The hospital protocol didn’t force me to go hungry, butGram and I agreed that I would stop eating on top of everything else. Insurance refused to pay for any more hours with the pricey nuclear medicine guy, so my day was even emptier than before.
Despite all that, I was on a natural high. No sleep? No problem. No food? I could live on air as long as Ava was close by.
She didn’t have a cell phone. Given her mother, that didn’t surprise me. As we left art therapy yesterday, we agreed that at the top of every hour, we would walk to our doors and wave. Since the wires to the wall let us go as far as our bathrooms, the door was easy.
She didn’t always make it, and unlike me, she didn’t have sleep deprivation orders keeping her up around the clock. But we’d managed six waves since we parted.
We attended another art class. Ava asked me to paint her a flower, and I drew yellow daffodils because they were my mother’s favorite.
She peered at them. “They seem familiar. What are they?”
“Daffodils. My mom liked how they had fluffy snouts.”
She leaned over the image. “They’re so happy.”
“Yellow is a happy color.”
“Are they listening?”
“The flowers?”
“Yes. They look like they are listening, you know, the way they lean over.”
I laughed. “They do. I suppose we can tell the daffodils our secrets.” I leaned down to the page. “I like her.”
She laughed too and bent close to the page. “I like him, too.”
She chucked her page and started over, making her own secret-loving daffodils. We wrote the wrong nameand room number on the backs so they would be delivered to each other after they dried.
The nurses seemed to be conspiring to help us, possibly for Ava’s sake as much as mine. I kept my door propped open so I could see Ava’s room, and I’d spotted the social worker go in and out twice.
I had no idea how she was coping. She didn’t know any music, any current events, not even the President. I had to keep myself in check when we were in art class, or else I felt the need to explain everything from radio to virtual reality.
But I did show her things that mattered. When she said she’d never heard music, I pulled out my phone and split my earbuds between us while we painted. I played AC/DC and told her the crashing melodies helped when I felt life weighing on me. She agreed that it canceled out all the noise in her head.
Lots of teen girls liked Taylor Swift, so I played some. At first she didn’t like it, then she heard a love song and insisted I play it over and over again. The longing spoke to her, and she kept her head on my shoulder. I’d listen to Taylor all day if this was the result.
But when I played Lizzo, Ava went wild. She stood up and danced in front of the whole art class. She figured out the repeating chorus, but didn’t realize some of the words were completely inappropriate around kids. The teacher shut her down in a hurry. Still, she insisted I let her hear it again later as we walked back to our rooms. DeShawn even took us the long way through the labyrinth of halls to stretch out our time together.
When I sat back down on my bed after art, Gram said, “Well, isn’t this a lovely romance?” She’d stopped knittingPokémon hats and was working on a pillow shaped like a heart.
“Feeling inspired?” I asked.
“I may be old,” she said. “But I’m nothing if not sneaky.”
She turned the pillow to the side and showed off a secret pocket that could be accessed between the seams.
“I thought you could use a way of sending her a message that her mother wouldn’t suspect.”
“Gram! You’re like a love spy!”
“I have my ways.”
“I don’t think her mother will let her keep anything from me,” I said. “I’m not exactly on her good side.”
“I’m aware. I’ll be posing as a hospital volunteer. I’ll make sure the young lady knows this heart is from you.”
I gave her a big, squeezy hug. “You’re the best.”
