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  “Teagan? He was never interested in Teagan.”

  Wow, she really did know all the details of her grandson’s life.

  She seemed to read my mind. “Cara, did Suzi or AJ ever tell you about our family? About why Suzi was so close to her grandfather and AJ and I are so close?”

  “Not really. I just kind of assumed that they were blessed.”

  “That is a lovely thought, Cara, and I would say that my husband and I were blessed, but Suzi and AJ had difficult parents. They weren’t abused or beaten or anything that dramatic. Their parents simply didn’t make them their biggest priority.”

  I didn’t say anything. I couldn’t. What is it with our family? We all seem to attract people that have never had what we almost take for granted. Parents whose eyes light up when we walk in the room. Every time. Stupid me, I thought that was normal.

  “My husband and I did our best to make up for that. We didn’t overstep, but we were always available. If there was need for a babysitter, we volunteered. We brought the children to Disneyland when they were young. We took them for summers. We made sure that someone was at every event. We did not parent them, but we did grandparent them. A lot.”

  She laughed, a beautiful laugh.

  AJ walked in. “What? What were you guys talking about?”

  Nana looked a little guilty.

  I smiled, “Fine, we were talking about your toilet training, and how cute you were when you were little, and all that mushy stuff that girls talk about when guys are out of the room.”

  I don’t think he fully bought it, but he did blush and let it go.

  “The nurse says you are as healthy as a horse.”

  “I told you that.”

  “You weren’t as healthy as a horse when we went to the doctor today. You scared me. A lot.”

  “Don’t be silly AJ. I’m old. The systems are starting to fail. There is nothing we can do about that. I was a little bit dehydrated. It isn’t the end of the world.”

  “I get that, but do you understand how important you are? You need to take care of yourself. If you get sick, it’s gonna kill me.”

  “AJ, darling, I am going to get sick. I am going to die. That’s how life works. You are not to upset yourself about the possibilities. All I want out of death is to do it quickly and painlessly if at all possible. I have lived a good life AJ. A long one. Don’t fret when it ends. You and your sister have been the very best part of that life, and it would hurt me deeply if all those good times were overwritten in your memory by my leaving this earth.”

  “We aren’t going to talk about it. I’ve made a decision. You aren’t going to die. Ever.”

  We all let out a nervous chuckle.

  “AJ, please do me a favor. The problem I’m having trying to relax is that I can’t sleep with these terrible pillows and blankets on me. Could you please run over to my place and get my pillow and the pink flowered quilt on the end of my bed. I promise you it will help me to rest. Take Cara with you, there is no reason to have her sit here with an old woman she doesn’t even know.”

  “I can run over and get your pillow and blanket if you’d like AJ to stay.”

  AJ, instantly upset, said: “Oh no you can’t. You’re not going anywhere alone. Period.”

  Nana’s hospital room was not the right place to put AJ in his place, so I kept my mouth shut.

  “Never mind. It really isn’t that important.”

  “Nana, I’ll go get your pillow and blanket, Cara will stay here.”

  With that, he turned on his heel and disappeared. It really isn’t like AJ to be a complete butt, so I was ready to let it go.

  Nana had other ideas.

  “Just what was that all about? I don’t often see AJ act so boorish.”

  “We’ve had a rough few days. It’s a really long story.”

  “I have a lot of time, I’m not going anywhere, Dear.”

  I filled her in on the basics. Not enough detail to upset her, but enough that she could understand why her grandson would be worried enough about me to be forgiven for being a jerk.

  I told her about the more personal complications we’d been having, like when I thought he was a trollop-hugger. I also gave her a slightly scrubbed version of everything going on with Jerkface.

  “This sounds like great fun, were it not dangerous. May I ask you a question Cara?”

  “Certainly.”

  “Who are the girls in the journals?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Did he identify them?”

  “That’s the thing. They have names, well, some of them do, but I don’t know them, have never heard of them, so I really don’t know who they are.”

  “Cara, in this day and age you should be able to figure out something so simple. Get on your computer and do a search. Put in their names, individually, and together. Put them in quotes and see if anything comes up. Go to Google’s advanced search page and work from there.”

  “Wow, you know more about computers than I do.”

  “If that’s true, Dear, it doesn’t speak well of your abilities.”

  We laughed.

  “Now tell me what was on the memory cards.”

  “I don’t know.”

  “What do you mean you don’t know? Cara, the woman my grandson describes is bright, inquisitive, capable. The woman you describe to me is a ninny. Which are you, Dear?”

  “I think I am what AJ describes, with recent ninny moments.”

  “And why is that?”

  “I’m not sure.”

  “Well, I think it would be best for you to figure that out. I don’t want the mother of my great-grandchildren to be a ninny and I’m certain that you are she.”

  I just didn’t know what to do with that statement, so I said nothing.

  The truth is, I have been acting like a ninny, and ninny-ness is not a good thing, especially if you’re going to be bold enough to figure out the stuff I have to figure out, and soon, because if Jerkface screws up my brother’s wedding, they just might have to try me for murder.

  Messing with me is bad. Messing with my family is completely unacceptable.

  The fact that I just thought that is not good. Why should my family be more mess-proof than me? I’ll have to think about that another day.

  Nana waited patiently while I thought all those thoughts, and then said, “Cara, I have a smartphone if you would like to start checking on those girls now.”

  “I don’t remember everything, but I do remember a few details. I could at least get some ideas.”

  “That would be a start Dear.”

  “I thought you weren’t supposed to use a phone in a hospital because it could mess up the equipment. They always tell you to switch them off.”

  “Then go outside.”

  “Do you know what your grandson is going to do to me if he catches me outside?”

  “Oh, grow a pair!”

  I couldn’t believe she said that to me. A grandma! We both laughed so hard I worried we were going to set off an alarm. When we calmed down, I decided she was right, and headed downstairs.

  I decided that being brave is good, but being foolish is bad, so with my new pair well in hand, sorry, phrased that wrong, with my new found bravery, I headed for the ER, figuring that I’d stand outside, but in a well traveled area.

  It turned out to be a waste of time. I could remember some names, but wasn’t positive I had them right. I could remember some details, but wasn’t certain that I had the right details with the right girls, and unfortunately, a murdered girl isn’t as rare as you would hope.

  I even did a Google search for ‘akimbo’. I found everything from a music group to a woman’s help group, but I didn’t find anything that mentioned legs akimbo, like Louis kept saying in his journals, well, except for a couple of novels. I’m looking for real life. Or at least I think I am.

  I headed back up to Nana’s room and got there a nanosecond before AJ. He noticed. One of the things I like about him is that w
e’re so on the same page. One of the things that’s starting to drive me nuts, is that we’re so on the same page.

  Nana stepped in before AJ could do more than sputter.

  “Stop. She left the room for a moment. What? Do I need a babysitter now? Young man, you and I are going to come to blows if you don’t relax. I’m fine. Cara is fine. You need to be fine too.”

  “Yes ma’am.”

  “Better. Now, you can tuck in my pillow and blanket, and then the two of you can go home.”

  “No. I’m not going home.”

  “Young man.”

  “Do not young man me. If you want me to go home, then you need to stop talking, rest, get better, get released, then we will all go home. By the way, Suzi called while I was on my way to your house.”

  “You weren’t talking on that damned contraption while you were driving were you? God forbid you get hurt, it would be even worse if you hurt someone else.”

  “I had my Bluetooth in my ear in case Cara or the hospital called. All I had to do was touch the thing to start the conversation and touch it again to end it. They say that the problem is when you hold the phone to your ear. I kept it short.”

  “How is Suzi?”

  “She’s more concerned about how you are.”

  “AJ, you did not tell that child that I’m in the hospital did you?”

  “No.”

  “Then what are you talking about?”

  “Mom told her.”

  “Wonderful. You assured her that I am fine?”

  “I tried.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “It means she says she’s coming home.”

  “By the time she gets here, I’ll be home.”

  “She isn’t coming to visit, she’s coming back to live here.”

  “I’ll have no part of that. She has a new husband. They have a new life and with any luck at all they will soon give me a new great-grandchild. You call her this instant and tell her that she is not to change her life around for me.”

  “Oh, believe me, we had that conversation. She isn’t coming only because of you, turns out her husband was offered a transfer. They’re closing down the offices where he now works. He was offered a job in the offices here, or an office in Atlanta, or an office in Ohio. He told his bosses that he would prefer here or Atlanta. They decided to send him here.”

  “Okay. That’s reasonable.”

  I couldn’t help it. I was so excited that Suzi would be back in town, I squealed. Right there in the hospital. “When?”

  “They’ll be here soon to look for a place. The company offered to pay for relocation, a pretty good package, but they decided that they wanted as much goodwill at the office as they could get. They offered to do the move on their own. U-Haul is gonna be their friend. They’re going to pack everything up, caravan the truck and their cars, and do the move themselves.”

  “That sounds like fun.”

  “It does?”

  “Sure. When they’re packing they can get rid of all the stuff they don’t need and organize all the stuff they do need. If they do it right, they’ll have everything set up so that when they move into their new place they can unpack and have everything fresh and organized in no time.”

  Both AJ and his grandmother looked incredulous and blurted at the same time, “Suzi?”

  “Good point.”

  “Perhaps you could be of assistance to them Cara. Perhaps you can walk Suzi through that process.”

  AJ sounded frustrated already. “I swear to God Cara, if you would be willing to go help Suzi, I’d pay all your expenses. I know you would never take money for helping family, but I could pay for you to fly there and any expenses you had while you were there. I’d even fly out and drive back with you in the truck or in one of the cars.”

  “I could do that.”

  “Really? You would do that for me?”

  “For you, and Suzi, and Nana.”

  Her smile is lovely. I love an aged face. Not my own of course, but on other people, I just love it.

  Nana took over. “AJ, you go outside and you call your sister right now. You tell her about Cara’s generous offer. You tell her not to do anything until she talks to Cara. I love the girl, but organization is not her forte, and if they’re doing this on a budget, organization is key.”

  “Yes ma’am.”

  AJ walked out the door without further comment.

  I love that he loves his grandma.

  “Thank you Cara.”

  “My pleasure. I have a wedding to go to, and my sister and I are going on a cruise at some point, but I’ll make it work. I love to organize and scrub and boss people around.”

  She laughed. “For that too, but what I was speaking of, is the love you have for my grandson. I’ve prayed his whole life that he would fall in love with a woman who would light up every time he walks in the room. You do that. His eyes light up every time he says your name. They say that a man will fall in love with a woman very much like his mother…”

  My brain flipped. That sure went from a compliment to an insult in a hurry. Was I detached? Cold? Before the whole thought could form, Nana explained.

  “I prayed that AJ would find someone quite unlike his mother, someone kind, and family oriented, and someone that would love him through the bad moments in life. I think he has found you.”

  I didn’t know what to say, and I didn’t want to cry, “Thank you.”

  “Cara, I’m fine now, but when you get to be my age, you start to recognize that the life you have left is getting shorter. You want to make it worth something. You want to make sure that the people you love, the people you will leave behind, will be well cared for.”

  I took a deep breath and slapped my thighs with my hands, making just a little bit too much noise in a hospital room, “Okay, you know what, this is getting all together too heavy-hearted. All my life I’ve tried to avoid giving my dad a heavy heart. We can’t go there our very first meeting. I can’t tell you how much I appreciate what you have said about AJ and me, but you need to know, that whatever happens between me and AJ, you will always be the most important woman in his life, and you need to stick around.”

  I decided I’d cry later. The smile on her face was enough to keep me together for a little while.

  I decided to change the subject to something a little safer, like serial murder, “So, I went downstairs and searched everything I could think of, but I didn’t get much information. Your idea is probably the best one anyone has had so far, I have no idea why I didn’t think of it.”

  “Sometimes when you’re in the middle of a problem, it’s hard to see around the corners.”

  “True. I’ll do all those kinds of searches when I get home.”

  “Good. And Cara, while you’re at it, you might want to do a couple of other little things.”

  I pulled out my phone to take notes. “Shoot.”

  She laughed, “Nothing that drastic Dear. It is unreasonable for you to hand over the memory cards to another party and not even know what is on them. Should a situation arise that you need that information as a bargaining chip, you have nothing to put on the table. You are not protecting yourself at all.”

  “You know, I don’t know what came over me. There are two kinds of people in the world. Those that want all the facts so they know what’s going on, even if they can’t do anything about it right that second, and those that don’t want to know what’s going on, almost until it’s too late, so that they can ignore the problem. I’ve always been the first kind of person. I hate the kind of person that looks the other way when a challenge is presented. I’ve never been that kind of person, well, not until lately.”

  “So, what changed?”

  “I’m not sure.”

  “Could it be that you’ve never had anything to lose before?”

  “Not really. I’ve always had my family. I would do anything for them. I’d trade my life for any one of theirs.”

  “But Cara, in your life, you
r family has always been a given. In a very real sense you take for granted that no matter what happens, if it is within their control, your family will stand with you 100%.”

  “That’s true. They might want to kill me, but they would never allow anyone else that privilege.”

  “Perhaps all this self-doubt and self-deprecation comes from a place of insecurity. Perhaps you’re not being as bold as you once were, for fear that if you are, someone will find it unattractive.”