Farrah Rochon - A Forever Kind of Love

Mya could hardly comprehend the scene unfolding before her eyes. This could not be happening. She’d just buried her granddad yesterday. She was not staring at her grandmother on a hospital gurney.

But she was. This was real.

Mya snapped out of her trance and shook out of Corey’s embrace. “Aunt Mo, you ride in the ambulance. I’ll follow behind.”

They followed the gurney outside. Mya watched as they loaded her grandmother into the back of the ambulance, then she ran to her bedroom and stripped out of her shorts, pulling on a pair of jeans and a roomy T-shirt over her tank top. She was back in the kitchen in less than two minutes.

Corey was drying his hands on a dish towel. “You ready?” he asked.

“Uh, yes. Where’s Elizabeth?” she asked.

“She took Maureen’s car to the hospital. I told her I’d drive you.”

“Okay,” Mya said with a shaky breath. She looked around the kitchen, unsure of what she was searching for. Maybe there was something they would need at the hospital. Mya didn’t realize she was trembling until Corey caught her upper arms.

“She’s going to be okay,” he said.

She stared into his confident eyes. It was easy to believe words said with such conviction. Mya fed off of it.

“Yes, she will,” she answered.

Corey gave her shoulders a light squeeze. “Then let’s get out of here. Your grandmother needs you.”

She nodded, for once grateful for his presence. “Let’s go.”

* * *

In the twenty minutes it had taken them to reach the small hospital in Maplesville, right outside of Gauthier, Mya had managed to work herself into another fit of nerves. They weighed heavy in her stomach, twisting and tangling like snakes in a hot skillet.

What if something happened to her grandmother?

“No,” Mya said out loud.

“What?” Corey asked from the driver’s seat. He’d driven fifteen miles over the posted speed limit from the moment they’d pulled away from the house, maneuvering his bulky Cadillac Escalade as if it were a sleek sports car. “Mya.” He waited for her to look at him. “She’s going to be okay.”

“You don’t know that,” Mya said with a catch in her voice.

“Your grandmother is even more stubborn than Big Harold was. She’s not going anywhere for a long time.”

They pulled up to the hospital’s emergency room entrance, and Mya was out of the SUV before it came to a complete stop.

“Sir, you have to move your vehicle. This is a restricted area,” she heard someone tell Corey.

She ran to the nurses’ station. “Eloise Dubois?” she asked. “She was brought in after fainting.”

“Mya!” Maureen called.

Mya raced toward her aunt. “How is she?”

“I don’t know yet, but she was awake by the time we got here.”

“Thank God,” Mya cried.

“Come on.” Her aunt took her elbow. “The nurse said she’d come find us in the waiting room.”

Mya followed, anxiety still shooting through her veins. She crumpled into the closest chair, not trusting her legs to hold her up a second longer. She cradled her face in her hands and took a couple of slow, deep breaths. Aunt Mo sat in the chair next to her and rubbed her hand up and down Mya’s arm.

“How’d this happen, Aunt Mo?”

“Because she’s hardheaded and doesn’t like to take care of herself.” Maureen shook her head. “I know part of it is my fault. With everything going on this week with Daddy’s funeral, I haven’t been paying as much attention as I should. I usually make sure she checks her blood sugar.”

“Don’t start blaming yourself.”

“Oh, I’m not blaming myself entirely. She’s a grown woman, and she knows what she should and shouldn’t do. But like I said, she’s hardheaded. People have been bringing food over to the house around the clock, and she’s been nibbling on everything. I know they mean well, but it just makes it harder to keep the wrong foods out of Mama’s mouth.”

Familiar guilt assailed Mya once again. It wasn’t solely up to Aunt Maureen to take care of Grandma. Mya should have been here helping. Her grandparents had raised her since the age of three, after her mother had decided to leave Gauthier and make a life for herself with the first in a string of men.

It was the best thing that could have happened to Mya. Her grandparents had always been there for her, but she had not done the same in return.

Corey stalked into the waiting room. “How is she?” he asked.

“We’re still waiting on the nurse,” Aunt Mo answered.

He sat in the seat across from Mya, his knees braced apart. Snippets of grass clung to the short hairs on his legs.

“You don’t have to stay,” Mya told him.

“I’m not leaving until I know Mrs. Eloise is okay,” he answered.

“I can call—”

“Don’t try to explain anything to him,” Aunt Mo said. “He’s as stubborn as your grandmother, which is why they get along so well.”

“You and my grandmother get along?” Mya blurted. “She hated you when we were growing up.”

“She got over it,” Corey said in a clipped voice that clearly told Mya to do the same. He rested his elbows on his thighs and clasped his hands together.

The aroma of sweat, grass and dirt hit Mya square in the face, reminding her of how he’d smelled when he would come to her after baseball practice, not bothering to take a shower. In her horny, sex-crazed teenage mind, it hadn’t mattered one bit. They would go at it like rabbits in the cab of his daddy’s dusty pickup, parked under that big pecan tree in old Mr. Herbert’s field.

Mya tore her eyes away from his toned brown legs. She didn’t need any reminders of those long-ago mistakes.

Corey rose. “I need coffee,” he said. “Anybody else want some?”

“I’d love some,” Maureen answered. “There isn’t any here, though. The nurse said the coffeemaker is broken.”

“There’s a little place right next door called Drusilla’s. They sell good egg-and-cheese sandwiches. You want something to eat?”

“Just the coffee,” Aunt Mo answered.

“Mya?” Corey asked.

She shook her head. “I’m fine.” Truth was Mya didn’t trust her stomach to keep anything down. She was a ball of nerves. She doubted the condition would improve until she saw her grandmother alert and well.

Minutes passed with only the low hum of a late-model television mounted in the corner making any noise. It was the quiet peacefulness that alerted Mya that something was missing. “Where’s Elizabeth?” she asked Aunt Mo.

“I don’t know,” her aunt said with an agitated wave of her hand. “The gift shop, I think.”

“She would find somewhere to shop,” Mya snorted.

“That’s how she calms herself down. Don’t complain. I’d rather her out there bothering those people than in here bothering me.”

“I know you had the chance to drown her at birth,” Mya said.

Aunt Mo nodded. “I should have taken it. Though you wouldn’t be here.”

“It’s a sacrifice I’d have made to save the planet from Elizabeth Dubois.”

As if she’d heard her name, her mother burst through the waiting room door, followed by a doctor in green scrubs and white tennis shoes.

“She’s going to be okay,” Elizabeth cried.

Mya jumped from her seat and rushed over to the doctor, trying not to hold her high blond ponytail and Hello Kitty earrings against her. Mya wasn’t too keen on her grandmother’s life resting in the hands of someone who looked barely out of medical school.

“How is she?” Mya asked. “Can we see her?”

“She’s going to be fine,” the doctor answered patiently. “You’ll be able to see her soon.”

“What happened?” Mya asked.