around me and pulls me into his chest, forcing my head to his shoulder. “Just rest a bit.”
I don’t think I’ll sleep like this, curled on his lap and listening to his heartbeat, but within minutes, I’m out.
+ + +
Since the first message I listened to from my boss was both patronizing and lacking in sympathy, I ignore the rest of them. From now on, I’ll be speaking with HR directly. I’ve already been assured another week off is understandable due to my circumstances.
For three days, I sit beside Nana.
“Speak from your heart,” Nana says, startling me from a wave of random memories about her and of Grace and me as children at her home during summers long since passed. Those were more innocent times I hadn’t thought about for quite a while.
“What, Nana?” Her voice is the clearest it’s been in days, but I don’t understand what she’s saying.
“Speak from your heart, Emily. Tell it like it is. How you feel. What you want. It’s the only way to live.”
I scoot the chair closer to her bed, taking up her cold, thin hand with mine. “Okay, Nana.” I don’t need to argue with her. She’s never been wrong in the advice she’s given. Her rules of etiquette shaped my life, though I’ve broken a few of them. One-night stands. Paid for dates to get out of them. Opening my own damn door when the man before me wasn’t a gentleman.
“Live now, Emily. Not in the past where you can’t change anything. Not for the future when you don’t know where it leads. Now is your life, sweetheart. Live it.”
Tears stream down my face once again, and I recall how my grandmother did just that. She lived her life. She fulfilled all her dreams with both family and career. True love and a work ethic. She believed in the greater good of people if they only treated one another with respect set forth through manners.
I need to be better, I decide as I hold her hand.
“I will, Nana. Live now. Got it,” I tease, while more tears flow over my cheeks and drip from my chin.
How though, Nana? How do I do it?
I thought I’d been living my best life by chasing a career and foregoing relationships, but none of it has gotten me anywhere.
“You didn’t want children?” Jess asked.
Yes, yes I did. I do. I want it all, only I’m no longer certain I’m on the right path to achieve it.
How did you do it, Nana? I wonder once again, only I’ll never get answers to my unasked questions. Nana passes on that third evening, dispensing her wisdom and holding my hand.
Rule 11
Fingertips tell a story.
[Jess]
Between working at the repair shop, fielding calls from QuickFix, working with Katie, and visits to see Emily in the hospital, I’ve continued to tinker with the radio. The problem has been the reception. In our digital, satellite, and Wi-Fi age, how do I get the ancient device to connect to radio stations? Are there even programmers who play the oldies she desired?
Then Elizabeth Parrish dies before I have the answers, and I feel as if I’ve disappointed Emily. She asked only one thing of me—to fix the radio for her grandmother.
She looks shattered as I hover on the periphery of the funeral luncheon, and there is nothing I can do about it. How do you help someone you hardly know? Yet isn’t that what Emily did with Katie? She came up with the sign language suggestion and then sat with me to introduce the possibility to my daughter. Even though I’ve decided to use the electronic picture-communication program, it all sparked from Emily’s desire to help.
She was a stranger to us only two weeks ago. Now, I’m not certain how I’ll let her go.
I watch as Emily greets funeral attendees she doesn’t know but who know of her. Her grandmother was so proud of her, and I’ve learned I misjudged their relationship. While Emily hadn’t been physically involved in her grandmother’s life for the past few years, she’s been very present. People wish her well on her writing career and her big city life, but I notice she flinches every time someone mentions either. Is she not proud of herself? From the way the people here recall their conversations with Elizabeth, it seems as though Emily is quite successful, and it’s all a reminder she’s temporary. She’ll leave once she settles her grandmother’s affairs, and for some reason, that unsettles me.