Matt paused and looked back. She released his arm. “She hasn’t been sleeping well lately, so it’s probably better if we let her sleep a bit. She has a bell, and will ring as soon as she needs anything.” She paused. “Unless you’re in a hurry to get back to work? If so, I suppose I could wake her up.”
Matt shook his head and shrugged off his jacket. He tossed it over a chair and looked around. “No. I’m fine. I told people I had a family emergency and wouldn’t be in for a while. I brought my laptop, so if you just have a kitchen chair and telephone line for me, I’ll be fine for a few days.”
A few days? She wouldn’t survive several days with him in the house. “Matt, you don’t have to stay. She just wanted to see you for a minute. She wants to talk to you about…”
Yes, Jo, a sarcastic voice whispered in her ear. What is it she wants to talk to Matt about?
Jo bit her lip. She had to tell Matt. She wasn’t sure how she was going to tell him, but he had to know before he talked to her grandmother.
“…some things. Well, anyway, there are plenty of kitchen chairs.” She led the way to the kitchen, where she had consumed untold gallons of coffee for the past couple of weeks. Somehow everything looked surreal with Matt at her side again. “Would you like some coffee? Or tea?” She knew he preferred coffee, knew how he liked his coffee, was familiar with the way he liked to stir it even though he never added sugar or cream, but they were strangers now. She was determined to keep it that way, to treat him like a stranger.
“Thanks. Coffee would be great.”
She poured him a cup, put milk and sugar on the table, even though she knew he used neither, and sat opposite him at the kitchen table. She’d expected anger in his eyes, real anger, not the momentary fury of shock over her vanished hair. There had certainly been enough anger last time they’d seen each other. But now there was none. Just wariness in the way he looked at her, as if he wasn’t sure what to expect. Somehow, the lack of anger was disappointing. He didn’t care anymore—if he ever had, if it had ever been more than infatuation. The old woman napping in the guest room was now all they shared.
“Why is she staying in the guest room?”
“She suggested it herself. Going up and down the stairs was getting to be difficult for her, and she likes to be able to come to the dining room to eat.”
Matt held his teaspoon between forefinger and middle finger and started work on creating a whirlpool in his mug. His eyes were steady on hers, too familiar and too alien, both at once. “Fill me in, Jo. What’s wrong with her?”
Joanna shrugged. “We’re not really sure what is wrong, except the big one: old age. I visit at least twice a month, and I started to notice about a month ago that she was a bit preoccupied and absent. I was worried, but her memory seemed to be functioning fine. But then for about two weeks now, she’s been feeling very weak, and she hasn’t wanted to get out of bed much. So I moved in for the time being. The doctor says he can’t find anything specifically wrong with her, but at her age…” Joanna bowed her head and warmed her hands on her own cup. She wasn’t ready to let Grandma go. Far from it. “We just don’t know. She thinks she’s dying. She’s quite sure she only has a few days left. I don’t know. At her age, people may sense these things. Be ready to go. The doctor says he’s seen that before.”
Matt put his elbows on the table and raked both hands through his hair as he stared into his coffee cup. “It’s been months, hasn’t it? I haven’t seen her for months…not since we’d just started—”
“She asks a lot about you,” Jo interrupted. “She keeps talking about you.”
“She does?”
“Yes…” Joanna clenched her fists on the table. Tell him! she screamed at herself, but somehow she couldn’t make herself do it. It was too complicated. She didn’t know how to explain her reasoning, how to make him understand how logical it had been at the time.
“Dammit,” he swore. “I should have been there. I should have come to see her more often.”
The soft jingle of the bell drifted into the kitchen, and before Joanna had even put down her mug, Matt was already out of the room.
“Matt! Wait. I need to tell you something…”
Too late. He had already vanished into her grandmother’s room. Joanna pushed herself away from the table and ran after him, cursing her own cowardice.
Too late. From here on, it was all about damage control.
When she entered the room, Matt was bent over her grandmother, his arms around her. Grandma’s beaming face was visible over his shoulder.
“Esther!” Matt said warmly. “It’s been too long. You know how I tend to let the office swallow me up until I forget everything. You shouldn’t let me get away with it.”
Grandma smiled, blue eyes sparkling at the sight of her godson, but she didn’t sit up, a depressing sign of her weakened state. “Until you forget everything? Not quite everything, I hope,” she said, looking at Joanna with a grin. Matt glanced back too, his smile absent and his expression puzzled.
“I’ll leave you two alone,” Joanna said, all courage gone. It was too late even for damage control. She’d made a huge mistake. All she could do now was hope Matt caught on and didn’t say anything to upset Grandma. “Just call me if you need anything.”
“No, wait, Jo.” Her grandmother’s trembling hand reached out toward her. “Don’t go. I want you here as well. I need to talk to both of you.”
Joanna hesitated, then came to her grandmother’s side on the other side of the bed from Matt. She sat down on the edge of the bed. Matt pulled up a chair and sat down too, his hand in Esther’s.
“So, how are you, old crone?” he asked, squeezing her hand. “You were still beating me at chess last time I saw you. What are you doing in bed this time of the day? Someone steal all your dresses from the clothesline?”
Joanna watched her grandmother’s eyes brighten as the two of them began their usual banter. She should have called Matt sooner, she castigated herself. Grandma loved to see him, but didn’t want to bother him much, despite all her cracks about curing him of his workaholism.
Grandma looked between them, smiling. “I’m so happy to have both of you here, finally. You see, I don’t think it’ll be long until I get to find out what the afterlife is all about.” She shook her head when Matt started to protest. “Don’t. I’m old and I’m tired. I’ll be ready to go soon.” She took a wheezing breath. “I have a request for you. Both of you.”
“Anything,” Matt muttered. “You know that, Esther. All you have to do is beckon and we jump.”
Grandma’s face creased in laughter, and her eyes were shining as she looked at Matt. “Good.” She tightened her grip on their hands. “Because you see, I want you two to get married before I go.”
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