wheresmytoad @ 2003-08-22 22:04:00

Current mood:

exhausted

Gran is awake now. She can even sit up in bed, sort of, as long as she's well propped up with pillows. Her right side is weak, and the right side of her face is drooping a little, but I think it's already better than it was this morning. Maybe. The doctors seemed cautiously pleased. But she can't speak yet, at least not more than a few words, and even doing that takes real effort.

I was sitting with her tonight. The hospital ward was quiet, and the only sound was the beeping from all those strange little monitors they have over the bed, and the rain against the window. We were alone: Great Uncle Algie had been up with me all night, and he was so exhausted that Aunt Enid finally convinced him to come home with her to snatch a little sleep.

I was holding Gran's hand. She was trying to tell me something, and seemed quite frustrated that she couldn't quite get it out. 'Hara,' she kept saying. 'Hara.' I tried to soothe her, but she wasn't having any of it. 'Al-gie tole me,' she said, squeezing on to my hand for all she was worth.

It finally dawned on me what she was trying to say: Sara. She was saying Sara's name. Sometime in the middle of the night, while we were keeping watch, Uncle Algie and I got to talking, just to keep each other awake. He'd known I'd been going out with Sara, and I told him she'd broken up with me. He'd spent this afternoon with Gran, just sitting beside her and talking and talking to her, about anything that came into his head, sort of trying to bring her back to herself. He must have passed onto her what I'd told him, maybe when I stepped out to have a bite to eat.

'What about Sara?' I asked her, once I'd figured it out.

She managed a little wave with her good hand. 'Muggle,' she said, shaking her head and frowning. She said like it was a bad word, a sour taste in her mouth.

'I don't want you saying anything against muggles,' I told her. I sounded stern, I guess. 'It was muggles who saved your life, Gran.' She was studying my face so hard, as if she saw something there she was trying to understand. I hesitated and then said, 'Sara didn't leave me because she was a muggle, Gran. She left me because she didn't want me.'

She just held my hand tightly, and looked at me. The only sound was the beeping from the monitors, and the rain coming down. And it was selfish, but suddenly I was glad that just for that moment she couldn't talk. Not right then, anyway. The old Gran would have said something to me, something brisk and dismissive and unsentimental, that was meant to help me get over it, but it would have only made me feel worse. But she couldn't.

That look she gave me was exactly what I needed, all by itself.

Neville

Comments: