Page 142 of Someone Like Me
Aunt Josie’s brows lift high, making lines snake across her forehead. “Oh, she’s been talking,” she says meaningfully. “Though not to anyone in here.”
Evie may say it’s normal, but all that stuff about the veil lifting between worlds just gives me the heebie-jeebies. I smooth down the hair on the back of my neck and make myself sit in the empty chair next to Josie.
“Did the doctor come by?”
My aunt nods and lets out a sigh, and her face suddenly looks older. “They’d like to talk to us about the option of moving her into a hospice room.”
“What does that mean?” Logically, I know what it means. I’m still not ready for it.
“It means,” Josie closes the book on her lap and turns toward me, “they’ll move her into a private room, and make her as comfortable as they can, but they won’t be giving her anything to make her well. No more antibiotics. No more steroids.”
The first year I was in Angola, another piece of fresh meat thought he had something to prove. Being the newest white guy, I was easy to spot. He waited for me outside the mess hall, just a few feet out of sight of one of the guards. Before I knew it, his knee was in my middle, and my breath was gone. Just gone. With no sign of returning.
That’s what this feels like.
The guy got away with it for all of twelve hours. The next morning, I tripped him on his way out of the shower and got one good kick with my steel-toed boot before a couple of trustees grabbed me by the collar and marched me out before the guards could come.
But today, there’s no one to lay in wait for. No one against whom I can deliver revenge.
I look over at Grandma and let out a breath. Hell, she looks so weak and wasted away, I can’t blame her for not fighting. If a nice room and a painless end is the best we can offer her, I want her to have it.
I look back at Aunt Josie. “Who needs to be the one to decide?”
She rolls her eyes. “Mom put Nelson in charge of her medical power of attorney years ago. She said us girls were too sentimental to be expected to make a decision like that.” She says this like it’s a joke, but I think I can see the relief in her eyes that this choice isn’t one that’ll land squarely on her shoulders.
I sure as hell wouldn’t want it.
“Does Uncle Nelson know what the doctor said?”
Josie nods. “Nelson, Lottie, and I are going to meet with the him tomorrow morning.” She tilts her head to the side and gives me a wistful smile. “And then we’ll probably meet with the hospice staff.”
I swallow against the sudden stone in my throat and nod.
As if chiming in on the conversation, Grandma Quincy takes a long, ragged inhale. The sound of it, so hollow and whistling, is unearthly. As though over my grandmother, life and death are clasping hands, sealing a bargain.
Grandma exhales, and I can’t shake the sense that her breaths are numbered. But so are mine. So are everyone’s. I close my eyes and try to calm the fuck down.
Evie.
I reach for her in my mind. I want her with me, pressed against me. Not just because being with her quiets me, though it does. Like nothing else, she conquers the guilt. The fear. The meaninglessness.
But more than that, I want her with me right now because if my breaths and days are numbered, I don’t want to waste any more time. I’ve lost enough already.
I want her and I need her.
It’s at this moment, Grandma Quincy smiles wide, her eyes still closed. “I know,” she says.
I glance over at Aunt Josie who just shrugs.
“He’ll be alright,” she says, still smiling. “It’s all taken care of.”
I suppress a shudder because I’m pretty sure she’s not talking to me or Josie. We watch her smile vanishes, and an angry frown takes its place.
“She better not!”
Beside me, Aunt Josie snickers. “Who you talking to, Mama?” When Grandma doesn’t respond, Josie raises her voice and asks again.
Grandma flinches against the noise and looks almost annoyed, although her eyes remain shut. “You’re father, of course!” she snaps.
