8:17.
My gut drops. Not only have I slept in by more than an hour, it’s going to be a mad dash to make it to the nine o’clock a.m. meeting. Dry shampoo, extra deodorant, and sadly no time to stop for a muffin and double shot of espresso breakfast on my way in.
The phone in my hand continues to chime and vibrate and generally explode with notifications at a rate my eyeballs struggle to keep up with. I close my eyes and give them a gentle rub before trying the whole waking up thing again.
I blink, blink, blink, and tap over to my text messages, expecting several from Simone and perhaps a passive aggressive message from the understandably surly reporter.
I frown at how many are from Wanda, plus a couple from Rita and several in the group text with the Cronies. Through the whirlwind of alerts, my phone vibrates with even more, informing me I have new voicemails as well.
Worries and worst-case scenarios race through my mind, but I slow down my breaths and my pulse, as there’s no reason to start planning for every splintered pathway before going on an information seeking mission. I figure the voicemails will clue me in on what the hell’s going on, so I tap Wanda’s message and hit play.
A sinking foreboding pins me where I sit, cold sweat breaking out at the frantic quiver in Wanda’s voice. Blood pumps faster through my veins and into my extremities, preparing me for a fight-or-flight I’ll never survive if anything’s happened to my grandma.
“Honey, I need you to call me back as soon as you get this message,” Wanda says, and my face and palms go clammy. “It’s Helen…”
I can’t quite hear the rest through Wanda’s tears and the roaring in my head, nor can I stop the trembling of my hands. A few words and phrases stand out, though.
At the hospital.
Stroke.
Called 9-1-1.
Took her in an ambulance.
Get here as soon as you can.
“Shit, shit, shit,” I say when I see the message is from last night, that first call she placed to me, and I wasn’t there.
I’m yanking off yesterday’s clothes, frustrated by the tiniest snags of my zipper and every stupid button that requires undoing. Between tugs and swear words, I tap the phone icon beneath Wanda’s name and her picture, chanting for her to “Pick up, pick up, pick up.”
But the second she does, not a single word will come out of my mouth, not about what happened or my grandma’s status.I should’ve been there.Same way she’s always been there for me.
Wanda seems to understand, launching into a recap and everything the hospital staff’s told her about the intracerebral hemorrhage, which meant bleeding directly into the brain tissue. They discussed taking her into surgery in the wee hours of the morning, but the imaging that came back showed it was deep in the brain, an area too dangerous to operate on.
I’ve already switched to speakerphone so I can Google and terrify myself with the images. Grandma Helen’s age ups the risk factors significantly, including experiencing neurological deficits she’ll never recover from, and the more I read, the bigger the lump in my throat.
“They’ve worked to stabilize her vitals, but the prognosis is grim. With her age and the location of the bleeding… Around forty percent make it through the forty-eight-hour window, but the thirty-day mortality rate shoots up to seventy.” Wanda sniffs, her calm, everything’ll-work-out demeanor cracking, and it breaks me, too.
Tears burn my eyes and blur my vision, and I don’t even bother to try to stop them. Grandma Helen’s my person, but she’s Wanda’s as well. Their relationship is entirely responsible for my belief that soulmates come in various forms, from best friends to fur babies to lovers, life companions and beyond.
“But what if…?” I open a new tab on my web browser, fraught with the desire to know and not know what recovery looks like. Information typically helps me feel in control, but I just hover my finger for a scared eternity over the generated links, sharing this heavy moment with Wanda from the wrong damn coast.
Emotion clots my throat, not leaving enough room for the rest of my question, but it doesn’t matter—I don’t think I could speak the words anyway.
I just can’t.
Can’t lose her, can’t forgive myself for not calling her sooner or responding to Wanda’s attempts to reach me last night. I can’t imagine a world without my grandma in it, and now I’m outright sobbing, tormented by the idea of going without her signature combo of affection and snark. “Wanda, I don’t know how to live in a world without her.”
“I know, hon,” Wanda says, her voice so feeble and far away. “Me either.”
My phone beeps, another number scrolling across the screen, and there’s Simone.
Probably wondering why it’s almost eight thirty, and I’m nowhere to be found.
As soon as the vibrating stops, she dials me again. Persistent as ever, and for the first time since I began working for her—possibly for the first timeever—I just don’t fucking care.
There’s only one way I’m going to end this day, and my mind races for a way to get to my grandma faster. I already know driving is out. Not only would tears compromise my vision, I’ve already lost twelve hours of what might be a forty-eight-hour window.
