Something Unexpected by Vi Keeland
CHAPTER 24
Beck
HOURS LATER, I wanted to pull my hair out. I’d found two doctors who’d agreed to look at Nora’s chart, but no one would help me here in Utah.
Not the nurse.
Not the doctor.
Not the asshole administrator who threatened to have security escort me off the premises if I didn’t stop harassing the staff.
Worst of all, my grandmother wouldn’t even help me.
I felt helpless. Useless. Powerless.
Somehow I’d wandered into the chapel a half hour ago. I was sitting in the back row, staring at a statue of Jesus on the cross hanging above the altar when a man interrupted my thoughts.
“Is that seat next to you taken?” he asked.
I was the only one in the damn chapel. There were six or eight empty pews and two sides of the aisle. I turned, annoyed. “Take a damn seat somewh…” I trailed off when I saw the collar. “Shit. Sorry, Father.” I shook my head. “And sorry for saying shit.”
He smiled. “It’s fine. But can I sit next to you?”
I wasn’t in the mood to talk, particularly to someone I had to think before speaking to. Yet I moved down so he wouldn’t have to climb over me.
He sat with a sigh and extended a hand. “Father Kelly. Kelly’s my first name, not my last.”
I shook. “How you doing, Father?”
“My knees hurt, I need a hip replacement, and my secretary still uses a typewriter even though there’s a perfectly good computer sitting right on her desk.” He smiled. “But from the looks of it, I think I’m better than you right now.”
I smiled halfheartedly, but said nothing, still hoping he’d take the hint.
He didn’t.
“Did you lose someone?” he asked.
I shook my head.
“Someone sick?”
I nodded.
We were both quiet for a long time. I had been raised Catholic but wasn’t practicing now. The last time I’d been to church, other than a wedding, was for my mother’s funeral. I was pretty sure that had been Gram’s last time, too. The small chapel here in the hospital was peaceful, but as I sat next to the priest, I found myself growing more and more annoyed. I shifted in my seat to face him.
“How do you reconcile God’s work and young people dying?”
“I don’t. Faith can’t explain or justify everything. But it can provide comfort, if you let it.”
“How?”
“Well, your faith provides assurance that your loved ones will be okay. Happy even, after they’re gone.”
“How can they be happy if they won’t be with the people they care about?”
He smiled. “We’ll all be reunited someday. If you can accept that, truly rely on your faith, it can help you heal after the loss of a loved one.”
“I’ve always felt that people who rely too heavily on a belief in the afterlife do it because they aren’t very good at coping with their real one.”
Rather than be insulted, the priest’s smile widened. “And I’ve always suspected that many who don’t believe in the afterlife are afraid to because they’re worried they might go the other way.” He pointed two thumbs down.
I chuckled. “You have a good point.”
“Tell me about your loved one who’s in the hospital.”
I stared up at the altar. “She’s beautiful and pigheaded. Smart. Creative. A bit of a daredevil. She doesn’t judge people and makes friends with some pretty out-there types. She’s a good person, very protective of the people she cares about.”
“She sounds wonderful.”
I sighed and raked a hand through my hair. “She is. And I stupidly didn’t realize how great she was until it was too late.”
“She’s still with us, though?”
I nodded.
“Then it’s not too late. Perhaps you’re here now to provide comfort in her time of need. It can be scary for people to walk alone in their final days. Perhaps you can help her during this time, which will in turn bring you comfort someday when you reflect back.”
“I’m not sure how I can do that.”
“Focus on her needs. Whether that’s holding a hand when she’s scared, or going to see her favorite movie that you really don’t like. Try not to burden her with your fears. And most of all, make sure she knows how you feel about her.”
I swallowed. Those were all the things Nora had been doing for my grandmother—focusing on her needs, showing her she wasn’t scared. Jesus Christ, and all I did was give her a hard time for doing it. I’d totally screwed up. I’d let my own selfishness stand in the way of supporting my grandmother’s decisions. I hadn’t put her first, like Nora did.
My eyes welled up. Father Kelly put a hand on my shoulder. “It’s never too late to be the man you need to be.”
***
“It’s almost midnight,” I said to my grandmother. We’d sat in chairs on opposite sides of Nora’s bed ever since I came back from the chapel this afternoon. “Why don’t you get some sleep?”
She sat up like she was preparing to argue, so I nipped that in the bud.
“It’s her turn to need you. And you won’t be any use to her if you’re in the bed next to hers because you’re run down and not taking care of yourself.”
Gram frowned but nodded.
“I’ll drop you off and come back. They said they weren’t going to extubate and try to wake her until after morning rounds. So not much is likely to change until then.”
“What about you?”
“I can sleep anywhere. And I’m not the one who’s sick.”
“Okay.” Gram took Nora’s hand and closed her eyes for a moment. I was pretty sure the woman who hadn’t been to church in twenty years just said a little prayer. It seemed the two of us were more religious today than we’d been in a long time. Gram lifted her purse onto her shoulder, but then stopped. “Hang on a second.”
She set her purse on the foot of the bed and rummaged through, coming up with something wrapped in newspaper and handing it to me. “This is her gratitude jar. Just in case she wakes up before I get back and needs a reminder.”
These two amazing women were carrying around glass containers filled with memories to hang on to when there was nothing left to grab. It was hard to fight my tears.
When I got back from dropping Gram at the hotel, it was almost one in the morning. The night nurse was fiddling with the machines as I walked in.
“Any change?” I asked.
She smiled politely. “No. But no news is good news in these types of situations. Tomorrow will be a big day for her, when they take her off the meds and allow her to wake up.”
I nodded.
After the nurse took some vitals, she rolled her mobile laptop desk and chair to the next patient’s fishbowl room. I went back to doing what I’d been doing most of the day—when I wasn’t talking to my grandmother or staring at Nora—researching cardiac rhabdomyosarcoma. I’d learned a lot about the rare cancer, including that it was sometimes hereditary. Nora’s mother had died from the disease in her early thirties. I’d also read that the five-year survival rate was only eleven percent, and Nora had been diagnosed more than ten years ago—she’d already beat the odds. But three open-heart surgeries had left her heart weak, and the tumors that came back this time were inoperable.
A few more hours passed, and my eyes grew blurry from reading on my phone, so I set it down on the food tray. The gratitude jar sitting nearby caught my eye and made me smile. I picked it up and held it.
The nurse from earlier stopped back in and changed Nora’s IV bag. She gestured to the Mason jar in my hands.
“What’s that?”
I smiled sadly. “Just some things Nora wants to remember.”
The nurse nodded like she understood. Maybe she did, working here and being surrounded by critically ill people day in and day out. She finished hanging the fluids on the pole and looked over at me. “She can’t respond, but I think she can hear you.”
My brows furrowed.
She pointed her eyes to the jar once again. “It might bring her comfort.”
After she walked out, I thought back to what Father Kelly had said. “Perhaps you’re here to provide comfort in her time of need.”
Twisting off the top felt intrusive, like I might be invading Nora’s private thoughts. But when I slipped out the first piece of folded up paper, I got over that feeling real quick.
June 1st—I’m thankful I was able to get two Harry Styles tickets today.
I chuckled and took Nora’s hand. I read it aloud for her before digging in for another one.
June 20th—Sunrise over the Smoky Mountains
June 9th—The smell of fresh gardenias
June 17th—The ability to Google the answers to anything. BTW, Google was right, and Tequila Tuesdays has the best tacos in Virginia.
I smiled.
June 9th—I’m thankful for William Sutton, the best father a girl could ever wish for.
A lump formed in my throat when I realized she’d written about her dad on the date we’d gone to meet her biological father in the Bahamas.
I pulled gratitude notes out and read them for almost half an hour. A few simple ones punched me in the gut—like the one that said puddles and rainboots. And some made me laugh—like the one she wrote on Thanksgiving last year that said she was glad she wasn’t a turkey. But one stopped me in my tracks.
May 22nd—I’m thankful for the chance to have met a man who reminded me what love is.
May 22nd was the day we’d met.
