“More than usual?” he asked, wondering if it was passing weakness or something else.
“A little bit, I would say. But you’ll figure it out after breakfast, I’m sure.” She patted his arm and went to sit at the small table they used for breakfast.
“All right, so you know how I’ve told you Mark was in the closet for a long time?” he launched into an explanation of his worries.
By nine, they’d had breakfast, both Henrietta and Charles were up to date to what the situation was, and Francis was doing his daily checkups of them both.
He had a new notebook for their stats, and he kept a close eye on Charles’s breathing and his blood sugar, while Henrietta’s problems revolved more around her heart failure and what she could and would eat
Francis took their blood pressure and blood sugar twice a day, despite Charles grumbling about feeling like a pin cushion. It was obvious that they both felt safer in the house with him there.
“How’s your breathing?” Francis asked Charles as he listened to his heart with a stethoscope.
“Meh.” Charles gave him a little grin.
The usual, then. The regular rattle of Charles’s COPD sounded like it had done the whole time Francis had been employed by the Grahams.
“Well, you let me know if that changes,” Francis said, like he did every time.
“Yeah, yeah,” Charles replied, waving dismissively. “Go bother the missus.”
“Will do, sir.” Francis saluted him and they exchanged a grin.
Francis loved the Grahams already. They were around the same age his own parents would’ve been had they still been around.
Once the nursing portion of the morning was done, Francis did the laundry for both the Grahams and himself, and changed the sheets in both bedrooms. By lunchtime, he was a nervous mess.
Henrietta had noticed, of course.
“Francis? Come help me with this salad. I know you promised to show me how to make a tasty dressing,” she called from the kitchen when he was putting the last bit of laundry in.
Smiling at her not at all subtle ways, he went to lose himself to the task as much as he could.
* * * *
Five past eleven rolled by, then half past, then quarter to twelve, and Francis couldn’t help but to pace on the porch. The very last bits of spring clung to the yard in the form of tiny new leaves and budding spring flowers, but Francis saw none of it.
He glanced at his phone, checked that the sound was on, for the ninth time in the last half an hour.
“You do know that a watched pot never boils, right?” Charles asked, making him jerk around. He hadn’t noticed the old man had opened the front door. Before Francis could answer, Charles toddled to the railing and leaned his hip on it. “But I get it. Worrying about someone you love is never easy.”
Francis didn’t bother to try to untangle the L-word in the sentence. He wasn’t in the mindset to browse through his brain for terminology that seemed to fit.
“Where’s your walker?” he asked instead.
“Just inside the door.” Charles looked over the front yard, mostly barren as it was. “We need to hire a gardener for the backyard this year.”
“Oh?”
“Henrietta can’t do it anymore. Not that there’s much left. A few flowerbeds and the old rose bushes. The lawn, of course, but we’ve let the area shrink in the last few years, too.” Charles’s tone was wistful. “There was a treehouse in the backyard, in an old walnut. Lots of space for….” He cleared his throat. “My breathing always gets worse this time of year. We both know it, Hen and I. I think this year will be my last one.”
Francis hadn’t worked with the elderly in a long time, but he could hear the wisdom and the truth in Charles’s words.
“I’m telling you, because once I’m gone, Henrietta needs to sell the house and move closer to Moira.” Charles looked at Francis. “We already care about you. We know you’re a good man, Francis. If she needs a push when the time comes, I’m sure you can find a way to be that force for her.”
“I….” Before he could formulate the words, a cruiser rolled into view down the driveway.
Charles chuckled. “See, maybe it boils after all?” Then he went back inside.
