CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Emma
Ican't help pressingmy hand against my chest, feeling guilty for peeking in on a kiss that should have remained private. “Grams,” I say through a breathlesswhisper.
“Now, mind you,” she says without missing a beat, “I had nothing to compare that kiss to, but what I can tell you is this. Nothing has ever come close incomparison.”
Grams is staring through me, appearing lost in her memories. Her bottom lip quivers briefly before she pulls in a sharp inhale and shakes her head around. “Are you okay?” I askher.
“Don't be silly,” she waves me off with her hand. “Of course, I'mokay.”
“You know, it’s all right if you're not. You can tell meanything.”
“Emma Hill, don’t you talk like that,” she scoldsme.
A nurse meanders into the room and lifts the printed reports of Grams’s heart monitor. “What is going on in here, Ms.Amelia?”
Grams doesn’t answer her, causing me to glance back at her frozen stare. “Grams, what's going on?” I ask, standing up from the chair and placing her diary down in myplace.
“Amelia,” the nurse says, more sternly this time. “I'm going to need you to focus for aminute.”
A variety of odd beeps on Grams’s heart monitor suggests that her heart rate is erratic but slowly regulating to a normal rhythm. Immediately, Jackson reappears, and the nurse greets him with a slightly panic-stricken glance as Grams smiles gently and murmurs, “Charlie, where areyou?”
“Grams, Charlie isn’t here,” I tell her, but Jackson's hand falls softly on my shoulder, stopping me from saying anymore.
“Emma, let her be until she can calm down, okay?” Jackson tellsme.
I can't just sit here and let her suffer, if that what’s happening. Is she suffering as she smiles and asks for Charlie? None of this makes any sense tome.
“Charlie, why didn’t you find me? It was our plan.” A lump forms in my throat, and I’m not sure I’m strong enough to sit here and listen to her delusions and maintain my composure. I don't know what else to do, so I take Grams’s hand and hold it against my cheek, hoping she feels the connection so it draws her back from wherever her mind has taken her. “Charlie!” Her voice is stern and demanding as if he were standing here, ignoring herplea.
“Grams,” I call to hersoftly.
“Emma,” she replies in a mirroring tone as if she’s trying to find me. “He’s not here. Why isn’t he here?” A tear falls from her lefteye.
I stroke my hand across her cheek, trying to calm her nerves. “I’m not sure,Grams.”
“You have to find him, Emma. You haveto!”
I don't even know if this man is dead or alive. If he’s alive, I have no idea where he lives or how to find him. He could be in Germany or the United States. He could be anywhere for that matter. She’s never once mentioned his name to me before thisweek.
“Amelia, Emma will see what she can do,” Jackson says from behind me. I whip my head around and give Jackson a questioning look.What is he telling her?I can't agree to this. I don't know anything about this man other than they were friends and shared a kiss, decades ago. I can't just hunt him down. If he is alive, he is an old man and probably has a wife and a family somewhere. I can’t do what Jackson is saying, just to appease Grams’s confusedthoughts.
Jackson nods his head toward the door, and I follow him. “I don’t think I can read to her anymore,” I tell him as soon as we're out in the hall. “It’s obviously causing her serious distress, and I don't want to be the cause of that, especially after the trauma she has been through thisweek.”
“I agree with you one-hundred percent,” he says, looking down at me with sincerity. “But, as I’ve been saying, we have to try our best not to upset her. She needs to heal and get well, and agitation is going to make that more difficult forher.”
“Don’t you think this stress is going to hurt her even more?” Iargue.
“Maybe you should consider trying to find this man,” he says again. Is he serious? When he first mentioned it, my immediate reaction was a firm, “No.” Even though I’m slowly uncovering the fact that Grams has been hiding something from me her entire life, I feel like I need to know what the outcome of their relationship was. I don't know if I fully understand how someone can be married to one person for more than sixty years while longing for someone else at the same time. That would make me miserable, but Grams has always seemed so happy. If she was so in love with this Charlie, why didn’t she try to find him and undo whatever decision she had made? Unless the part of the story that she doesn’t remember yet, is that he’sdead...
“I can’t,” I tell Jackson. “My grandfather was a wonderful man, and he would be absolutely crushed. None of this feels right tome.”
“This isn't about you, Emma,” hesays.
I'm not sure why Jackson feels so passionate about this situation. We only met a couple of days ago, and he isn’t part of our family. While I understand that Grams is his patient, this is going a little above and beyond his responsibility with hercare.
“I can’t even make my own decisions, so how can I make them for her? Clearly, I’m not the best person to decide someone’sfate.”
