“You don’t have to see her,” my dad said when we were waiting for Annie to leave the recovery room and get settled elsewhere. He dug out his keys from his pocket. “Head back to the house, figure out what you want to order for dinner, and later I’ll Uber—”
“Dad, no.” I shook my head. Haddonfield was fifty minutes away, and I wanted to see Annie. “I’m staying by your side.”
He pulled me close, wrapping an arm around my shoulders.
“Lupo?” A nurse eventually called. “Annette Lupo?”
“Yes, that’s us.” My dad and I sprung up from our seats. “Annette is my mother.”
My heart grew heavier after the nurse escorted us to Annie’s room; I hardly recognized my grandmother. Her still unfamiliar gray hair was flat but unkempt at the same time. And her skin was so eerily pale, which only emphasized her bruises. I sucked in my breath at the one on her face. Black and blue had blossomed on her left cheek, the color cradling her eye.
Oh, Annie, I thought, tears welling up. I took her hand and squeezed it, blue veins looking like lace on her skin. If Bryce were here, he’d call it a spiderweb.
He’d also want to sign her white cast, but if things were different, I knew she’d be horrified at the thought.
But things weren’t different; we didn’t have all of Annie, so I didn’t think she’d mind some Sharpie action. Or even notice.
Her eyes blinked open once or twice during the two hours we spent there—and I swear we got the ghost of a smile—butshe didn’t speak. “See you tomorrow,” I whispered before kissing her forehead goodbye. “The twins and Erica love you so much.” A few tears drip-dropped into her matted hair. “They’ll be here soon.”
Would a week feel like “soon” to her? No one knew how time worked in Annie’s head, not even Annie herself.
She only spent one night at the hospital, then she was discharged and brought back to Elkins. My dad handled that part, and I pulled into the parking lot a few hours later. The drive from Haddonfield had felt unusually long, and even though we’d only been gone two weeks, Finlay House didn’t feel as familiar. There was the atrium, which tried so hard to be cheery with its bright skylight and colorful photographs decorating the taupe walls.
Unfortunately, I wasn’t buying it today.
Residents had congregated at the rally point, like it was Groundhog Day. Women worked on a jigsaw puzzle while blind Bob Coleman wore his big headphones, off in audiobook land.
Other people dozed in their wheelchairs and strollers, keeping warm under their fleece blankets. A lump rose in my throat. How long until Annie became one of them?
She looked so small in her bed; my grandmother hadneverseemed small to me. She’d always been a statuesque five foot eight.
So much has changed, I thought.So much has changed in two weeks…
I told myself over and over that it had nothing to do with thefact that none of us had visited. That a lack of visitors had nothing to do with Annie’s setback.
Setback, not decline.
“Hi, Annie,” I softly smiled when she was finallyawake-awake during my visit, three days after surgery. I kept my relieved enthusiasm in check, not wanting to frighten her. “How are you?”
She blinked, and I held my breath, preparing myself to be no one special to her. “Mmm…livia,” she mumbled, and that was it.
But when she squeezed my hand, I squeezed hers back.
It was like this the next day too. Even if Annie’s eyes were open, she didn’t really engage with me or my dad. He stuck to asking questions about her bachelorette life in New York or telling stories from his childhood, like he had for a while now. Her long-term memory had hung on the longest.
But her responses were more or less the same: a combination of her dreamy voice and distant smiles. “Oh, yes,” she whispered after we asked about living at the Barbizon Hotel. “My roommate would always…” She trailed off. “…and then stole…Daddy bought me…”
I willed my Martha’s Vineyard memory book to come faster. I’d finished compiling it the night my dad and I’d gotten home and paid for express shipping.Golden Hour Girlswas the title.
Seeing Connor throughout my camera roll had been harder than I’d thought, because there were more pictures of him than I realized I took. One I lingered on, perhaps my favorite, had been taken at sunset on the Farm. Meredith had secretly snapped it,she then sent it to Connor, who sent it to me. It was our last photo together.
Everyone had gotten off the Oystercatcher to find the best view, but Connor and I’d stayed put, legs dangling off the flatbed. He had his arm around my shoulders, and I had both of mine looped around his waist, hugging him close. We weren’t grinning at the camera, but instead smiling slyly at each other in the pink-orange glow.
My heart heaved. I hadn’t heard from him since I’d left the island, but why would I? Not only had he resumed minding Teddy and Finn, but I hadn’t exactly signaled that I wanted him to call me. All I’d given him was a litany of reasons why we wouldn’t work.
Shutterfly finally fulfilled their promise on Friday, and I didn’t bother opening the box before driving to Elkins. Needing a breather, my dad had gone out to lunch with friends. It was only me today.
“I’m so sorry, Olivia,” Tara said as I signed in at the nurses’ station, excitement written all over my face. “I must sound like a broken record, but she’s asleep. We had her in a chair for a couple hours this morning”—she gestured to the rally point—“and I think walking tired her out.”
