. Chapped lips. Dark circles under her eyes. She figured that it didn’t matter how she looked, anyway. He could take it or leave it.

  Less than a minute after her father left the room, Jack walked in. Grace was shocked at how he looked. And she had been worried about her own appearance! For crying out loud! Jack looked awful!

  His pale blue eyes were the only sign of life in his beautiful face. He had several days’ growth of a coal-black beard, and his hair was damp, as if he’d recently taken a shower and rushed back to the hospital. He was wearing a faded sweatshirt that had seen better days, a pair of worn jeans, and his running shoes.

  “Gracie.” His voice was hoarse, much like hers.

  “Hi, Jack,” she whispered.

  The sight of him hurt her. As much as she still loved him, she was still bombarded with memories. She found herself at a loss for words.

  “Princess, I’m so sorry that this happened to you.” For a second, he reached out his hand as if he wanted to touch her. Instead, he sat on the edge of her bed with his knee bent and clasped his hands in front of him. “I should have been there.”

  “It’s not your fault, Jack,” she told him.

  “If I’d only...”

  “Let’s not talk about ifs, okay?” Although her voice was gentle, the firm look she sent his way made her point. “It won’t change anything. The only people to blame for this are Richard Watson and Agatha North.”

  “They’re in jail, you know.”

  “I hadn’t heard,” she said. “It’s been kind of a hectic ten minutes since I woke up.”

  “I’m sorry, Gracie.”

  “I remember hearing your voice, Jack,” she told him with tears in her eyes. “I know that you were the one who got me out of the fire.”

  “But if I’d only gotten there sooner.” He reached a hand toward her hair, but then stopped when he realized that it might cause her more pain.

  “They shaved my head,” she said matter-of-factly. “What do you think?”

  “I’ve already seen it, Gracie,” he told her. “It doesn’t matter about your hair, Gracie. I wouldn’t care if you were bald.”

  “My mother probably has a different opinion.”

  “I think you’re wrong,” he told her. “She’s been very worried. Like the rest of us, she’s hardly left your side.”

  “Really?”

  “Really,” he nodded. “All of us have been here since shortly after you arrived. We’ve been waiting for you to give us some sign that you were coming back to us.”

  “Well, I guess I’m tougher than all of yo
u thought,” she smiled. “Of course, not tough enough that I still didn’t need you to save the damsel in distress one last time, right?”

  “I would do it again, Gracie.” He placed his hand on her knee as if he needed some contact, some bond, with her.

  “I suppose Susan isn’t as fond of your Knight-in-Shining-Armor routine as I am,” Grace guessed. “I’ve come to depend on it, you know.”

  “Susan is nothing to me, Gracie.” Jack reached for her hand but Grace moved it away. “We dated for a few months a couple of years ago, but I haven’t seen her since until the day of the party. You’re the woman I love.”

  She closed her eyes on the feelings his words evoked. She couldn’t do this right now. She knew that she and Jack needed to talk about what had happened, but it was too soon. It hurt too much.

  “Please, Gracie, let me tell you that I’m sorry,” his voice sank, and the sound of it pricked her heart. “I know that you were hurt when Susan showed up, but I tried to explain. We’re not─”

  “─Don’t, Jack.”

  “But...”

  “Jack, I’m sure that you know what my feelings are for you,’ Grace said through her tears. She put her hand on his rough cheek. “I was going to tell you that night. I’m in love with you. Do you hear me? I love you.”

  “I love you too,” he began, but she raised her hand to cut him off.

  “And I still love you, Jack,” she explained, “But seeing you with Susan hurt so badly. It broke my heart. I just can’t deal with all of that right now. It’s too overwhelming for me.”

  “But we will deal with it, Gracie?” He looked deep into her eyes and saw the answer through her tears. “You will give me a chance to explain…to win you back?”

  Jack reached down and rubbed his thumb along her lower lip. Before she had time to voice a protest, he pulled a tube of lip balm from his pocket and dabbed it against her lips.