“I broke up with Mike,” I tell them, trying to shift their focus alittle.
The sniffles stop for the moment, and they both look directly at me. “For good this time?” Annieasks.
“He admitted to cheating on me. It's over. Nice timing,huh?”
Annie takes the seat on the other side of me, and both she and mom hug me, which only makes it harder to stop my leaky faucet of tears. With a sharp inhale, I grit my teeth and look up to the ceiling, reminding myself again that Grams will not want to see us crying. I need to keep it together, especially with the two of them being as upset as they are. Throughout my life, Grams has always told me that “Crying doesn't solve anything, and for those people who cause you pain, the tears give them a type of fulfillment and satisfaction they don’t deserve. Tears are just wastedemotion.”
I try to remember her words each time I'm upset, but I’m not as stoic as she is—I'm not programmed well enough to control my emotions. They work on their own accord, I suppose. Mom and Annie are the sameway.
The waiting room door opens again, and this time it's the nurse who had no information for me earlier. She presses her back against the door, holding it open. All the while, she's staring down at a file, paying us no attention, which bothers me as much as her emotionless facade she showcased earlier. Why wear hearts and rainbows all over your pink scrub shirt if it isn't going to represent your attitude? “Amelia is back in her room now if you'd like to go visit with her,” shesays.
I know I shouldn’t be so hard on this nurse. She’s just doing her job, and I don’t envy her. It takes a special type of person to do what she does, and I definitely don’t have it in me. It must harden them after a while—keeping their emotions in tow all thetime.
We head down the hall, back into Grams’s room, and I’m scared to see what she looks like now. We find her with her eyes half closed and her skin paler than the white sheets covering her. The amount of wires and machines she is hooked up to doesn't look much different from the last time I saw her, though. I rush to her side and drop my bag down against the bed. “Grams, can you hearus?”
A groan gurgles in her throat, so I place a kiss on her cheek and kneel beside her, carefully encasing her hands withinmine.
Mom and Annie take her other side and do the same. “She’s probably still groggy from the anesthesia,” I say,quietly.
“I want—Charlie,” Grams mumbles. Her words are garbled, and it’s hard to understand what she’s saying, but I heard Charlie’s name...and it makes sensenow.
“Mom, who is Charlie?” Annieasks.
A frail smile struggles against the corners of Grams’s wrinkled lips. “He was spec-tac-ula—.”
Annie and Mom look at each other, questioning who Grams is talking about, and the guilt hits me since I know, but I’m unable to tell them the truth per her request. She asked me to keep this book to myself, so there must be a reason Grams doesn’t want them to know what’sinside.
“Do you know of any Charlie?” Mom asksme.
“No, no, I don't know who Charlie is. I've never heard of him before. It'sstrange.”
Grams tries to laugh, but it comes out sounding like phlegm catching in her throat. I squeeze her hand to let her know I understand her, but I think she's confused since she asked me not to share anything about her diary with Mom or Annie, and yet, she’s calling for Charlieagain.
“How's she doing?” Jackson's voice startles me as he enters her room. “Looks like she’s coming out of it, huh?” I don’t know how to answer since this is all new to me. Instead, I stand up and move out of the way so Jackson can take a look. “Amelia, how are you feeling?” he asksher.
Grams struggles to lift her hand and moves it from side to side as her lip curls into a slight smirk. “Eh,” shemutters.
“Well, we'll get you something to help you relax,” he tellsher.
“Charlie,” she saysagain.
“Her confusion seems worse,” I whisper toJackson.
“Amelia, can you tell me what year it is?” Jacksonquestions.
Grams’s eyes open a little wider, and she twists her head against the pillow to look at him. “Why such a silly question?” shesays.
“It's just a common question we sometimes ask ourpatients.”
Grams sweeps her hand across her forehead, pushing away her silvery white-streaked bangs from her forehead. “It's 1942, ofcourse.”
“Grams,” I pipe in, afraid she's truly stuck inside of her head during that period of time. “It's2017.”
“Oh, Emma,” she says. “Such a funnygirl.”
Jackson backs away from Grams and nods for us to follow him out the door. As we file into the hallway, he inhales deeply, pausing for a moment, which soothes me more than my own calming breaths. “I'm going to schedule some tests to see if any brain damage occurred while she was in cardiac arrest. Honestly, I don't think that’s the case, but I want to rule it out. I'm quite confident her confusion is a result of the first stroke, and then having a second one so soon afterward wasn’t much help with progress.” Jackson clears his throat and folds his hands down in front of his waist. With his eyes squinted slightly and his lips pinched to the side, he leans against the wall. “As much as I hate to ask you three to do this, we need to avoid upsetting her, which means playing along for the time being. Keeping her heart rate in a normal rhythm is very important rightnow.”
We're supposed to pretend like it's 1942 and she's still in the middle of the Holocaust? I don't even know if she was still a prisoner then. “She knows my name,” I tell Jackson. “That should mean something,right?”
