The Gown(9)

A sob erupted from Heather’s throat, noisy and mortifying. The placid shoppers around her looked alarmed for a moment, then studiously turned their heads or bent over their phones. Was it kindness or indifference that made them look away?

Another sob, even louder, as if a dam were bursting.

“Heather? Listen to me. Forget the groceries. I want you to take your cart over to the help desk, or whatever they call it, and tell them you need to go. Tell them you have an emergency. Are you listening?”

“Yeah, Mom. I’m listening.” She pulled her cart to the side, steering it carefully so she didn’t bump into anyone. The help desk wasn’t all that far.

“Can Sunita or Michelle come back and get the groceries?”

“I guess.”

“Okay. Then tell whoever’s there that you need to go but your friend will come back for the groceries. Give them your name and number.”

The woman behind the help desk was busy inserting lottery tickets into a countertop display. She glanced up, her smile thinning as she took in Heather’s tearstained face.

“Can I help you?”

“I, uh—”

“Heather. Pass the phone over. I’ll talk to them.”

The woman took the phone when Heather offered it, her questioning frown melting into an expression of sympathy as she listened.

“Hello? Yes? Oh, no. I’m so sorry. Yeah, sure—I can do that. No problem. Okay. No, I won’t hang up.” She handed the phone back. “You’re all set. Your mom explained everything. I’m so sorry about your grandma.”

Heather tried to smile, but even without a mirror she could tell the result was unconvincing. “Thanks. My friend will be along soon.”

She turned herself in the direction of the doors, her phone still tucked against her ear. A minute or two later and she was at her little car. Nan’s old car.

It was an ancient Nissan hatchback, already used when her grandmother had bought it a decade earlier, and entirely lacking in “mod cons,” as Nan liked to say. No air conditioning, no stereo beyond an AM/FM radio, no power steering, and a crank instead of a button to roll down the windows. But it still felt like Nan’s car, and for that reason she would keep it until the wheels fell off.

Collapsing into the driver’s seat, Heather switched her phone to speaker, dumped it onto the dash, and rested her head on the steering wheel.

“Are you still there?”

“Yeah, Mom. Still here.”

“I don’t want you to drive anywhere just yet. You’re too upset.”

Deep breath in. Steady breath out. She’d give it another minute, and maybe her hands would stop shaking, and she’d be able to breathe without that awful choking kind of feeling that clawed at her throat.

“I’ll be okay,” she said after a while. “I just need to get home.”

“Sure. Take a couple of deep breaths. And roll down the window for some air. Can you see okay? Wipe your eyes. Love you, sweetie.”

“Love you, too.”

“Call me when you get home?”

“Promise.”

A fizzing instant of static replaced her mother’s voice, then silence. She swiped at her eyes again, then put the car in gear and pointed it in the direction of home.

Nan was gone.

Nan was dead.

How could it be?

Nan had never seemed that old. She hadn’t even retired until she was eighty. She’d sold the little shop on Lakeshore Avenue that she’d opened fifty years before, and then, five years later, she’d sold her bungalow and moved into Elm Tree Manor, one of those apartment buildings for seniors that had a nurse on call and a dining room for people who didn’t feel like cooking, and so many activities and clubs and outings that she was busier than Heather most weekends.

Heather could admit that Nan had been slowing down a bit. She had stopped driving and cut back on her volunteer work, and when she picked up a cold she hadn’t been able to shake it off in a day or two like she always used to do. Until now, though, she’d always got better. Always.

A staccato beep startled her into awareness. The light had changed without her noticing. She waved in apology to the driver behind, her eyes on the road ahead, her thoughts tangled up in memories of Nan.

She turned left and parked in front of the house, but rather than go straight inside she stayed put, her hands resting on the wheel, and let her gaze drift to the gardens across the street, the sunny side where the ground was warmer and the bulbs had begun to bloom. There were snowdrops and crocuses and even some early daffodils, and she couldn’t be sure if the sight of them made her happy or sad.

Nan had been looking forward to spring. As president of the gardening committee for the Manor, she’d been in charge of the planters on the patio outside the dining room. The last time Heather had visited, Nan had shown her the annuals she’d been growing from seed. Marigolds, sweet alyssum, cosmos, and petunias, arranged in neat banks of rinsed-out yogurt pots on her living room windowsill.

What would happen to Nan’s plants? She had to make sure that someone remembered to water them.

Heather switched off the ignition, took a few deep breaths to steady herself, then braved the short walk to her front door. She only just made it to the bench in the hall before her knees gave out, her purse slipping down her arm to land on the tiled floor.