And apparently, so am I. Although I have to say, it doesn’t seem to have much to recommend it.
2
hope
Do you know what day it is, Mrs. McCauley?” Dr. Warren leaned over Gran and shined a penlight in her eyes.
Gran scowled. “Of course I do.”
I wasn’t so sure. Gran had seemed to recognize me when she first opened her eyes, but then she’d closed them again, and when she reopened them a moment later, she called me by my mother’s name. I’d hated to correct her, because her eyes had held such a blue sky full of happy that I didn’t want to disappoint her.
Eddie had done it for me. “It’s Hope, Mom. Becky is gone, remember?”
“Gone where?”
Uh-oh. Uncle Eddie and I had exchanged a glance. Fortunately, that was the moment Dr. Warren—an angular, hawk-nosed man in a heavily starched white coat—had stepped into the room. I’d relinquished my bedside seat and stood with Eddie and Ralph as the doctor had asked Gran to move her arms and legs, to turn her head, to stick out her tongue, and to perform half a dozen other motor tasks. She’d passed each test with flying colors. Dr. Warren moved the light to Gran’s left eye. “So what day is it?”
“Friday,” Gran said.
The doctor moved the light to her right eye, then switched it off. “Actually, it’s Sunday, Mrs. McCauley.”
“Oops!” Gran gave a sheepish grin. “Guess I had one of those lost weekends I’ve always heard about.”
I laughed along with everyone else, but I was worried. Gran’s memory had always been encyclopedic. Facts, dates, numbers—she was more reliable than Wikipedia.
“Glad to see you still have your sense of humor,” Eddie said.
Gran squinted up at him. “Charlie?”
Eddie’s face fell. “No, Mom. It’s Eddie.”
“Oh, yes, yes, of course. Eddie, dear. And...” She frowned at Ralph.
“Ralph,” the lanky man supplied, putting his hand on Eddie’s shoulder. “Eddie’s partner.”
“Yes, yes, so nice to see you. When did you two get in from Chicago?”
“We live in San Francisco, Mom. Becky and Hope lived in Chicago.”
“Oh right.” Her blue-veined hand went to her forehead. “Is Becky here?”
Eddie and I exchanged another look. “She died, Mom. Three years ago. Her car crashed, remember?”
“Oh no.” Gran’s hand drifted down her mouth. Tears formed in the corners of her eyes. “Oh, dear. I... I’d forgotten.”
My fingers tightened on the steel railing. In the first few weeks after Mom’s death, sometimes I’d awaken and have a pain-free moment. Then the memory would hit, and my heart would squeeze like a wrung-out dishrag, and I’d feel all tight and twisted and knotted up. I hoped Gran wasn’t going through that hard, searing, brand-new pain all over again.
“Loss of memory is typical of a head injury,” Dr. Warren said, adjusting his wire-rim glasses on his hooked nose. He was looking at Gran, but I’m pretty sure he was really speaking to Eddie and me. “So is emotional lability and confusion.”
Gran’s gaze landed on me. The lack of recognition in her eyes alarmed me.
“I’m Hope,” I volunteered. “Your granddaughter.”
“Oh, yes, yes, of course. Hope, honey! It’s so good to see you. My mind is all clouded up right now—you’ll have to excuse me. How long have you been here?”
“Since early this morning.” The clock on the wall said it was nearly four o’clock in the afternoon, which meant I’d been there for about twelve hours. “I came as soon as I heard.”
I’d gotten the call from Gran’s next-door neighbor, Mrs. Ivy, at eight thirty Saturday night. I’d been in my sublet apartment in Chicago, pulling on my pajama bottoms—the ones optimistically printed with sheep jumping over fences—and surfing the on-demand cable TV menu for a movie I could stand to watch.
