Page 20 of Whiskey Lullaby
“Nothing.” I looked away and leaned back in thechair.
“Pizza should be here anyminute.”
“Alright.”
An awkward silence settled between us, and I watched her from the corner of my eye. When she finally turned the page, she used her lefthand.
“Let me see your hand,” I said, holding out my palm. Knowing her, I figured she’d accidentally chopped a finger off and was trying to use some damn liniment to stave off the bleeding. She slowly placed her left hand on the table. “Nuh-uh. Your right one.” I wriggled my fingers. “Grandma.”
Huffing, she pushed up from the table and headed into the kitchen, that right arm of hers as limp as anoodle.
“Were you gonna tell me?” I asked, standing and following her into thekitchen.
“Ain’t nothing.” She stood on her tiptoes to open the high cabinet above the sink. She moved the CVS brand of Tylenol out of the way along with the St. John’s Wart, and she came out with the bottle of whiskey she’d had hidden up there since I was a kid. The only reason that didn’t get drank when I was a teenager was because I respected her toomuch.
Shaking my head, I walked up behind her and took the whiskey from her hand. “I’m taking you to thehospital.”
“I’ve got Bunkotonight.”
I closed my eyes and tossed my head back on a groan. “You can’t be serious, Grandma.” I looked at her and pointed at her drawn up hand. “You’ve had astroke!”
“Since when you been adoctor?”
“Grandma, don’t make me call the ambulance.” I cocked a brow and she glared at me, her jawclenching.
“Don’t youdare.”
I pulled my phone from my pocket. “I will and then when you get back home, Patty Wilder will be over here asking you a thousand questions.” Grandma couldn’t stand Patty Wilder—she called her a curtain twitcher, said Patty was always standing at her window trying to see whose business she could get in, ‘just a twitching her curtain.’ If there’s one thing Grandma couldn’t stand it was being the topic of the gossipcircle.
She grunted. “Fine, take me on in, but I’d be just dandy taking a shot of that whiskey. It’ll wearoff.”
“Grandma, strokes don’t wearoff.”
She hmrphed atthat.
“Come on.” I grabbed her purse from the counter and tucked it under my arm before I gently took herhand.
“Always making a fuss about things, I swear, can’t nobody age with dignity nomore.”
______
The antiseptic smell that seems to linger in ERs always nauseated me. And it was unbearably strong thatnight.
They had just put Grandma into a room and started an IV. Oh, Grandma was all sweet smiles and ‘yes darlin’s,’ but the second the nurse left the room, she attempted to yank the IV out of herarm.
“No, Doris,” I smiled and gently moved her hand away. “You can’tleave.”
“Don’t Doris me, and I most certainly can!” She frowned as she shifted in the hospital bed andhuffed.
“You had a stroke. You can’tleave.”
“Aminorstroke.” Another agitated huff. “I ain’t got time for this mess. I done told you, I’ve got a Bunko game tonight with the ladies fromchurch.”
“Grandma…” I narrowed my eyes ather.
“Fine.” She shrunk down into the bed and crossed her good arm over her chest. Ill as a hornet. “My granny had a stroke back in nineteen-thirty-five and she just drank a shot of whiskey and went on her way. If it’s my time to die, it’s my time to die. At least I could die playing Bunko. They’ve got one of them Instapots as the prize and I had to go and have a stroke. Lawd havemercy.”
I dragged a hand over my face because I didn’t know what else todo.
