patient kept tellin’ us they saw their momma in the corner of the room sittin’ there watchin’ him. The others who have passed come to be with you when you is passin’,” said Hooty.
Jeannie didn’t answer her. She wasn’t going to be suckered into any religious feelings again. Look what praying had gotten her so far. Nothing but losing a husband, her home, her life, and the thing she held closest to her heart, her daughter. No, she didn’t want to hear about religious beliefs.
Jeannie walked over to Lydia and tried to snap her out of what she felt was a bad dream, and helped her daughter roll over and go back to sleep. “Lydia, baby. You are having a dream, honey. Roll over and try to rest.” No, Jeannie didn’t want to hear someone from the other side was coming to take her. It had to be the morphine making her hallucinate is all. This stupidity about angels and family members was just to make everyone feel better.
Chapter 11
The next day, Lydia was going farther downhill. She wasn’t eating, sleeping all day, and Jeannie feared she was starving to death. Hooty assured her it was part of the process.
“Her body is shutting down, Miss Jeannie. It aint’ hungry like we is. Miss Lydia’s body don’t need food to sustain it no more. She’s okay. She may wake up and want somethin’. If she does, we go get it, even if she eats one bite. You on the other hand, should eat. You is wastin’ away to nothin’, Miss Jeannie. You need to keep your strength up for this here girl. You hear me?” she asked.
“Hooty, I just can’t. I will try to eat dinner tonight. You know the funny thing is a few months ago, I was ashamed at how much weight I had gained and wondered how I could lose the extra pounds. I didn’t dream this was going to be like this.”
“We don’t know what the good Lord has for us around the corner, do we?” said Hooty, going to the refrigerator and making Jeannie a sandwich.
“Now, I want you to eat this for me and I ain’t goin’ to take no for an answer.”
She sat the sandwich down on the table they had downstairs in the little kitchen. Jeannie listened and ate the sandwich in four bites. She was hungrier than she thought. Hooty hugged her and told her she needed to go lie down for a while and take a nap.
Jeannie remembered falling asleep and not waking up till the morning. She woke up in a panic, but noticed Marsha and Steven were there with Lydia.
She jumped up from the bed. “How long did I sleep?”
“All night, and you needed the rest. Hooty told us you were exhausted.”
“You shouldn’t let me sleep so much. What if something happened?”
“If something were to happen, we would have gotten you up. Your body told you it needed sleep,” said Marsha.
Later that afternoon, Jeannie was making coffee in their little kitchen and Marsha and John had gone grocery shopping. Michael was out of school for his last week of winter break, and at the movies with friends. The house was quiet except for the oxygen machine running in the distance, and the sound of the coffee dripping down into the pot.
A cell phone buzzed with a ring Jeannie wasn’t familiar with. She checked hers, it wasn’t ringing, and Lydia’s had been disconnected. She heard the phone ring again, and remembered Vince’s charging by her bed. Jeannie plugged the phone in weeks ago when she found it and forgot the phone was still there. She tried to answer it. By the time she opened it up, the ringing stopped. Looking at the phone, it was the same number that had called it earlier numerous times. She told herself she would call the number back if whoever called again, but she was too tired to worry about it. When she put the phone back in the drawer, it rang again. This time she answered.
“Hello,” she said, trying to be quiet and not wake Lydia.
There was silence on the other end, but Jeannie heard someone breathing.
“Hello. Who is this?” she asked, getting upset. No answer, so she hit the off button. Seconds later the phone rang again.
“Who is this? Speak up or I will have this traced,” said Jeannie, getting rather pissed off, fast.
“I’m sorry. I have the wrong number,” said the voice on the other end. The voice sounded like a