That night, Grandma was in such a lucid, coherent frame of mind that when she asked, “Jemma dear, might we go watch the sun rise?” that I just couldn’t say no. I wasn’t sure where the idea had come from, and I was sure it wasn’t exactly the best idea ever to take an elderly invalid out for an off-road walk, but she seemed emphatic that she really wanted nothing more out of the remainder of her life than to take a trip down to the shore in order to watch that wavering ball of fire make its final descent for the day out over the water. Who was I to deny a dying woman such a simple request?

Lily and Aiden were beside themselves with excitement for whatever reason, and hopped around the upstairs bedrooms like two little monkeys on ecstacy while Connie and I struggled to maneuver Grandma into the wheelchair that had at one time been purchased for her doctor visits. Fortunately, her surprising mental clarity seemed to bring with it a renewed muscle strength so that she was able to support herself at least enough to be helped slowly down the stairs and to the waiting wheelchair.

“Mom, can I push it?” Aiden begged. I raised my eyebrow, curious if he really thought I was going to let a four-year-old push my aged grandmother along the uneven sidewalk and sandy shore. He read my look and let out a huff of air, but quickly forgot what he was upset about, grabbing Lily’s hand and joining her in some strange march that required them to lift their knees up almost clear to their chests. Connie laughed at their energy but declined their request for her to join them, instead falling into step beside me, a camera clutched in her yellowed fingers.

“We don’t really have any family photos,” she explained. “At least, I don’t have any pictures of the three of you, so . . .” She didn’t finish her explanation, but I didn’t care. If she was going to get a thrill out of having pictures of us all, so be it. I could appreciate having a few photographs of the kids with their great-grandmother.

A serene sea breeze had struck up in the late afternoon, though even it couldn’t entirely banish the stickiness that made the heavy air cling to our skin and lungs. Somehow, though, in light of this rare family outing, physical discomforts were easy to forget. Lily and Aiden made up a song about the beach, occasionally calling for Connie or me to come up with our own line. Grandma laughed and clapped and in many ways seemed like the same wiry old woman that had raised me.

We walked down the street until the sidewalk gave out, then crossed the narrow dirt road and continued slowly along the sandy beach, the wheelchair complaining and leaving two ruts in the sand. We didn’t rest, though, until we had reached the short brick wall that at one point in time had surrounded an ice cream stand. Now the wooden stand had long since been torn down by hurricane winds, the wood no doubt dragged out to sea to wash up on some shore in maybe Florida or Cuba. The wall remained, though, and provided the perfect bench for Connie and I to collapse on, Grandma in her wheelchair between us.

“Mommy, look!” Aiden insisted, turning a somersault so that he came up with his hair full of sand. Lily giggled and tried to do a handstand, her hands slipping in the loose sand and her legs flailing all over the place.

The beauty of the sunset was lost on them, but Connie, Grandma, and I couldn’t tear our eyes away from it. The sheer depth of the oranges, reds, and yellows that seized hold of the sky were enough to leave the most stoic among us breathless, and the pink clouds scattered above our heads and reflected in the red surface of the water could bring a heartless man to tears. My eyes watered at the brightness and I sighed as several seagulls darted across the painting, belting out their song to the sea breeze rustling our hair. Though I knew I had my reasons, and very good reasons at that, I wondered myself how it was that I was managing to live so far from . . . from this. From being able to walk out my door and watch such absolute, breath-taking beauty right in front of me. How had I ever taken this for granted as a teenager?

“Lily, Aiden, stop playing around,” Grandma suddenly barked, motioning with her withered hands for them to come to us. “Stop for just a moment and come look at this.”

“Look at what, Grandma?” Lily asked, clambering up into my lap as Aiden crawled onto the wall beside me.

She smiled, her cracked lips pulling back to reveal tiny, pearly teeth as she answered, “The sunset. I raised two generations of babies and I think my biggest mistake was not teaching them to appreciate the sunset. They would have all been much happier.”

“We’re here now, Mom,” Connie offered, reaching out and taking Grandma’s hand. It was a sweet gesture, one I wouldn’t expect from Connie. For the first time, she suddenly looked to me like a daughter.

Grandma nodded, “A good ending really can fix the rest of the book, don’t you think?”

That night, sunsets took on a much different meaning. It was nearly ten before Lily and Aiden finally fell asleep, leaving Connie and me to tidy up the kitchen and living room in the most companionable silence I think we had ever been in. We didn’t talk, but simply because we didn’t need to say anything, not because we weren’t talking. I tossed some toys into the laundry basket by the television Timothy had brought over while Connie checked to make sure all the lights were off in the kitchen. We walked together up the stairs and split ways at the top, nodding good nights to each other as Connie assured me she would look in on Grandma.

Five minutes later, Connie was rushing through the door, the phone in her hand as she hissed softly, “Jemma, she’s not breathing.”

Before I could find my voice enough to respond, she was saying into the phone, “I need an ambulance. My elderly mother isn’t breathing.” Oddly enough, though there was definitely a sense of urgency in her voice, she seemed . . . in control. Calm, as though she knew how to handle this. I, on the other hand, felt none of her tranquility. I flew from the bed, nearly knocking Aiden to the floor as I rocketed from the room and raced down the hall to grandma’s bedside.

By the time the ambulance arrived six minutes and twenty-three seconds later, Grandma had started breathing again, stopped again, and started again. She hadn’t opened her eyes, though, and didn’t respond to either my pleading or the tears of Lily and Aiden, huddled outside the door, terrified and confused by all the commotion.

I stepped clear, hugging my children to me as paramedics rolled Grandma onto a stretcher and lugged her downstairs and into the back of the ambulance. I remained silent, ignoring the questions of my children, and only nodding at Connie as she insisted she ride in the ambulance with her mother. As they took off for the hospital, lights flashing even though the siren itself was off, the kids and I dove into the car and tore off after them.

“Mommy, what’s happening?” Lily asked for the hundredth, holding Aiden’s hand in the dark.

I frowned, terrified I would start crying at any minute as fear and helplessness and a deep, deep sorrow began crashing down over my head. I answered honestly, “Grandma’s having some trouble breathing, so the doctors are going to try and help her.”

“Is she going to be all right?”

“I don’t know, sweetie.”

We met Connie in the waiting room where she stood alone, her arms crossed and her mouth twisted into a worried grimace. When we ran in, she explained to us shortly that Grandma’s heart had stopped in the ambulance before starting again on its own accord after several short seconds. They had whisked her off and she wasn’t sure what was going on, but some nurse had told her to wait. She would come find her when they knew anything.

“So what, we just wait?” She nodded. As soon as she sat, Aiden crawled into her lap, while Lily clung to me, perched on my hip as I borrowed the phone at the nurse’s desk to call Mama Loula. I hated to, it being so late and all, but she had insisted I call her if anything happened with Grandma. And what if . . . what if this was it, and I didn’t call her, and Mama Loula didn’t get the chance to say goodbye to her oldest friend all because I was worried about waking her up. They had grown up together. As far as I knew, they hadn’t spent more than a few weeks apart their entire lives. It suddenly struck me how terrible it must be to Mama Loula to watch Grandma go through this, to know that the couple years age difference was suddenly a much greater divide. No wonder she was constantly at the house.

Alex answered the phone, but I didn’t even have the frame of mind to be affected by this. I just rushed out, “Grandma’s taken a turn for the worse and we’re at the hospital. This may be. . . Can you tell Mama Loula?”

“Ten minutes,” was all he answered, though his voice sounded more worried than curt. Grandma had been an important maternal figure in Alex’s life as well, and had continued to be so even after Michael and I could no longer be Alex’s reason for going by the house. I had no doubt the news would hit him hard, too, but that didn’t mean I wasn’t slightly surprised when he stumbled through the doors with Mama Loula on his arm just over ten minutes later. Mama Loula’s hair was all in disarray and her shirt was untucked –a rare occurrence for her. It was obvious they had dashed out of the house.

Before I could voice my surprise or even add anything to Connie’s rushed explanation, though, Timothy came sprinting through the doors as well, looking similarly frazzled. I hadn’t called him, though, and gave him a confused look as I stood to accept his hug, Lily squashed between us.

“How is she?” he asked, looking me in the face with genuine concern.

I shook my head, “I don’t know. We haven’t heard anything yet. We just– but how did you know–“

”Alex called me,” he returned, sending a nod in Alex’s direction. In a lower voice, he added, “He thought . . . you know, in case . . . “ What Timothy was trying to say without actually saying it was that Alex had thought that if this was really it for Grandma, I would need someone to comfort me, and he didn’t want to be the one to do it.

As much as what Timothy wasn’t saying hurt, though, I was too upset to let it make me mad, or to give it much attention. There were other pains to attend to. Instead I nodded dumbly and obeyed when Timothy encouraged me to sit down back beside Connie and Aiden, Lily again burying her face in my shoulder. He bounced his leg anxiously beside me as Alex sat alone in a chair across from us, on the far side of a low coffee table. Mama Loula perched on Timothy’s other side and seemed unconcerned that Alex had separated himself from us. Arms crossed defensively and shoulders slouched lazily in his chair, Alexander Heart couldn’t fool me; I could read the anxiety on his face as clearly as if he had stamped it on there himself. But he didn’t want to hold any of our hands or whisper prayers with us. He didn’t want to be part of us.

Something about sitting in the emergency room lobby in the middle of the night subdues the urgency you would otherwise feel in a situation. Everyone around you is drugged on a combination of sleepiness and anxiety that leaks into your blood stream and somehow manages to muffle the Spanish drama glowing on the television set above your head. It’s as though everyone is walking through syrup, their actions slow and heavy. You watch the world around you in slow motion.

Then suddenly a doctor comes out and announces, “I’m looking for the family of Merle McAliston,” and someone gives the television a kick so that all the movement around you returns to normal speed. Suddenly you can hear everything, even your heart beat in your ears and the breath of your daughter against your neck as you stand to hear the doctor.

“How is she?” Connie asked warily. We could all feel the weight of that question, the importance of every tiny muscle in the doctor’s facial expression as his brain acknowledged the question. His body language could tell us right off the bat whether Grandma was all right or not, and whether “all right” meant alive or dead. But at times like that, your brain just isn’t coherent enough to be bothered reading body language. You have to have everything spelled out for you.

The doctor let out a short sigh, then offered a small smile as he answered, “Ms. McAliston suffered several small strokes. We were able to stabilize her heart, though. The strokes were minor, so we believe damage will be minimal. She’s sleeping now, and we’ll need to keep her at least until tomorrow for observation. Once we determine the extent of the damage, we can decide when best to release her.” He paused for a moment, then asked with almost the same caution Connie had used, “Is she currently in a nursing facility?”

“No,” I answered, the first to find my voice again after the breath had rushed from all our chests in a giant collective sigh of relief. “She’s at home with us.”

“Do you have in-home hospice care?” I shook my head, to which the doctor suggested, “Tomorrow, I think it would be best if you discuss with Ms. McAliston’s doctor about enlisting in-home hospice–“

”We’ll worry about that tomorrow,” I interrupted. The last thing I wanted to worry about now was what was going to happen tomorrow. For now, Grandma was still alive, and the doctor even sounded like she was going to be okay. We still had at least a few more sunsets to watch together. “Can we see her?”

The doctor seemed concerned that none of us cared much about discussing hospice care with him, but suggested, “One or two, yes, but it is best if you don’t disturb her right now. She’s sleeping and that will suit her recovery best.”

“We just want to see her,” Connie insisted when my voice failed me. Recovery? What recovery? A spark of bitterness shot through me that really the damage done by these small strokes was irrelevant, because she was dying either way.

Timothy suggested when the doctor began to explain that children weren’t allowed, “Here, why don’t Lily and Aiden stay here with me and Alex? You girls go check on her.”

“Do you mind?” I asked, turning fully to him. Alex was of no concern. Timothy insisted he didn’t and accepted Lily when I handed her over –thankfully, Lily and Aiden both accepted this arrangement and settled down with Timothy, asking several hushed questions as I followed Connie, Mama Loula, and a nurse down the hall.

Though I never would have dreamed it possible, Grandma looked even smaller and more frail in the sterile hospital gown, buried beneath stark blue hospital sheets. An oxygen tube ran down her nose, and the hospital bracelet around her wrist hung loose. Her legs looked like two tiny twigs beneath the sheets, and her mouth hung open at such an odd angle that she could easily have passed for a corpse. The observation was both terrifying and sickening. But then I heard her faint snores as she closed her mouth, and I managed to smile. As exhausted emotionally and mentally as this ordeal had left me –so much crammed into less than forty-five minutes!– I couldn’t hear her snore without remembering the time she and Grandpa had taken Michael and I camping in the deserts of West Texas. For a week, Michael and I had neither one gotten a wink of sleep because of the thunderous snoring come from both our grandparents within the confines of our tiny tent. It had left us grouchy to the point that the camping trip was truly a disaster. The four of us spent the entire trip fighting. As it turned out, Grandma and Grandpa both had an allergy to some sort of bug spray they had used, which left their sinuses so blocked that their usually faint snoring was intensified. We didn’t discover this until several months after the trip –go figure. But for the rest of our childhood, Grandma and Grandpa had continued to bring up “that camping trip where you two were so bad we were about ready to feed ourselves to the wild coyotes.”

“I’ve seen her better and I’ve seen her worse,” Mama Loula insisted. I wasn’t sure whether it was the truth or just meant to comfort us, but it worked. In order not to disturb her –though I doubted much of anything could rouse Grandma just then– we spent only a few short minutes in the room. Then, planting gentle kisses on her warm and wrinkled forehead, we ducked back out of the room and returned to the waiting room where Lily had fallen asleep in Timothy’s lap and Alex had moved to the chair next to him.

“Well?” Timothy asked simply once we had returned and begun collecting purses and sleepy children.

I shook my head, “About what you would expect. But she’s still alive.”

“That’s a good thing,” he agreed. When I started to mention the possible effects of the strokes that the doctor had enumerated, though –loss of speech, facial control, fine motor control, hearing, sight, or even the ability to sit up– Timothy insisted emphatically, “No, not yet. For now, she’s alive, and that’s a good thing.”

“Okay.” I was too tired to do anything except agree.

Mama Loula wrapped a weary arm around my shoulder after I had pulled Aiden up into my arms and insisted, “I’m glad you called, Jemmalyn, dear. Always call. Just in case.”

“I will,” I promised.

“Good night. I’ll come with you girls tomorrow to take her home.”

“All right.”

Alex still said nothing, silently shadowing her as they led the way out the doors and to the eerily lit parking lot. Timothy walked Connie and me to the car, Lily still fast asleep on his shoulder.

“Thanks for coming up here, Tim,” I sighed once the kids were buckled into the backseat and Connie into the passenger’s seat. Thanks for being here in case I needed someone, since Alex didn’t want to be.

He smiled, “You don’t have to thank me. She means a lot to me, too. Do you need me to follow you home and make sure you make it okay?”

“No, we’ll be fine.”

“You sure?”

“Yeah, I’m sure. Goodnight. Thanks again.” He gave me a tight hug, then jogged to his car across the parking lot, waving as Alex and Mama Loula drove past us. Mama Loula waved but Alex pretended not to see us, and I wondered if this wasn’t enough to get us talking again, what was? But wjat did it matter? My brain was so close to simply shutting itself off that the night had all the reality to it that the Spanish drama playing on the television in the hospital lobby had. Sleep was an orange sunset in paradise.

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