“Hello?”
“Hi, Mr. Waybill. It’s Wendy from Meadewood.”
“Is he okay?”
“Your grandfather is fine, but... he’s having a bit of a rough night,” Wendy says. “Would you be available to come by and talk to him?”
“Of course.” Charlie pulls the truck onto the road’s narrow shoulder and turns on the hazard lights. “I’ll be there in twenty minutes.”
“I’m sure seeing you will help immensely.”
“Yeah, thanks for calling me. See you soon.”
Charlie pushes both hands into his hair and takes a deep breath, eyes closed tight. “I’ll drop you back at the farm on the way,” he says.
“No, don’t worry about it. I don’t want to hold you up at all. I can just wait in the truck or whatever.”
“It might take a while. When he gets like this it can be... It might be a couple hours.”
“Charlie Waybill, I would go to a paint-drying expo if it meant not having to spend a third night in a row listening to Everett’s ideas for aFriendsreboot.”
Gretchen shouldn’t have mentioned Everett. They haven’t talked about him or the curse all day, and she’s certain that’s at least part of the reason Charlie invited her along tonight. Maybe he forgot that he doesn’t like her, that he doesn’t fully trust her. And she just reminded him why.Good job, Gretchen. Very smooth.What is it about this man that both puts her on edge and relaxes her too much? Very discombobulating.
“Okay,” Charlie says, voice quiet. He turns the engine back on and makes a wide U-turn that takes them momentarily into the grass on the other side of the road.
Neither of them speaks as they drive to Meadewood, a small campus of squat buildings in Germantown. They park in the near-empty visitor parking lot near the main building’s front entrance.
“I’ll come in with you,” Gretchen announces, unbuckling her seat belt. Everett has told her so much about Charles in recent days—his boyhood on the farm, his love for Ellen, his rapid decline after her death. Along with the research she did before coming to Gilded Creek, it feels like Gretchen knows Charlie’s grandfather well enough that visiting him might be like seeing an old friend. And she also recognizes the tension in Charlie’s face and... she wants to be there for him. Because she’s trying to prove that she can be a good person, and good people are supportive of others. Right? That’s the reason she suddenly can’t stand the idea of not being there. The sole reason.
“What happened to you staying in the truck?”
“I’ll be good, I promise.”
He sighs as he steps out of the cab, and it’s such a heavymovement that it would do serious damage if it landed on someone’s toes. “Doubt it, but let’s go.”
Charlie isn’t exactly enthusiastic about the idea of her joining him for this errand, and maybe she’s a jerk for exploiting the way his concern for his grandfather takes priority over fighting with her. It’s not going to stop her from opening the door and leaping down from the truck’s cab onto the pavement. No, it’s actually her concern that the jump while wearing her heeled boots for the first time since she hurt her ankle will aggravate the injury that gives her pause.
Charlie walks around the truck and glares at Gretchen, still sitting sideways in the passenger seat. “What’s the holdup?”
“It’s... kinda high?” she says. “And I’m wearing these stupid boots. Last time I was in the truck, I didn’t have a heel to worry about, and—”
“For fuck’s sake, Acorn. I don’t have time for this.” He grabs her wrist and pulls her forward. Her arms instinctively wrap around his neck, and Charlie’s hands come to Gretchen’s hips to steady her. It can’t take more than a second for him to lift her, transfer her from the truck’s cab to the ground, but it feels like she’s made of memory foam, the press of his fingers imprinted on her body the entire walk into the building, the elevator ride up to the third floor, the short distance from there to the nurses’ station.
A middle-aged Asian woman behind the desk looks up from writing something on a clipboard. “Oh, Mr. Waybill, thanks so much for coming. I know it’s late...” Her eyes subtly bounce from him to Gretchen and back again, as if she has questions but knows it isn’t her place to ask them.
“Hi, Wendy. Not a problem,” he says. “So, what’s going on?”
“Charles is asking about Ellen again.” She frowns. “We’ve beentaking the usual approach, telling him that we’ll check on when she’s coming, that we’re sure he’ll see her soon, but it doesn’t seem to be calming him down tonight.”
“All right,” Charlie says. Gretchen watches him swallow before he continues. “Has he said anything about me? Is he going to know...?”Who I amhovers in the air.
“Well, we told him we were calling his grandson, and he said that was good. He said...” Wendy adopts a gruff old man voice that sounds especially funny in contrast to her natural, high-pitched one. “ ‘Good. The boy will sort this out.’ ”
Her impression of his grandfather brings the slightest smile to Charlie’s face. “Okay. Thanks.”
“Of course. Let us know if you need anything.”
Gretchen follows Charlie down the meatloaf-and-bleach-scented hall to his grandfather’s room.
