Page 68 of Home Tears

The humming stopped, and she gazed over. “Henrietta.”

“What are you humming?”

“I’m not humming,” Henrietta clarified. “I sing in my head.”

“Why don’t you sing out loud?”

“Because they wouldn’t understand.”

“What do you mean?”

“The voices. The angels. They wouldn’t understand.”

“What wouldn’t they understand?”

“The angels are dead, but I’m singing about live folk. I can only sing in my head so that the angels don’t get mad.”

Henrietta glanced down the hallway and went back to humming. The volume rose a notch as Phyliss rounded the corner.

“She said you could come in for five minutes, but that’s all she has in her.” Phyliss nodded, and they both turned down the hallway. Outside of Sandra’s door, Phyliss knocked once and poked her head in. “We’re coming in, Sandra.”

Dani heard a creak and a rustling of bedsheets before she stepped around Phyliss and saw her grandmother. The white hair hung limply off her scalp, and the bedsheets seemed to overcome her grandmother’s pale form. She had a hospital nightgown on, and her eyes were numb.

Dani swallowed.

Phyliss had been watching her, gauging her reaction, so Dani smiled. “Thank you.”

Phyliss nodded and left the room quietly. She gently pulled the door shut behind her.

“You can sit.”

The order came out in a monotone voice. Her personality seemed washed out of her grandmother. Dani missed her already.

She sat, and the chair’s plastic creaked slightly underneath her. The back unyielded, and Dani’s skin molded around the seat’s back. She folded her arms, unfolded them, and finally just laid them on her lap as she tucked her legs underneath.

Sandra chuckled. “They’re damn uncomfortable, ain’t they?”

Dani smiled abruptly. There was the Sandra she remembered from her last visit.

“Something like that.”

“You come for your second visit today. I suppose you want what I promised you.”

“If you’re up for it.”

“What do you care?” Her question came out like a bark.

“I care.” And Dani realized that she did care. Very much.

“I don’t even care. How am I supposed to believe that you care?”

“I’ve learned recently that there are people out there who do care. And I think I’m a little like you, but I’ve learned not to look a gift horse in the mouth.”

Her grandmother studied her intently for a moment before she sighed and lay back down on her bed.

“Have you always been like this?”

No answer.

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