Page 10 of First Love, Second Draft

Noah spun in circles. “Trash can... trash can...”

“Are you sure you don’t need to have a bowel movement?”

“Mona, you did not just ask me that.”

“Why not? The nurses were always asking you that.”

“Here.” Noah raced back from the kitchen. He shoved a brown paper grocery sack into her face.

It must be the one she kept under the sink for trash. Gracie pushed it away. “Ugh, that smells awful.”

“What do you mean?” Mona yanked it from Noah’s hands and sniffed. “Smells like tuna. I brought some cans with me the other day to make a tuna salad sandwich while I was waiting to meet a client. You don’t like tuna salad? Because I left a bowl of it in your fridge.”

“She hates tuna salad,” Noah said, grabbing back the sack and crumpling it shut. “How did you not know that?”

Gracie was kind of wondering the same thing.

“I did know that,” Mona snapped. “I just figured it was a phase she would have grown out of by now.”

Noah grunted and tossed the closed sack into the kitchen. “Maybe you need some more pain medicine. I read somewhere that too much uncontrolled pain can make you nauseous.”

“More pain medicine?More?” Now Mona grunted. “Well, no wonder she’s nauseous. She’s never been able to keep pain medicine down. How did you not know that?”

“Maybe she never needed pain medicine when we were married,” Noah responded. “Did you ever think of that?”

“Or maybe you were just never around enough to see all the times she was in pain. Did you ever think of that?”

“Or maybe—”

“Enough. You want to know what’s causing me pain right now? You two. Acting like children.” Gracie warned them both off with each of her hands in the shape of a gun. “If one of you even thinks about fluffing this pillow again, there will be blood. Now leave. Both of you.”

“What about dinner?” Noah said.

“What about your bowels?” Mona said.

“Get out!”

Noah and Mona glared at each other. “Well,” Mona said, waving Noah toward the door. “You heard her. After you.”

“Please. Ladies first. After you.”

“Oh, but I insist.”

“I insist more.”

“I insist you stop insisting.”

Noah and Mona elbowed each other all the way to the door, both squeezing out at the same time due to their equal amounts of insistence. When the door finally slammed shut on their bickering, Gracie sank against the pillow in peace.

Well, in peace except for the terrible realization that supper was burning and she needed to go to the bathroom.

5

Why did hospitals always have to smell like pureed meatloaf slathered in sanitizer? Matt stepped off the elevator behind one of the hospital kitchen workers pushing a food cart and wrinkled his nose. No wonder his grandpa never had an appetite.

The wheels of the cart rumbled down the hallway the same direction Matt headed—the long-term care floor where his grandpa resided.

Matt hated that they hadn’t been able to find Buck a better location after his physical therapy ended and insurance stopped paying for the inpatient rehab facility. At least somewhere outside the walls of a hospital.

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