It's All Relative(11)

When her phone switched over to an answering machine, Kai started pacing his small room. After ten minutes, he decided to call back. She could have been in the bathroom or maybe outside, tending to her greenhouse. Kai’s grandfather had died several years ago, and with most of her children spread across the globe, his grandmother been living alone at her house for a long time. Kai knew she was self sufficient, but she wasn’t getting any younger either. She was well into her eighties, and people that age could get hurt pretty easily.

When she didn’t answer the phone on his second attempt to get ahold of her, Kai felt that a drop-in wouldn’t be uncalled for. Making sure he had his wallet and keys, he grabbed his jacket from the floor of the kitchen and locked up his apartment.

He found his street bike right in the spot he’d left it in his building’s underground parking. He hadn’t had a whole lot of cash when he’d moved here, but a finding a cheap motorcycle had been a top priority. Slipping on the helmet that he kept on the handlebar, he settled himself over the bike. He’d discovered the ad for a used 2005 Suzuki GSX-R1000 while searching for an apartment. Kai had secured and paid for the bike while still in Hawaii, knowing that he could probably fix anything that might be wrong with it. He’d been around bikes his entire life, and had spent several summers fixing them up with his dad.

As he started the engine, he thought he’d gotten pretty lucky—it ran like a dream. But as he sloshed through the wet streets of downtown Denver, he started questioning his decision about owning a motorcycle in the freezing Mile High City. He was a bike guy, though. It was bright blue and unbelievably fast. Maybe one day Kai would save up and get a Jeep too, so he could be a little more insulated from the icy chill, but for right now, he could get by with just this.

Flying down the wet streets, the bottom of his jeans getting soaked along the way, he drove to where his grandmother had told him her house was located. It should have taken him fifteen minutes, but not knowing the city very well, it ended up taking him well over half an hour. Finally finding the place, he shut off the bike, propped his helmet on the handlebar, and walked up to the modest, white, one-story dwelling.

Empty flower boxes were in the windows and an empty bird feeder was perched right in front of a large bay window. Kai peeked through the window as he approached the house, but all the lights inside were off, and it was pretty dark. That was odd to Kai, since his dad had told him that Grandma didn’t leave her house much anymore. His father had even considered putting her in a home, but Kai had convinced him that he would check in on her as often as he could while he was living here. Kai understood the importance of independence. And besides, from what he knew about her, his grandmother would never agree to move to a home anyway.

Just as he brought his hand up to knock on the front door, he heard someone say, “Are you looking for Millie, son?”

Turning, Kai saw a wrinkled old lady peeking her head out the front door of the house next to his grandmother’s. “Um, excuse me?” he asked politely, his head still feeling a little slow.

The old woman stepped out of her home and shuffled onto her porch. Clutching a fuzzy blue robe around her body, she tilted her head at Kai. “Millie Harper. That’s her house, but she’s not there. Are you looking for her?”

Kai turned to the neighbor and dropped his hand from where he still had it raised to knock. “Uh, yeah. Do you know where she is?”

The old woman beamed, like she was bursting at the seams to finally be able to tell someone everything she knew. “Oh, it s been a busy morning. Ambulances, fire trucks. Very exciting!”

Kai’s eyes widened, and he took a step toward the woman. If his grandmother had had a heart attack while he’d been sleeping off a hangover, he didn’t think he would ever forgive himself for not taking a few minutes out of his day to come out and see her. “Is she okay?” he called out.

The woman frowned at seeing the shock on his face. “Yeah, she’ll be all right, son. Don’t fret. She fell, broke her hip.”

Kai puffed out a quick breath as relief flooded through him. Immediately, concern rushed in to replace it. “Is she at the hospital then?” He looked around the neighborhood in despair. He could barely remember where his apartment was from here, let alone a hospital he’d never been to.

The woman coughed loudly, her small body racking with the movement. Concerned now for a different reason, Kai wondered if maybe he’d have to rush this curious little old lady to the hospital too. After a moment, her spasm passed. “Yeah, they drove her away. She’s probably already been patched up.”

Closing his eyes, Kai hoped everything had gone okay. When he reopened them, he looked around the streets again. “Um, I’m new here. Can you tell me where the hospital is?”

The old lady smiled. “Sure. How do you know Millie, boy?”

Kai walked across the lawns between the small houses. Coming up to the woman on her porch, he softly said, “She’s my grandmother.”

With a sympathetic smile, the woman put a gnarled hand on his arm when he was finally in front of her. “I’m sure she’ll be fine, son.”

Kai nodded in appreciation, and then listened carefully as she went over the confusing directions.

Twenty minutes later, he was approaching the hospital where his grandmother had been taken. The massive building loomed before him as he shut off his bike and pulled off his helmet. The woman’s directions had been almost impossible to follow, relying more on landmarks than actual road signs, but eventually he’d deciphered where “the house with the purple door” and “the yard with the ‘beware of dog’ sign” were, and made it here. Slipping his helmet over the handle bar, Kai headed toward the entrance to the hospital; nervous energy was coursing through his veins.