Holly CHAPTER 3

Holly

CHAPTER 3

Iwas on my way to my car when I saw the paper flapping on the passenger side of the windshield. I pulled it off and got into the front seat. It was a note, written on a receipt.

Hi. I was tasked with putting a Valentine’s Day card on my brother’s girlfriend’s car yesterday, and I guess I got the wrong car? I’m sorry. I understand there was a coupon in there that nobody should ever have had to lay eyes on. I hope I didn’t cause any problems with you and your S/O. —The worst wingman ever (Obviously)

I laughed dryly. I folded it in half and put it in the cup holder.

The mystery Valentine’s Day card was yesterday. It was still in my glove box, I wasn’t sure what to do with it. I was thinking maybe there was a community corkboard for the building somewhere that I could tack it to? It didn’t feel right to throw it away.

I drove home. When I got inside, I shrugged off my sweater and dropped it on the arm of the couch. Then I stared around my apartment wearily.

I didn’t know this place yet. It was full of my stuff, but I hadn’t been home an entire day in the eight weeks I’d lived here. Not since they sent Grandma home on hospice. I hadn’t unpacked, I hadn’t made it my own. It was as foreign to me as the rest of my life at the moment—somewhat familiar but alien too.

I wandered around, watering neglected plants. I sifted through mail, paid a few bills. Folded a pile of laundry. Then I dropped into bed and passed out.

The next morning when I pulled back into the garage at Grandma’s complex, I left a Ziploc bag containing the Valentine’s Day card under my wiper with a short note.

It’s what I get for having the most common car in the US, I guess. Even I can’t figure out which one is mine sometimes. I don’t have a boyfriend so you’re in luck, nobody cared lol. I thought you might want the letter back.

If it was still there when I returned, I was going to look for that corkboard, but I figured it was worth a shot. Save me a trip around the building.

I came out three hours later to put Grandma’s walker in the back seat, and the Ziploc was gone, replaced with a page torn from a ceiling-fan-installation pamphlet.

Thanks. Maybe a bobblehead on the dash would help? Haha

It made me smile. A little.

When I came back up, Grandma was where she always was, in the hospital bed in the middle of the living room, surrounded by flowers and draped in a colorful afghan, laughing loudly with Jillian, who was telling some dramatic story. Mom was clinking dishes in the tiny kitchen. Grandma’s sister, my great-aunt Lucy, was standing on a stool by the window, hanging crystals.

This was a good place to die. It had good energy.

Everything around my grandmother always did.

She didn’t like the sterilized hospital thing or any reminder of what was actually happening here. She’d made me drape a floral scarf over the IV stand, and I wasn’t allowed to wear scrubs. Not for this assignment. She liked things pretty and soft and comfortable. Food cooking in the kitchen, people around her. So that’s what we gave her. I wore my regular clothes. Blousy tops and flowy skirts. Jillian brought candles she’d made and Nadia Cakes cupcakes, Mom simmered pasta sauce, and we watched Grandma slowly decline.

“I’m back,” I said, clicking the door shut behind me.

Lucy pointed at the crystals. “How about this?” she said, louder than necessary. Her hearing aids were off again. “Is this in the right spot?”

Grandma turned to look. “We won’t know until the sun’s on that side.”

“WHAT?”

“I said, we won’t know until the sun’s on that side,” Grandma said, louder. “For Pete’s sake, turn your hearing aids on.”

Lucy climbed down. “I can’t hear a thing you’re saying. We probably won’t know until the sun’s on that side.”

I laughed to myself as I came over to the bed and lowered the rail. “How’s your pain?”

“Good,” Grandma said.

I arched an eyebrow. “Are you just saying that?” I asked, taking her pulse. “I know you don’t like the way the morphine feels. We can do something else.”

She waved me off with her free hand. “I’m fine.”

There was a thump against the wall from the neighboring apartment, followed by the sound of a power tool.

“What are they doing over there?” Mom asked.

“New tenants,” Grandma said. “Probably fixing it up.”

“Well, I wish they’d be quieter about it,” Mom said, wiping the counters down.

I checked Grandma’s catheter bag. Then I pulled out my stethoscope and listened to her chest. I didn’t like what I heard. I never would.

I wrapped my stethoscope around my neck, trying to keep my feelings about this off my face. “Something funny happened a couple of days ago,” I said.

Grandma perked up. “Oh?”

“Someone left a love note on my car.”

“It wasn’t from Jeb, was it?” Mom said.

“No, it was for someone else. Very anticlimactic. But it had a sex coupon in it,” I said, amused.

“I hope you kept it,” Jillian said. “You need it.”

I scoffed. “Thanks.”

“You know where you need to go?” Jillian said.

“Where?” I asked, checking Grandma’s ankles. She had some edema. This was new.

“Home Depot,” Jillian said.

“For?”

“To wander the aisles, looking confused.”

“Why would I—” I gave her a look. “I am not man-shopping at Home Depot.”

“She’s right, Holly. There’s lots of good men at hardware stores,” Grandma said.

“Stay away from the garden and paint sections,” Jillian said. “The men over there are gay or married. Stay out of the lumber section too. Real carpenters have timber delivered on-site; you won’t find anyone in the lumber section who knows what to do with their wood.”

“You are unbelievable,” I said, rolling fresh socks on Grandma’s feet. I glanced up at my sister. “What else?”

Her eyes sparkled. “The tile aisle is where it’s at. Those guys are ripped and they make good money. Also, they’re good on their hands and knees.”

Grandma was snickering.

“Plumbing and electrical fitting is another good one. They’re trade guys. Professionals. But the place to go, the pot of gold, the fishing hole of the hardware world”—she paused dramatically—“is the tool aisle.”

We were all watching her now, captivated.

“You want the guys buying the red tools,” she said, making eye contact with each of us. “Red tools are a green flag.”

“Why red?” Mom asked, drying a bowl with a rag.

“Those are the expensive, professional ones.” She propped her foot on the edge of Grandma’s bed and did a hamstring stretch. “You could make an exception for a guy with yellow tools if he’s cute enough. But never green. Ever.”

“No green,” I said, smacking her foot off the comforter. “Got it.”

Mom was shaking her head. “Where did you learn all this?”

“I drink iced coffee and I know things.”

Grandma chuckled.

“Good information,” I said, finishing with the socks and tucking the blankets around Grandma’s feet. “But I’m going to take a break from dating for the foreseeable future.”

“Why?” Jillian asked.

Because my self-esteem is shattered? Because I’m not ready to trust someone yet? Because my heart is about to be broken in a way I’ve never known, and there isn’t room for more?

“He just did a number on me, is all.”

Grandma watched me as I sat down with my coffee.

“Holly, did I ever tell you about my first husband?” Grandma asked.

I paused, mug midway to my mouth. “You had a first husband?”

“Before your grandfather. Never had any children with him. We were married only eight months before he died. Lucy, remember Chip?”

“What?” Lucy shouted.

“Chip! Do you remember Chip?”

Lucy grimaced. “He was a bastard.”

“Handsome as a fox but mean as a snake,” Grandma said. “I’ve been wanting to tell you about him, I keep forgetting.”

“Why did I never know this?” I asked.

“I don’t like to talk about him,” Grandma said. “I don’t think I breathed his name once during the fifty years I was married to your grandfather. Only started thinking about him recently. We’ll talk about it later.”

Mom stood in the doorway. “Holly, you can’t let what Jeb did get to you. The cheating says so much more about him than you. And what kind of a man steals a neti pot?”

“One that should have his dick in a guillotine,” Jillian said.

“A what?” Lucy asked.

“A DICK GUILLOTINE,” my sister repeated. “A tiny one.”

Mom laughed before turning back to the kitchen. “Lucy, we’re leaving in thirty minutes.”

Jillian nudged our great-aunt with her elbow. “Leaving in thirty minutes,” she shouted. She did a side bend. “I’m leaving in a bit too. I’m taking the kids to the beach.”

Her kids were guinea pigs.

She put them in a mesh tent and took them on outings.

My sister volunteered at three different animal rescues, where she was known as “the guinea pig girl” because she loved to foster them. For work she sold homemade skin-care products at farmers markets. They were really good, I loved her lavender lip scrub.

Jillian, Mom, and Lucy left. I was glad there was going to be a break in the visitors.

Grandma was lying to me.

She was in pain. She just didn’t want to take anything that would make her sleepy or fog her memory when people were here. She wanted to be present, so she wouldn’t accept anything that would actually take the edge off.

A night nurse came every day at 8:00 p.m. so I could go home to sleep. The night nurses told me that she’d ask for morphine the second I’d left.

The sand was running out of the hourglass. And she didn’t want to waste a single grain of it.

Grandma didn’t feel like a person with only a few grains left. I think that’s why this was so hard.

When Grandpa died, he was tired. His dementia had taken a lot of him. We lost him months before we lost his body too. But Grandma still had so much vitality. She didn’t feel ready to go yet.

I wasn’t ready for her to go either.