I should have talked to the doctor yesterday. I should have tried to reach Sydney. I go into the men’s room and bend over the sink. I turn the water on, splash it onto my face.
When I go back to the waiting room, Dr. Phil is off and a soap opera is on. I don’t know why I’m sitting here. I should be working the airport crowd. What is wrong with me?
The doors to the ER open. Sydney stands barefoot, looking around the waiting room. She looks spent, and her blouse’s shirttail is outside her skirt now. She’s carrying a bag.
I stand up. “Sydney?”
She turns and looks relieved as she comes toward me. “Hey. I figured you were still here.”
“Is she okay?”
“Yeah, she woke up. She even knew me. They’re moving her to another floor. They told me it would be a half hour or so.”
“Want a drink? Something to eat?”
“Yeah. I missed lunch.”
I realize I did, too. “We could go eat high hospital cuisine. Or something out of the vending machine.”
“The cafeteria, I guess.”
We head to the cafeteria, neither of us speaking as we get our food. We both wind up making salads at the salad bar, and we reach for the same salad dressing. “You first,” I say.
She puts some on hers, then finds a table. When I’m finished prepping mine, I take the seat beside her. We both eat quietly for a moment.
When she looks at me, she says, “I wanted to thank you.”
“For what?”
“For doing what I should have done.”
“What’s that?”
“Taking her to the doctor. I should have—”
I touch her hand, stopping her. “Don’t.”
“But she kept calling you, and you kept coming. You didn’t have to. You could have refused. And you were kind to her. You cared.”
I’m getting uncomfortable now. She’s starting to think more of me than I deserve. “Look, you don’t have the market cornered on this. I’ve had my share of regrets about what I didn’t do for someone in my life . . .” My voice trails off, and I don’t have the stomach to finish.
“She has cancer,” Sydney says. “How could I not know that? How could I not be there for her?”
“I think you have been.”
“Not when she needed me most. I’m sorry. You’re a nice guy, but really? The cab driver is the one who’s taking better care of my grandmother than I am?”
“Come on. I drove her around. I even charged her for it. Don’t give me too much credit on the whole caretaking thing.”
Her eyes glisten as she locks her gaze on mine. “It was more than that and you know it.” She takes another bite, then says, “My mother died when I was young. I adored Grammy. She was my biggest fan. But when Mom died, Grammy tried to get custody of me. My father won the court battle, but he was so angry that he decided to never let her see me again. He could be vindictive and unforgiving sometimes, which is probably why Grammy thought he wouldn’t be a good single parent. But I had memories of her.”
“So when did she come back into your life?”
“A few years ago. When I was getting close to graduating from college and had gotten into law school, I thought that my mother would have been so proud. And then I wondered if Grammy was still living, and I went looking for her.”
“She must have been thrilled.”
“She was. She had prayed for me all those years. She had never given up on seeing me again. But I haven’t held up my end. I’ve tried, but I wasn’t used to someone focusing on me the way she did. Until she got sick, I didn’t spend that much time with her. Then she started needing help . . .”
“And apparently you were there then.”
“I go by every morning and every night, trying to make sure she’s okay and taken care of.”
“Sydney, that’s a lot. That’s so much more than . . . a lot of people do.”
“Not enough. She had cancer, and I didn’t even know.”
I can’t dry her tears, but I decide to do my best to make her smile again. “I’ll never forget that morning I took her to the doctor the first time. A nurse walked by, and Callie asked someone if her own thighs were that big.”
Sydney almost chokes on her food as she laughs. “Sounds like her.”
“Another time she commented, very loudly, on the likelihood that a woman passing by was going to lose her marriage, since her husband was better looking than she was.”
“She does talk loud, doesn’t she?” She’s giggling now. “She hasn’t had much of a filter for a while.”
“Did you know she’s been making me drive her around to see men?”
“Men?”
“It’s true. At first I thought she was hitting on them, but she was visiting them for you. She’s invited each of them to spend Christmas with the two of you. She even invited me.”
Her smile fades like air going out of a balloon. “Do you think that’s because she knows she won’t be here next Christmas?”
“I’m sure of it.”
She sighs. “She thinks I can’t make it on my own.”
“I’m sure she just doesn’t want you to be alone.” I grab her tray and stack it on mine. “I’ll take this, then I’ll get out of here. If you feel like it, text me to let me know how she’s doing.”
“Okay, I will.” I start walking away, and she says, “Finn.”
I stop and turn back.
“If she gets out in time for Christmas, you should come.”
I swallow hard and nod. “I’ll think about it.”
“Okay. Thanks for helping me look for her.”
“No problem.”
I watch her walk from the room. She’s still barefoot, and she looks nothing like a lawyer, except for the skirt. I hope she doesn’t pick up some kind of foot fungus.
As I wait for LuAnn to have someone bring my cab, I look up toward the upper windows and whisper a prayer that Callie will make it home for Christmas.
CHAPTER 19
Finn
I stop by Walmart to buy some food and notice a floor model of a small tabletop Christmas tree that’s marked half off. It’s already decorated with white lights and some red, shiny balls. I buy it and carry it out, and lay it carefully on my back seat. I hope it will put a smile on Callie’s face if she’s awake when I go back.
Back at the hospital, I trek up the hall with it to Callie’s room, knock lightly, and push the door open. She’s sound asleep on the bed, an oxygen tube clipped under her nose. I look around for a place to put the tree, but the bedside table is cluttered, and there’s a plastic pitcher and a Styrofoam glass of water on the rolling tray table. Across the room is a cheap, hospital-grade chifforobe. I set the tree next to it on the floor, then realize she won’t even be able to see it unless she sits up.
I go out to the hall to look for a box or something to put it on. As I pass the nurses’ station, I lean over and get a nurse’s attention. “Could you tell me if Callie Beecher is alone, or is her granddaughter still here?”
“She’s still here,” the nurse says. “I think she’s in the prayer room. She asked me where it was. It’s down the hall to the left. There’s a cross beside the door.”
“The prayer room?” I say. “Okay.” I don’t really want to go to the prayer room, but I do want to know how Callie is. And since I’m not family, no one but Sydney can tell me. “Listen, do you have a big box lying around somewhere back there?”
“A box?” she asks.
“Yeah. For a little Christmas tree. Just to get it high enough that Miss Callie can see it.”
“No, I’m sorry. There isn’t anything.”
“Don’t all those sheets come in boxes? Or the drugs? Or those cheap little off-brand tissue boxes that cost twenty times what they cost in stores?”
“Excuse me?”
I don’t know whether she can’t understand me or if she’s being deliberately obtuse. I give up on her and head down to the prayer room. I’ll peek in, and if Sydney
isn’t in the throes of prayer, I’ll ask her about Callie’s condition. But when I crack the door open, I see Sydney sitting on the second row, leaning forward with her head bowed. She may be crying.
I step back into the hall and slip into a tiny waiting room where I can watch the prayer room door. I pick up a People magazine and flip through without reading until Sydney comes out, wiping her eyes.
It’s probably not the best time to approach her, so I wait, wondering whether she got more bad news about Callie. My heart sinks. What should I do? I’m suddenly drawn to that room. It won’t kill me to go in and pray. I cross the hall and step back into the quiet. There’s no one else here.
Something about the warm silence in the room draws me inside. I slip into the last pew and look at the front, where a life-sized nativity scene is displayed.
My mom used to take me to church before I got too smart to believe in Jesus. I quit going long before I should have. Actually, I liked sitting next to her and smelling her faint perfume and the smell of Spray Net in her hair. And I still have questions that were never answered. Like why would the creator of a vast universe make his newborn son sleep in a sheep’s feeding trough? Animals around him—did he even notice them? Or did Joseph spend all night shooing them away from the manger?
And what is a stable anyway? Probably like a horse’s stall, just a few feet wide, and Mary had to sleep in smelly hay.
When I raised questions like that as a seven-year-old kid, my mom got impatient and told me I was being disrespectful. But I really wanted to know. Eventually I stopped caring, but now I find that awestruck curiosity returning.
The young parents who barely knew each other, the tiny, naked newborn whose first look at the earth was the same one the goats had when they were born. And then there was the whole cross thing, which baffles me when I give it enough thought.
As I think about that scene today, I feel a little homesick.
A man slips in and sits a couple of rows in front of me. I stay there until he finishes his brief business with God and slips quietly out, leaving me alone and reminding me that I have business here, too.
I lean forward, elbows on my knees, and rest my face in my palms. “If you could just answer one prayer,” I whisper. “It’s not about me. Well, maybe it is a little.” I clear my throat. “If you could just help Miss Callie. She’s a funny old lady, and she deserves a nice Christmas.” I rub my eyes, surprised at the moisture there. “Guess you know even better than I do what a person deserves. Didn’t mean to suggest you didn’t. Just . . . feeling a little awkward.”
I stay in that hunched posture, lingering under the authority of quiet. Thoughts of my mother ambush me again. I look up at that scene at the front, the scene of a family who probably had no grasp of what they were getting into. I wonder if the baby had some deep knowledge even in that manger, or if he just had the normal thoughts of a newborn . . . cold, hunger, touch . . .
It doesn’t really matter what he knew then. What matters is what he knows now. I’m suddenly hit with the absurdity that I would be asking him for anything, a person like me.
“I know I’ve done things wrong,” I whisper. “If you could just help me not to get it wrong this time.”
I don’t know if he hears or cares, but somehow it feels like he does. “Thank you, sir,” I whisper after a few minutes pass.
I slip back out of the prayer room and dab at my nose. I must be allergic to something in there. Dust or hay or some chemical pew cleaner . . .
I take a deep breath, pull myself together, and drive to the closest store—a Home Depot around the corner from the hospital. I don’t find a table small enough to work in a crowded hospital room, so I grab two plastic bins with tops. I can stack them on top of each other. I go down the Christmas aisle until I find a festive tablecloth. I can toss this over the bins. Then when Callie goes home, she can use the bins for whatever stuff she’s collected during her stay—fifty-dollar Kleenex and hundred-dollar plastic bedpans, and the pitcher that ought to be made of gold for what she’ll be charged for it . . .
I hurry back to the hospital and find Sydney sitting beside Callie’s bed. I step inside. “Has she been awake?”
“Briefly,” she says. “Come in.”
I bring the bins in and stack them up next to where I left the tree. “I won’t be long. Just wanted to get this set up.”
“It was you who brought the tree?”
“Yeah, only there wasn’t any place to put it. I didn’t want to use her tray table.”
She watches as I stack the bins and cover them with the tablecloth. Then I put the small tree on it. It won’t reach a plug, so I move it a couple of feet and plug it in. The lights come on, reflecting off of the red balls.
Sydney smiles. “That’s beautiful. Thank you, Finn. She’ll love it.”
Callie opens her eyes now and looks around at us as if her mind is waking up.
“Grammy?” Sydney says. “Hi.”
Callie takes her hand. “Sweet girl,” she says.
I walk to her bed, hands in my pockets since I don’t know quite what to do with them. She turns and looks at me. She smiles and reaches for my hand. I give it to her, and she pats it, too. “Sweet boy.”
“Finn brought you a Christmas tree,” Sydney says.
Callie tries to sit up, her wizened face all smiles. “Oh, it’s beautiful! Look at that.” She looks around. “Is this the hospital?”
“Yes,” Sydney says. “Do you remember the ambulance coming?”
Callie lies back down. “I was fine. They could have just taken me home.”
“Miss Callie, why did you go out alone?” I ask.
She lifts her chin. “I wanted to go for a walk.”
I chuckle. “On your scooter?”
She doesn’t seem to see the humor in that. “Well, I’m fine now.” She tries to sit up, but Sydney makes her lie back down. “It’s not Christmas yet, is it?”
“No, Christmas Eve is tomorrow,” Sydney says.
“They’re going to let me go home, aren’t they? I’m fine. I have to be home for Christmas. I have big plans.”
“Grammy, I’m not sure if you’re going to be strong enough to go home. But don’t worry, we can celebrate here.”
“No,” she says, sitting up again. “I have to go home. I need to talk to my doctor. What’s his name?”
“Dr. Patrick,” Sydney says. “But, Grammy, you have pneumonia, and you need the IV antibiotics. It’s really important.”
Callie seems not to hear her. She turns to me now and squeezes my hand. “You have to come for Christmas. I won’t take no for an answer.”
I give her a smile, then meet Sydney’s eyes. She doesn’t want me to promise her she’ll be home, I can tell. “Miss Callie, if the doctor lets you go home for Christmas, I’ll be there. But if you’re still in the hospital, I’ll come here.”
“Wonderful!” she says, clapping her hands. She looks back at Sydney. “We’re going to have such a time, aren’t we, sweetie?”
Sydney doesn’t know what to say. “Grammy, we’ll have fun no matter what.”
“I have a big turkey and my famous sweet potato casserole and the best dressing you ever tasted . . .”
I wonder how in the world she has cooked those things in the condition she’s been in.
“And I got you a present that you’re really going to like. Not like those things I’ve bought you other years.”
“Grammy, you didn’t have to get me anything. Seriously, it doesn’t matter about gifts or food . . . as long as you’re feeling better.”
“Oh, I feel better,” Callie says. “I haven’t felt this good in years.”
In spite of my better judgment, I let myself believe that’s true.
CHAPTER 20
Finn
The phone wakes me the next morning at seven a.m., and I fumble around for it and swipe it on. “Hello?”
“Yes, is this Finn?”
“Yeah, who’s this?”
“I’
m a nurse at Missouri Baptist, and Mrs. Callie Beecher asked me to call you.”
I sit up in bed. “Miss Callie knew my number?”
“I had to call your taxi service and get it. But she was pretty insistent. She wanted me to ask you if you could drive her home when she’s discharged this morning.”
“Discharged? Is that a good idea? She’s been pretty sick.”
“The doctor wrote discharge orders after seeing her a few minutes ago. It’ll take a couple hours to get the paperwork ready and fill her prescriptions, but then she’ll be ready to go.”
I slide out of bed. “Yeah, I’ll give her a ride. But where’s her granddaughter, Sydney? I thought she was spending the night there. Did you talk to her?”
“She’s already left for work. I’m sure Mrs. Beecher will be in touch with her. She probably would have called you herself if she’d had your number.”
“Don’t assume anything about Miss Callie, okay? Sydney will need to know this.”
“I’ll take care of it,” the nurse says. “So you’ll be here when she’s discharged?”
“Yeah. Tell her I’ll come.”
When she hangs up, I look at the phone for a minute and drop back down onto the bed. So Callie conned the doctor into letting her go. Sydney isn’t going to like it.
I find her number on my contacts list and call her. It rings to voice mail, as usual.
After the beep, I say, “Yeah, Sydney? This is Finn Parish . . . cab driver? The nurse just called to ask me to drive your grandmother home when she gets discharged this morning. You know about that, right? I just . . . wanted to make sure.” I sit there a minute, trying to think of what else to say, but I finally hang up.
I head to the hospital, and as I’m getting onto the elevator, my phone rings. It’s Sydney. “Hey,” I say.
“You cannot take her home!” Her voice sounds like she’s walking fast, and she’s breathing heavily. “And what is a nurse doing calling you? I’m the next of kin. If they’re going to let her go home, I need to know, don’t you think?”
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