Just as he brought his hand up to knock on the front door, he heard someone say, “Are you looking for Millie, son?”
Turning, Kai saw a wrinkled old lady peeking her head out the front door of the house next to his grandmother’s. “Um, excuse me?” he asked politely, his head still feeling a little slow.
The old woman stepped out of her home and shuffled onto her porch. Clutching a fuzzy blue robe around her body, she tilted her head at Kai. “Millie Harper. That’s her house, but she’s not there. Are you looking for her?”
Kai turned to the neighbor and dropped his hand from where he still had it raised to knock. “Uh, yeah. Do you know where she is?”
The old woman beamed, like she was bursting at the seams to finally be able to tell someone everything she knew. “Oh, it s been a busy morning. Ambulances, fire trucks. Very exciting!”
Kai’s eyes widened, and he took a step toward the woman. If his grandmother had had a heart attack while he’d been sleeping off a hangover, he didn’t think he would ever forgive himself for not taking a few minutes out of his day to come out and see her. “Is she okay?” he called out.
The woman frowned at seeing the shock on his face. “Yeah, she’ll be all right, son. Don’t fret. She fell, broke her hip.”
Kai puffed out a quick breath as relief flooded through him. Immediately, concern rushed in to replace it. “Is she at the hospital then?” He looked around the neighborhood in despair. He could barely remember where his apartment was from here, let alone a hospital he’d never been to.
The woman coughed loudly, her small body racking with the movement. Concerned now for a different reason, Kai wondered if maybe he’d have to rush this curious little old lady to the hospital too. After a moment, her spasm passed. “Yeah, they drove her away. She’s probably already been patched up.”
Closing his eyes, Kai hoped everything had gone okay. When he reopened them, he looked around the streets again. “Um, I’m new here. Can you tell me where the hospital is?”
The old lady smiled. “Sure. How do you know Millie, boy?”
Kai walked across the lawns between the small houses. Coming up to the woman on her porch, he softly said, “She’s my grandmother.”
With a sympathetic smile, the woman put a gnarled hand on his arm when he was finally in front of her. “I’m sure she’ll be fine, son.”
Kai nodded in appreciation, and then listened carefully as she went over the confusing directions.
Twenty minutes later, he was approaching the hospital where his grandmother had been taken. The massive building loomed before him as he shut off his bike and pulled off his helmet. The woman’s directions had been almost impossible to follow, relying more on landmarks than actual road signs, but eventually he’d deciphered where “the house with the purple door” and “the yard with the ‘beware of dog’ sign” were, and made it here. Slipping his helmet over the handle bar, Kai headed toward the entrance to the hospital; nervous energy was coursing through his veins.
After convincing the nurse at the front desk that he was family, he was given his grandmother’s room number. Walking through the antiseptic-smelling halls, he considered if he should call his father or not. He wouldn’t call his mom, since there was no love between his grandmother and her, but his dad would definitely want to know she was hurt; however, he could call him after he’d talked to her and found out how badly she’d been injured. He lightly knocked on door number 210.
A musical voice answered him. “Come in.”
Kai smiled at hearing the perkiness in her voice; she sounded fine. His grandmother visibly brightened when he walked into the room. Upon seeing him, her frail hands came up to cover her mouth, and tears started forming in her warm brown eyes. “Kai, oh honey, you’re here.”
Kai shook his head as he sat on the edge of the bed. “Don’t cry, Gran.” Leaning over, he gave her a quick, careful hug. He didn’t want to jostle her too much. “Are you all right? Are you in pain?”
She shook her head resting against the pillow as he pulled away. “I’m fine, honey.” Then she lightly smacked his chest. “Why didn’t you call me the moment you got into town? I would have picked you up from the airport, made you a big meal, and then helped you put away all the boxes that are probably littering some tiny little apartment.”