“I don’t think it mattered,” Maisy told her brother. “What matters is your grandmother and not some silly card game.”
“Not so silly,” their mother inserted. “Lloyd and Eileen take their bridge seriously.”
“So, what happened after the game?” Maisy asked, fighting hard not to bombard her mother with questions.
“Lloyd went back to Eileen’s apartment, and thank goodness he did. Stubborn as she is, Eileen insisted she was fine when she clearly wasn’t. She finally admitted she had this funny feeling.”
“Funny feeling?” Maisy repeated.
“In her chest,” her mother added. “Well, you can imagine that got Lloyd’s attention. He wanted her to go to the hospital right then and there, but she preferred that they wait.”
“Why in the name of heaven wouldn’t she go?” Maisy demanded. She wanted to shake her grandmother for not listening to what her body was telling her. Grams’s stubbornness might have cost her her life.
“You know how your grandmother doesn’t want to make a fuss. She was afraid there would be this hullabaloo over nothing. Something must have happened about thirty minutes later, because she suddenly looked at Lloyd and said maybe he was right and she should be checked out after all.”
“Thank God,” Maisy breathed.
“Did she have a heart attack?” Patrick asked. “Tyler’s grandpa died from a heart attack, and he was really sad when he told me about it. His grandpa was at every baseball game, remember?”
“I do,” their mother answered.
“Did Grams have a heart attack?” Maisy repeated her brother’s question.
“By the grace of God, no. She got to the hospital before therewas any serious damage to her heart. As soon as they arrived at the emergency room, she was taken in for an examination. Lloyd called me, and I rushed to the hospital with Sean.”
“It wasn’t a heart attack?” Maisy asked, relief washing over her like a tsunami.
“The heart specialist found three blockages. This morning, Eileen went in for surgery and the cardiologist put in three stents. The procedure went as well as can be expected, and she’s currently resting comfortably.”
“What are stents?” Patrick asked.
“They’re a device the surgeon puts into the major blood vessels leading to the heart,” their mother explained. “The stents widen the artery so that the blood can flow freely.” As she finished the simple explanation, Sophie pulled into the hospital’s parking garage. “There’s likely more technical language, but that’s my understanding of what was done.”
“Can we see her?” Maisy asked, needing to see her grandmother for herself before she would be able to ease her worries.
Her mother nodded. “But only briefly. The procedure was this morning and she’s still pretty much out of it.”
“I’ll only stay a few minutes.” Just long enough to be sure her grandmother would recover and be back to normal soon.
“Lloyd has been wonderful,” her mother continued. “He didn’t leave her side the entire time. I was the one who had to send him home last night. Then he was back before I arrived this morning.”
“You should have let me know,” Maisy cried, upset that she’d been left in the dark while this was happening to her family. She should have been with Grams. Instead, she was living the high life with Chase and completely clueless.
“It would have ruined your time in Chicago,” her mother stated, “and that’s the last thing your grandmother wanted.”
Her mother was right. It was hard to believe that while she was at the Cubs game her grandmother had nearly lost her life. Knowing Grams was ill would have ruined the day for Patrick, too. Her grandmother would hate it if she even suspected Patrick had been cheated out of being the batboy for his favorite team because of her.
“Can I show her my rookie Ernie Banks baseball card?” Patrick asked.
“Later,” his mother advised. “Your grandmother is sleepy from the anesthetic.”
“What’s that?”
“Something that made your grandmother sleep during the surgery, so she didn’t feel any pain.”
“I wouldn’t want Grams to be in pain,” Patrick stated.
“No one would,” Maisy said, as her thoughts whirled like a tornado across the Oklahoma panhandle. She was forever grateful that her grandmother would recover. Never again would she take for granted the time they had left together. This news about Grams’s heart had shaken Maisy’s world.
