“Grandma?” Maddie whispered.
A lump of bedding was on top of the narrow cot. It looked too small to be hiding Grandma Nancy, at least as Maddie remembered her. Besides, the bedding wasn’t moving.
“Grandma? It’s me. Maddie. I came home to see if you’re okay.”
She waited another moment.
“Grandma?” She was reluctant to touch the pile, in case her grandmother really was under it, and this time she was really dead.
And then the blankets stirred. For a second, Maddie considered that a large critter might lunge out—a skunk perhaps, or a raccoon. Bigger than whatever had been in the cottage on the day that she’d arrived.
“Maddie?” a small voice growled from the cot. It came from a person, not a four-legged thing.
“Grandma?”
A few seconds later, when nothing else happened, Maddie wondered if she thought she’d heard something she hadn’t. Maybe her intuition had once again taken control of her senses.
Then the covers stirred. An arm appeared: it was blue-veined, its flesh almost as wrinkled as Maddie’s skirt.
A head wriggled out next: it was mostly covered by a mass of long white hair that needed a good brushing. It didn’t look as thick as Grandma’s black hair once was.
Then the bedding started to move rapidly. Maddie took a quick step back and somehow didn’t wobble. Her thoughts were spinning. How would she recognize someone she hadn’t seen in forty years—and not since she was five? But then, a pair of eyes—the semi-sweet chocolate-colored eyes that looked crafted from the smooth, shiny confection—peered out from under the blanket and over at Maddie. It was Grandma Nancy. Without a doubt.
“I’ve ruined everything,” the old woman cried.
Maddie, too, started to weep. She sat down on the cot; Grandma reached up and folded her arms around her. Maddie welcomed the tender, familiar pat-pat of her grandmother’s hands.
“Grandma,” she said again. “It’s okay. You’re okay. I’m here.”
“Will you ever forgive me?”
“It wasn’t your fault, Grandma. Mommy’s accident wasn’t your fault. My dad knows that, too.”
They stayed like that for a few minutes, shedding tears and murmuring, then holding each other in silence, until Maddie heard Rex’s voice.
“How’s a guy supposed to fit through this stupid door if you need help?” He’d contorted his lumberjack body into what clearly was an awkward position in order to see past the hobbit door.
Maddie laughed.
“I made sure Joe built the doorway so it was big enough for girls but not for the likes of you, Rex Winsted,” Grandma said, her voice now clear and definite.
Rex groaned.
“We’ll be out in a second,” Maddie told him.
But as she tried to get up off the cot, the whole damn thing collapsed.
* * *
The nurses in the emergency department now knew Maddie by name. She wasn’t sure whether that was something to be proud of. They sat on the same bed in the same room because Grandma Nancy refused to let Maddie out of her sight. Which was fine, as Grandma was smaller now.And a bit more stubborn, the thought of which caused Maddie to laugh again.
When the orderly wheeled the bed to radiology for an X-ray of Maddie’s foot, Grandma went, too: they took some pictures of her right elbow after she owned up to landing on it when she fell on the floor.
Maddie’s foot showed no further damage, though she was berated for not having followed the doctor’s instructions, and was told she most likely would take longer to heal. Grandma had sprained her elbow; she’d have to wear a sling for a couple of weeks and was told to put ice on her injury, rest, and take an anti-inflammatory, for which she insisted that chewing willow bark would do the trick while not encouraging Big Pharma toward more profit-making madness.
Rex and Rafe and Joe and Maddie’s father had congregated in the waiting room; by the time the women were examined, tested, patched up, and discharged, Evelyn was there, too. As was Brandon, who’d canceled his court appearance in Boston due to a “family emergency.”
As the pair of wheelchairs was rolled out to the big room, the audience of six stood up to greet the wounded women. After they answered the initial “How are you?” questions, Maddie addressed Brandon.
