“Do you want me to come with you?”
Her question sent a wave of gratitude through him. That she would even offer meant more to him than he could describe right now. But accepting her offer meant having to tell her about Silas, and he wasn’t ready for that. Not yet.
“Thanks, but I’ll be okay on my own,” Jamar answered. “I may even be back tonight. According to my friend’s granddaughter, he’ll be out of the hospital soon. I just want to be there, to make sure he’s okay. I’ll let you know when I’m back.”
“Okay,” she said. “Are you driving?”
“Yeah. I can usually make it home in two and a half hours, even less than that if I push the speed limit.”
“How about younotdo that,” she said in a warning tone. “Be safe on the road. I hope everything is okay with your friend.”
“Thanks, Taylor.”
For a minute, he thought about reversing course and accepting her offer to join him. But that would create an entirely different set of questions he wasn’t up for fielding right now.
His mom had asked about Taylor the last time she called, after several of her coworkers and friends sent her links to the online chatter that had popped up over the past couple of weeks. He’d avoided the third degree by suggesting that his and Taylor’s relationship wasn’t as serious as the Internet was making it out to be. If he showed up in Katy with Taylor in tow, Jamar would have some serious explaining to do.
He climbed into the Range Rover, then spent the drive in silent prayer that Big Silas was okay.
A sad smile pulled at the corner of Jamar’s mouth. Big Silas had been like a surrogate grandfather to him. He’d treated Jamar no differently than he treated his own grandson, who he’d raised along with Silas’s sister after their mother was sent to prison for life for killing their father.
Silas was the stereotype the media loved to perpetuate.
He and his sister had spent their early years with heroin junkies for parents, who would leave their two young kids for days at a time. Once he was granted custody, Big Silas had scraped together whatever he could find to take care of his grandchildren. It hadn’t been easy for a disabled vet with emphysema and little income coming in from side jobs, but he’d made it work. It had taken Jamar far too long to realize just what his mom was doing when she sent Silas home with so many leftovers on the frequent nights when he would join them for dinner.
While most kids with after-school jobs spent their paycheck on the latest pair of Air Jordans or Madden video game, Silas used his to buy groceries and toilet paper. When they would talk about what they would do with the money from their first big NFL contract, the first thing Silas spoke about was fixing up his grandfather’s house, because he knew Big Silas would never move into a brand-new one.
After he signed with the Bears, Jamar made sure that small two-bedroom house on the outskirts of Katy was renovated before he bought his own house. He’d vowed to Silas on his deathbed that he would take care of his grandfather and sister. He even put money on Rashida Cannon’s books at the maximum security prison in Gatesville every month, because he knew Silas would want him to take care of his mother too.
Despite Taylor’s warning, Jamar made it to Katy in just over two hours. He pulled into a parking spot at the VA clinic on Westgreen and went straight for the information desk. He was directed to a room down the hall.
His heart dropped when he walked in and found the bed empty.
“God, please no.”
“Jamar? What are you doing here?”
He whipped around to find Andrea stirring coffee in a foam cup.
“Drea, how is he?Whereis he?”
“They took him to get X-rays,” she said. She set the coffee on the rolling tray that was against the wall, then turned to Jamar, enveloping him in a hug. She slapped him on the back of the head. “Why did you come all the way here? I told you he would be okay.”
“I had to see him with my own eyes,” Jamar said. He gave her a squeeze before releasing her. “What happened?”
Drea rolled her eyes as she picked up her coffee. “Well, first, he cut himself trying to open a can of tuna. And then, as he was looking in the bathroom cabinet for something to use as a bandage, he fell.” She took a sip, then set it back down. “They don’t think anything is broken, but it’s possible that he bruised a couple of ribs.”
She walked over to the bed where the red and black plaid flannel shirt Big Silas wore all the time lay crumpled against the thin pillow. She picked it up and started to fold it.
She was stalling.
“What is it?” Jamar asked.
“The doctor thinks he needs round-the-clock care,” she said, releasing a deep sigh. “His home health nurse has been a godsend, but she’s only there for a few hours a day. It’s a good thing this happenedbeforeher visit, because if it had happened after, he would have spent the entire night on the bathroom floor. I had already called to do my daily check on him before starting my shift, so I wouldn’t have even thought to call until tomorrow.” She closed her eyes and shook her head. “I think about what could have happened and it just . . . ”
“Don’t think about that,” Jamar said. “We’ll get him in a facility that can offer him round-the-clock care, or if he still doesn’t want to leave the house, we can hire a live-in nurse to look after him.”
Andrea placed the shirt on the bed and then folded her arms over her stomach. “Look, I know you’ve made this pledge to Silas, but I can’t ask you to pay for long-term care for my grandfather.”
