I head back over to the bed. But instead of picking up the remote again, I start to prowl around the room. The mirrored closet has just four wire hangers hanging on a bar inside. I flip up the bottoms of the comforters and peek under. Nothing. I wonder how dark the room will be when all the lights are off.
“Lord,” Nana Pete says, coming out of the bathroom and collapsing on the bed. Her long powder blue robe is buttoned up to her chin, and a white towel is wrapped around her head. “I’m tuckered clear to the bone.”
“Was that Lillian on the phone?” I ask.
She nods. “She’s going to meet us halfway. Just outside of Raleigh, North Carolina.” I am just about to ask why when she points to her purse sitting on the bureau. “Honey, get me my purse, would you?” I remember something all at once and hold my breath as I bring the bag over to her.
Chewing my bottom lip, I watch as Nana Pete extricates a plastic bottle from inside the bowels of her purse. “Aha! Here you are, you little bugger!” She unscrews the top, palms a large green pill, and then tosses it into her mouth.
“What’s that for?” I ask.
Nana Pete waves her hand and leans back against one of the pillows. “Just vitamins.” She throws the bottle back inside and hands me her purse once more. I place it back on the bureau, breathing a sigh of relief. When I turn back around, Nana Pete has just removed the towel from her head. I try not to gasp. Her gray hair, damp and tangled, hangs down past her elbows. It is so thin on top that I can see the pale pink of her scalp. She looks so … old.
“Wow,” I say when I find my voice again. “You look so different. I’ve never seen you without your hair pinned up in those braids.” Nana Pete grimaces as the comb gets caught in a snarl. Wiry strands catch between the plastic teeth like little bits of Brillo.
“It’s not my best look,” she says with a grin. “Don’t tell anyone.” She rebraids her hair as I hold out the tiny blue rubber bands for her to secure the ends. Even without a mirror, she pins each braid back up expertly along each side of her head.
“All right?” she asks, cocking her head. “Do I look halfway decent again?”
I smile and nod.
She leans back wearily against the pillow again and closes her eyes. In less than a minute, she is asleep.
As soon as I hear a snore push out from her nose, I lean over and grab her purse again, shoving my hand inside frantically. But the purse is like a bottomless cavern and no matter how much I push things aside, I can’t find what I am looking for. Carefully, I turn the whole thing over in my hands and dump the contents on the bed. The exotic pink barrette falls out last. Its delicate tendrils are a little bent at the ends and a lone bobby pin has lodged its way somehow into the center of it. I pull it out and straighten the little feelers until it looks new again. Up until a few moments ago, I had forgotten all about taking the barrette off the Wal-Mart shelf and sliding it inside Nana Pete’s purse when she wasn’t looking. Now I open my new backpack and throw it on top of my new sneakers.
Replacing the contents of Nana Pete’s purse takes a while. There is her camera, her cell phone, an unzipped rose-colored makeup bag filled with a mirrored compact, a gold tube of pink lipstick, two packages of tissues, at least twenty hairpins, and a small white tube of eucalyptus-scented body lotion. There is also a faded pair of ivory gloves stained yellow at the fingertips, a small, leather-bound folder, secured tightly with a blue rubber band, Benny’s antibiotics, and two more bottles of those vitamins she took earlier, called Lisinopril. I pick up one of the vitamin bottles and turn it over. Why, if they are vitamins, are they called Lisinopril? I wonder. Or is that what old-people vitamins are called? I get a bad feeling all of a sudden as I remember the discussion we had yesterday at the frog pond.
My doctor just told me he wasn’t sure if I’d ever be able to make this trip again.
Are you sick?
No, no, sugar. He just wants me to get some tests in August.
I place the vitamin bottle back in her bag and lie down as close to Nana Pete as I can. She smells like chili and the sweet, lemony perfume she always wears. I move closer, until my ear is just above her chest, and then lean in as near as I dare. Even under the slippery orange comforter and the top sheet, I can hear the lopsided rhythm of her heart beating. Buh-hum, buhbum. Suddenly, for a split second, nothing. I hold my breath. Above me, Nana Pete gasps and exhales loudly through her nose. Buh-hum, buh-bum, buh-bum. Her breathing returns to normal again. I press my face along her robe and cry soundlessly in the dark, pushing the blanket into my mouth when my sobs start to overtake me, shaking with fear and love.