by L. L. Ash
Now I felt like a royal asshole.
I had to bite the apology that tried slipping off my tongue as I watched her curl into herself.
The poor thing probably had enough people in her life tell her that she wasn’t good enough. It was hard dealing with things like acne and her tiny little prepubescent body as a grown woman. I didn’t need to add to it.
And besides, my poor attitude wasn’t her fault. She shouldn’t have to suffer for it. Normally, she’d be a perfect client. She was just the type of woman that I served and helped make them feel good about themselves.
Until Adele.
I’d find a different way to dislodge her.
“Sorry,” I said finally, “That was uncalled for.”
“Oh, it’s ok. I like honesty. It’s better than sitting here, wondering if you’re disappointed with me. At least I know now and the pressure is off.”
Mother of fuck. This was actually a good person.
I sighed, whining a little as I pulled on the messy strands of my hair.
How was I going to pull this off? I had to pull it off, at any expense.
“I appreciate you coming to meet me. I know you’re probably busy with other clients and all,” she started, her cheeks pinkening. “But it’s nice of you to have lunch with me. I’m not exactly sure how this works and all, but your friend said that the-uh-rates were good, but mostly that you were clean. That’s the most important thing to me, you know.”
Stupid fucking Iev…
“Well, I haven’t...”
Shit… I couldn’t say that. Giving her the idea that I could have caught something would ruin my chances with more clients in the future. And while I was with Adele right now, who knew how much longer she’d want me around? I had to think of the future too, not just my heart.
“I am known for my...cleanliness,” I amended with a grunt.
She almost laughed.
It was in that moment that I saw it. I saw the mobster’s daughter in her eyes. They sparkled with intelligence.
Even if this girl became my client, I highly doubted I would get any information out of her, anyway.
If anything, I just insulted the hell out of her with my presence and my words, which could come back and bite me in the ass if she ever told her daddy.
My phone started ringing, squealing through the room as I hurried to answer it.
Please be a distraction.
Please be a distraction.
Please be a distraction.
I looked at it and saw a private number.
Don’t let it be another client…
“I gotta take this,” I told Antonia before rudely answering the phone at the table, not waiting for her to respond.
“Is this Sergei Volkov?” a female voice asked over the phone.
It sound official.
“This is Amelia calling from Coney Island Hospital. Your Grandmother has come in with chest pains two hours ago and listed your number as her emergency contact...”
“And you’re just fucking calling now?” I growled into the phone, my heartbeat raging instantly.
Babushka? Hurt? Chest pain?
“Sir, don’t curse at me. I’m trying to help.”
“Two hours later,” I breathed heavily into the phone. “Is she stable?”
“She’s with the doctors. I don’t know her condition. You’ll have to come here and find out or a doctor will call you when they have the time.”
Fuck this.
I hung up and was moving instantly.
“Is everything ok?” Antonia asked, standing as well.
I dug into my pocket and retrieved a hundred dollar bill, flopping it onto the table.
“I’m sorry, but I have to go. My… Someone is in the hospital. Please stay, have lunch.”
With that I turned and practically jogged out of there, feeling my heart in my throat and my belly full of rocks in my guts.
How could she be sick? How could she be in the hospital?
I hailed a cab and made the drive to the hospital. No way was I waiting for the next train to arrive.
Once I sat back in the funky-smelling back seat, I pulled my phone out of my pocket and opened it with shaking hands.
On my previous calls list, she was right there.
Pressing on her name, I lifted the phone to my ear and forced myself to take a deep, shuddering breath.
“Everything ok?” Adele answered. “I thought you’d still be at lunch with your new client.”
While her words dug into me, they were nothing compared to the deep need I felt to have her with me.
“Malishka,” I breathed, and she sucked in a quick breath.
“What happened?”
I heard her moving in the background as I squeezed my eyes shut, trying to control my panic.
“Babushka is in the hospital.”
Air whooshed out of her mouth, making a gently poof into the microphone.
“Oh my God… Is she ok?”
“They wouldn’t say anything. I’m on my way right now to see her… I just wanted to let you know I’m not...I’m not sure when I’ll be back.”
“Of course! Where is she? I can head out now.”
What?
“Ad, you don’t have to...”
“I know I don’t. But I want to. Where is she?”
Thoughtlessly I gave her the name of the hospital and heard her tell me that she was leaving and going to get her car to drive there.
All I really heard though, was the sound of my heart beating in my ears while my heart both broke with sadness and swelled with love at the same time.
Having her with me would… Maybe I would make it through whatever this little hiccup was if she was at my side.
About an hour later I was rushing into the hospital, sliding to a stop at the information desk and demanding to know where my grandma was.
They took my ID, making sure I was who I said I was, then glanced through their computer screens, each talking with each other as if the world wasn’t ending, while for me, every second I waited to see if Babushka was ok, killed me just a little more.
“She’s in ICU, that’s on the second floor, room five.”
ICU? ICU?
My breath whooshed out of my lungs as I ran through the hallways, more than one person yelling at me to slow down.
I didn’t care. I needed to get to her.
The elevator was too slow so I took the stairs, stomping up as fast as I could and wandering down hall after hall until I saw a sign that pointed toward ICU.
Not even two minutes later I was in front of her room, one side completely made of glass with a door open, only a curtain separating her from me.
She was hooked into so many machines, one with a breathing tube pushing air into her lungs.
My tough, fierce grandma laid there like a frail old woman, and for the first time in my life, I felt like it was a possibility that I’d have to learn to live without her one day.
“Are you Mr. Volkov?” an older man asked, approaching while wearing blue scrubs and a surgical hat.
“Yeah, that’s me,” I nodded, turning to ask him if he had any news.
He beat me to it.
“Your her grandson, right?” he didn’t wait for me to answer. “She has had a series of mini strokes over the past six months and… well, this one was a doozy. She’s been struggling to breathe a little so we gave her oxygen but she said her chest felt heavy. So for now we gave her a sedative and have her on oxygen with a minor assist...”
“Wait, a stroke? She’s had more than one?”
He nodded, a sad look on his face.
“I’ve actually seen her in this hospital three other times for small strokes. I asked her to get help from her family, but obviously she refused to. This time the stroke triggered a heart attack, and she’s going to need some time to recover.”
My head swam with the information.
Heart attack? Stroke?
“First thing she needs to do is get rid o
f those damn cigarettes. Nobody should be smoking in this day and age. No cigarettes, no alcohol, and she needs to get on a lower fat, low cholesterol diet.”
Right. I could do that.
I could make that all happen.
Blowing out a breath, I shoved my hands through my messy hair.
Who was I kidding? There was no way in hell she would give up those things. She loved smoking, and consumed so many cigarettes a day that the house sometimes lingered with smoke. And alcohol? Nope. She’d never give up the vodka.
Maybe I could make some headway with food. I could hire someone to cook for her and clean for her. Someone to take the burden off her so she could just relax and recover.
“I’ll do my best,” I sighed. “But she’s stable? She’s going to be ok?”
“We’ve got her stable, but she’ll stay in ICU until breathing isn’t so hard for her. Once she’s on a regular oxygen mask, we’ll move her to another room that will be more comfortable. But meanwhile, she’ll be sleeping for a while. You can sit with her or go down and get a coffee or some food from the cafeteria.”
“I’ll sit with her.”
He nodded and moved away.
“Doc, will there be any permanent damage? Or...”
“We’re not entirely sure yet, but she still has feeling in both sides. So it’s honestly a best case scenario right now.”
Breathing out hard, I moved through the curtain and sat on the chair against the window wall. My stomach churned and I was breathing heavy again, trying to push back my fear at seeing her in such a fragile state.
Nothing about Babushka was fragile. Absolutely nothing.
To have survived through the communist repression of the USSR as a child, then moving to the United States during the Cold War, living in America as a hated Russian-American… Then, as a single woman after her husband died, she raised me when my parents left me high and dry, giving me everything I ever needed while working two jobs. The woman was so strong, it brought tears to my eyes.
Not that I cried.
Wiping at the salty moisture on my cheeks, I entered her room and scraped the chair against the floor, bringing it to her bedside.
Her hand was cold when I took it, but it was always cold, so it felt normal. holding it between the two of mine, I kissed the fragile back of her hand and closed my eyes, hoping and praying that she would pull through without a hitch, like the doctor was sure she would.
My phone buzzed in my pocket and I quickly pulled it out.
Adele.
Squeezing my grandmother’s hand again, I stood and left the room so I could answer the call.
“I’m here,” she said breathlessly before I even said hello.
“I’ll meet you at the door,” I breathed back, moving toward the exit.
It didn’t take long for me to get down to the main floor and speed-walk to the entrance. Adele was waiting there with streaks of makeup on her face, smeared as if she tried to wipe them away.
Just seeing the proof of tears for my grandmother clenched my stomach with love for this woman.
She flew into my arms and locked hers around my neck as she pressed her cheek against mine.
“How is she?” she breathed. “Is she alright? What happened?”
“She had a stroke,” I said quietly. “Evidently she’s had several. And it wore on her heart. She had a heart attack.”
“Oh my God...” she sighed. “How is she?”
“She’s alright,” I nodded, pulling her tighter to me. “She’ll be alright. She’s in ICU at the moment, but they expect her to be out soon and for her to make a full recovery.”
Relief flooded her and I felt her whole body loosen with the news.
I fucking love this woman.
It took everything in me to not just blurt those exact words to her with the flood of emotion I was feeling.
“Are you ok?” she asked eventually, pulling away from me enough to put her hands on my cheeks, looking deep into my eyes.
“I’m ok,” I admitted. “But I wasn’t for a while there. They wouldn’t tell me anything over the phone so I just...I expected the worst. So I'm relieved that she’ll be alright. I'll need to spend more time with her though, and make sure that she-uh...she recovers and stops some things that can put her right back into this hellhole.”
She just nodded.
“If there’s anything I can do, please just tell me. I want to help in any way I can.”
“I’ll...You just being here right now...” I choked on my emotions again. “It means everything to me, honestly.”
Her eyes teared up again as she gave a tiny little smile.
“I wanted to be here… I know how much your grandma means to you and… She’s a good woman...”
Fuck it.
Fuck this whole thing.
I waa just going to tell her that I was in love with her…
“Malishka, I...”
“CODE BLUE. CODE BLUE. AVAILABLE PERSONNEL REPORT TO ICU.”
A chill swept through me.
Babushka…
I immediately forgot my admission and ran for the stairs again.
Adele was right behind me, taking the stairs like a champ in her four inch heels until we got to the ICU, where nurses and doctors bustled around the exact room I’d left my grandmother in just a few minutes before.
“We’ve got to get it beating normal again!” I heard someone shout to the room full of people.
Short countdowns of three, accompanied by a simple ‘clear’ and sharp sound of electricity met me as it started to sink in that maybe Grandma was sicker than I realized.
Than anyone realized.
A nurse approached me as I tried going through the door and put her hands out.
“You can’t go in there,” she said in a calm voice, as if my world wasn’t crumbling.
“That’s my grandma,” I said frantically. “I have to get in there...”
“They’re doing all they can do,” she said with large, calming blue eyes.
A long, high-pitched sound echoed from inside the room and suddenly everything stilled.
“I’m calling it,” I heard someone inside say quietly. “Time of death, two twenty-one PM.”
People stood silently for a long moment, then started filtering out.
Grandma’s doctor came out with a sad, resigned look on his face, hands clasped in front of his body.
“I’m so sorry,” he started, but I didn’t hear anything else.
That was Babushka. The closest thing in the world I had to a parent, lying there… dead in the other room.
A hand clasped around my bicep, but I fell down onto my knees in shock.
Adele stumbled with me until she was kneeling next to me, arms around me and murmuring words into my ear that I didn’t hear.
Babushka took her last breath and I wasn’t even there, holding her hand.
Eventually the doctor left, being completely ignored as I stared in shock into the room where a sheet lay over my grandmother’s body, Adele rocking me in her arms.
Wetness slid down my face and dripped off my nose, splashing little dark dots on my slacks.
I was crying.
A heaving sob echoed out of my lungs and it felt foreign. Sounded foreign.
Adele just hugged me tighter, pulling me closer to her as she cried softly into my shoulder.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Adele
Serge was numb for the next few days.
I helped him work through the things in his grandmother’s home, deciding what to keep, what to donate, and what to trash.
It was harder than I realized it’d be, and watching the agony on his face was harder to see than I ever imagined it could be. My heart ached for him, bled with him and cried alongside him as we stood over her grave, surrounded by so many people in her community that had loved her.
Several men… scary looking men, approached and gave their condolences before patting Serge’s shoulder and moving on.
I watched the man I loved, sob into a pillow the night after the funeral. It was like it finally set in for him, reality that the woman who raised him was no longer around.
And to rub salt in the wound, he was the one responsible for calling his parents to tell them the news.
The parents who were never there, and abandoned him to his grandmother when he was just a little boy.
He sat in front of his laptop in my dining room while I was putting together dinner.
The video chat rang and rang for a good five minutes, Serge typing on his phone the entire time until the screen blinked to life and an attractive couple stared back at him through the screen.
They spoke Russian, so I wasn’t sure what they were saying, but judging by the looks on their faces, they weren’t happy to be talking to each other.
But then Serge’s voice lowered, and the woman on the screen began to cry.
It had been her mom who had died.
The other man, Serge’s spitting image, besides his coloring which he got from his mom, just sat there stoically, his face and eyes unaffected.
Serge kept a handle on his emotions, having cried it all out before making the call to his parents, and as he’d hoped, the call ended soon thereafter.
He just sat there, flipping his computer closed before dropping his forehead to his hands. Arms crossed on the table.
“You ok?” I asked him, moving so that I could touch his back through his soft, cotton t-shirt.
“I’m fine,” he sighed, shoving his fingers through his hair. “Mama is sad. Of course she is. She never wanted to leave us here, and now she’s going to feel like shit for never coming back to see her before she died.”
I gripped his shoulder before dipping and giving him a strong hug.
“I’m sorry, Serge. I wish I knew a way that could make it better for you.”
“You’ve been here for...” he shook his head. “I should be thanking you. This isn’t what you signed up for.”
“Didn’t we agree to this boyfriend/girlfriend thing?” I asked, feeling a needle pierce my heart at his words.
“Well yeah, but it was never supposed to be like this.”
“I want to be there for you, just like I expect you to be there for me if something happens. It’s a give and take thing.”