Total pages in book: 116
Estimated words: 112249 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 561(@200wpm)___ 449(@250wpm)___ 374(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 112249 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 561(@200wpm)___ 449(@250wpm)___ 374(@300wpm)
Honestly.
Even her nurses said so.
Mimi shook her frail fist at Gracen again. “I mean-n it!”
Gracen smiled when the scooter jerked to a stop. A safety feature to keep the machine from driving forward because the throttle had no pressure. “Don’t get your blood pressure up. They won’t let me take you out for a walk when I come on Tuesday.”
The news surprised Mimi enough that her soft hand released Gracen’s when she continued walking forward on the path. The electric motor of the scooter whirled behind Gracen only seconds before her feet had to move out of the way of oncoming tires.
“Hey, watch it!”
“You watch it,” Mimi teased, her head of short, white curls bouncing with her laughter as she sped by Gracen on the path. “What about Tuesday?”
The old woman still had fun.
It reminded Gracen of how the two used to be when she still lived at home, and life seemed perfect in the present. Of course, nothing stayed the same.
“They’ll take your keys again, Nanna,” Gracen warned.
A real threat. The staff had done it once before when Mimi kept using the scooter inside the halls during the winter months when most of the pathways along the perimeter of Valleyview Manor weren’t cleared for walking. The residents didn’t need to test their non-existent balance on ice, after all.
Mimi liked her scooter, though.
Yet, everybody had to follow the same rules.
Gracen came to a stop next to the unmoving scooter, but that tiny smirk her grandmother didn’t try to hide said she wasn’t all that worried about getting her scooter keys confiscated.
“N-now,” Mimi said, unbothered by her constant stutter; a feat that took time and patience in itself, “what did you say about Tuesdays?”
No matter what people said to Gracen—doctors, nurses, whoever—she believed her grandmother’s mind was still as quick as a whip. She rarely missed a click. At least when it came to Gracen.
The first stroke hadn’t affected Mimi’s speech as much as the second one did. Gracen spent four of seven nights a week visiting her grandmother just so the two could do speech therapy together, so they could get back to communicating without tears and frustration. Those troublesome “n”s never gave Mimi a break, though.
“I really didn’t mean to cancel last week,” Gracen replied.
“What about the week before?” Mimi pressed.
Gracen didn’t have a good excuse for missing promised visits with her grandmother. Just the sad truth.
“Life’s a little busy. Last week, I just forgot.”
Truly.
It made her feel shitty to say it.
Gracen barely had time to breathe on a regular day, but she understood she needed to make some. Just like her grandmother and the manor. Maybe she didn’t have a lot of available time to spend during their designated visiting hours considering they matched with her work hours at the Haus. Saturdays, which Gracen still worked, and Sundays—her only day off during the week—had extended hours for visiting the manor and were also days family could check residents out of the facility for a time.
No excuse, barring the past two weeks that had taken Gracen’s focus elsewhere, she showed up every weekend to see Mimi. Even took her to the falls on nice weekends when the weather permitted, and Delaney had time to come so that Mimi had the required second support person needed to sign her out of Valleyview.
“And Tuesdays?” Mimi asked.
See.
She still hadn’t forgotten about that.
Gracen grinned down at her grandmother before kneeling enough to catch her smaller hands in her own. “I volunteered Tuesdays to the manor. So now you’ve got me Sundays and Tuesdays, every week.” Unless it was a holiday, but Gracen would work on that, too. Those details weren’t important right now. “I filled out some paperwork before I came to your room, actually. They need to do a background check, but every Tuesday I will be here with my shears and kit to cut some hair, maybe do some colors, and talk all day if you want.”
She chose not to mention how the head of the manor’s acquisitions pointed out they were looking to hire someone on a full-time basis. Mimi would only grab hold of the wild idea and run with it, and nothing Gracen could say—reasonable or otherwise—would make a difference.
The news made Mimi beam all the same. She even tipped her head up to get a better look at Gracen through the frames of her tortoise shell glasses when she asked quietly, “Really?”
She clutched Gracen’s hands harder.
“Really, Nanna.”
The whoop her grandmother let loose drew the attention from others further down the walk near the fountain and benches along the side of the main building. Not that Mimi seemed to care about the people, or anything really, except the happiness that shot her forward again on her scooter.
The sight alone made Gracen’s whole day better. She’d been so careful during her visit with Mimi not to bring along the drama in her personal life. Not that her grandma would mind when just a handful of years ago the gossip over bingo had once been her top priority at least three nights a week. But she talked about those times of her life a lot less, now; Mimi often didn’t ask about people Gracen talked about, like Delaney, even, unless her granddaughter brought the person into the conversation first. As if she’d forgotten that the person existed for a time. The memory problems went further than just her nan’s inability to keep track of her crafting supplies in her resident suite.