Page 43 of My Heart Before You

Tears instantly pricked at the corners of Emilie’s eyes, and she cast her gaze down as tightness crept from her brows to her stomach and started cinching her arms and legs. It was if someone had just told her that her own grandmother was to die within hours.

She looked up only when she registered Jessica’s hand on her sleeve. “That’s how we all feel.”

Jessica didn’t know that she’d spent hours over the last few months not only talking with Mary, but coming to love her. “What room is she in?”

“504. Ashley’s taking care of her.”

“Oh, good.” A relieved exhale left her body.

Jessica nodded. “That’s what I said too . . . I hate to leave you like this, but I need to go. Are you okay with everything?” She gathered up her hoodie and water bottle from the charting area.

“Yeah.” She forced her lips up. “Have a good night.”

Emilie knew that it would be best to round on all her patients and introduce herself, but she was drawn to 504 and the crowd of staff that was outside. Beside three nurse aides, she found her manager, Barbara, in her white coat over frost blue scrubs talking to Ash.

“If they want the chaplain while they wait on their priest just let me know. I’m going to stay. I just need to call the girls and let them know to order a pizza.” Barbara turned to walk to her office, pausing to squeeze her shoulder before heading down the hall.

“Hey,” Ash said quietly.

“Hey.”

Through the small glass window, she saw only the crowd of people around what she knew in the center was a hospital bed. The room was packed with family. An IV pole rose from behind the shoulder of a granddaughter, and the oxygen valve hissed at the wall beside one of the sons-in-law. She glanced at the telemetry monitor above the window to watch Mary’s failing heart beat out a damaged rhythm.

“Who is . . .” she started the sentence to see Colin walking slowly out of the room and didn’t need to finish it.

Solace rapidly sped through her veins as her hand found her chest with a shaky breath. Colin cared for Bo and Mary and would do everything in his power for them. They’d talked about the restaurant before and the older couple's way of making themselves surrogate grandparents to those who needed them. He knew she often sat at the counter with Mary, and she knew he often chatted with Bo every time he ate there with Dr. Campbell.

His gaze lingered a moment on hers before he spoke to Ash. “I talked with Bo and their daughters. Everyone’s in agreement with Mary’s wishes.”

“Mary’s conscious?” The question blurted out.

His sorrowful eyes looked like the sky she had just seen outside. “No, but they all discussed this possibility when she had her first heart attack a month ago.”

It dawned on her that while she had a social relationship with the elderly couple, Colin had the dual position of being their friend and their doctor. His mournful frown deepened as he glanced at the beeping pager clipped to the waist of his scrub pants.

“I need to see this patient in the ICU, but I’ll be back. Page me if anything changes.”

“Yes, Dr. Abernan,” Ash replied.

Numbness set in as soon as Colin stepped away from the room. Emilie’s fingers found the sides of her crisp scrub top as she wrapped her arms around herself. She needed to keep her breaths even to keep her vision from blurring.

“Why don’t you say goodbye?” Ash suggested.

The water gathering at the edges of her eyes threatened to relinquish itself to gravity. “I couldn’t possibly intrude. All her family’s in there. They need their time with her.”

She felt her friend’s hand on her back, her thumb gently rubbing between her shoulder blades. “Several of us have already done it. They don’t mind. They understand that she had family outside those who were related to her.” Ash’s tear washed face confirmed that her friend had already taken her turn.

Small, tentative steps led her into the hospital room and the sound of nearly twenty people breathing and quietly crying. Surely, they were breaking a fire code, but there wasn’t a staff member in this hospital that would have cast out Mary’s family.

Their eldest daughter, Shannon, saw her first and held a hand out. Emilie took it and was immediately pulled into a firm embrace. It was then the tears started to fall, and a shaky breath broke from her constricted ribs. Shannon released her enough, so she could see Mary in the bed. Bo was hunched over his wife from his chair, no doubt too weak to stand.

“Dad,” she spoke through a tear strained voice. “Another friend of Mom’s is here.”

His aged face was slack, eyes dull and wet as he looked up. “Thank you, dear, for coming.”

Emilie couldn’t believe it. On the precipice of complete disaster, this family was not only kind to her, they were gracious and comforting.

“I wanted to say goodbye,” she managed through a tight exhale.

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