As she pressed the button for the fourth floor, Ginger sighed contently. Her feet ached after an eight-hour shift, but she felt energized and invigorated . . . and that much closer to tomorrow, when she would see Cain again.
Yesterday, after breakfast, she asked Cain if he would visit Woodman’s grave with her, and he’d agreed, driving her to the cemetery and holding her hand as she wept. After a moment, he dropped her hand and wandered away, giving her some privacy, and she talked to Woodman for a while, telling him how sorry she was and how much she missed him. When she had no more words to say, she found Cain standing twenty yards away, under the bare winter branches of a tree, watching her, and she walked over to him.
“You okay, princess?” he asked, leaning away from the trunk and opening his arms.
She stepped into them gratefully, her own arms limp at her sides as she rested her cheek over Cain’s heart and closed her eyes. Seconds turned to minutes, and he never said a word, just held her in his strong arms, his chin resting on top of her head for as long as she needed him.
With every breath, his chest, hard and broad, pushed into hers, a reminder of his strength, of the strength he was sharing with her. And with every breath, she felt more and more certain that she could bear the loss of Woodman, provided she’d never have to bear the loss of Cain.
Finally, almost on the brink of sleep, she raised her head from his heart, and he raised his chin from her head, looking down at her.
“Better?”
She took a deep breath and nodded. “A little.”
His eyes, bright blue and sad, searched hers. “A little’s better than nothin’, right?”
“I miss him,” she said softly.
“Me too.”
“You think we’ll always miss him?”
Cain sighed. “It won’t hurt this much forever, but yeah. I think we will.”
He let his arms fall from around her, and though she instantly missed their warmth, he made up for it by taking her hand.
“Why don’t I take you to get your car?”
“Okay,” she said, letting him lead her down the path from Woodman’s grave to the parking lot. “You know, before he left for the . . . the fire that night, we had a—I don’t know what it was, exactly—a little fight, I guess.”
“You and Woodman?”
She nodded. “Yeah. And I just . . .”
“You what?”
“I wish we hadn’t. I wish I’d kissed him good-bye and told him I loved him.”
“He knew,” said Cain softly, dropping her hand as they reached the motorcycle. “And he loved you more than anythin’, Ginger.”
The elevator opened to the fourth floor, and her thoughts of yesterday scattered as she stepped out, looking forward to seeing her grandmother for a few minutes before leaving for the day.
As she approached, she realized that Gran’s chart was still in the clear plastic box on the wall outside her room. Ginger wasn’t assigned to the fourth floor, but she couldn’t resist taking a peek at the chart. Almost instantly she wished she hadn’t.
January 2nd: Palliative care recommended. Patient not advised, per her son.
Palliative care, otherwise known as end-of-life care, was recommended when curative care, or active medical treatment, had ceased working. It meant that Gran’s body was no longer responding to the medication meant to slow the Parkinson’s. It meant that she was coming closer to the end.
Had Ginger failed to notice, as she grieved Woodman, how rapidly Gran was declining? She could still speak pretty well, even though she was in the advanced stages of Parkinson’s. She hadn’t experienced any dementia or blatant forgetfulness. But her chart noted incontinence, constipation, breathlessness, and problems swallowing. She would be given certain medications to manage stress and pain, but her body was failing, and apparently Ginger’s father had advised her grandmother’s medical team not to make his mother aware that time was dwindling, which meant that Ginger needed to put on a brave face whenever she was around Gran.
She’d known, of course, that her grandmother’s disease would take over eventually, and she’d observed enough to know that Gran was in the advanced stages of the disease. She just hadn’t considered that it would be so soon.
Then again, she reminded herself of what she knew about Parkinson’s: a patient could live on for years with palliative care. Parkinson’s was a complex disease, and by itself it wasn’t enough to take a life. It would take complications to jeopardize Gran. As long as she stayed at Silver Springs, cared for by the staff of nurses and doctors, she could still have some time left. And Ginger chose to concentrate on that time rather than on the prospect of losing someone else she loved.
Lifting her chin as she placed the chart back in the holder, she swiped at her eyes with the backs of her hands and fixed a smile on her face. If anyone in the world deserved her bravery, it was Gran.
“Hello, beautiful,” she said, walking into the room and immediately noticing the bouquet of wildflowers that hadn’t been there when Ginger visited on New Year’s Eve.
“D-doll baby,” said Gran softly.
Ginger leaned down and kissed her grandmother’s cheek. “More flowers?”