The bed shakes when she flops back onto her back. “Do you know what would happen if I told them the truth about my heart pains? Their kneejerk reaction would be to send us all back to Portland to be closer to my doctors. And what good would that do? Are the doctors going to operate again? No. Are there more medications they can give me to slow down my heart’s condition? No. And most importantly, would I be able to go on another date with Tanner if I were all the way in Portland? Definitely not! Don’t you see? I had to lie. For all of us.”
“Does Tanner know why you really fainted?”
In a whisper, she replies, “No.” After a few seconds she asks, “Any more questions? Or did you get the rest answered while you were spying on me?”
“I wasn’t—That was an accident. I heard you pull up, and I looked out to see who it was. I didn’t think it would be you, because it was so early.”
“Yeah, well…it was. But you didn’t have to keep watching.”
“Sorry,” I whisper.
“It’s…fine. There wasn’t much to see anyway.”
“I saw him hug you in the car.”
“Like I said, not much to see.”
“Was it at least a nice hug?”
“Well…yeah. I guess. But I sort of spoiled it.”
“How can you spoil a hug with a cute boy?”
She lets out a long sigh. “After the hug, I opened my big mouth and said, ‘That’s all?’ I guess I was kind of hoping for something more. I know that’s a little forward, but Cade is right—time is running out. Much longer and it might be too late.”
I have to laugh. “Oh my gosh! What did he say?”
“He was all embarrassed. He said, ‘I want to…you know, kiss you, Ann. But not tonight.’” Her voice is low, mimicking Tanner’s. “I asked him if he was afraid that kissing me might kill me.”
“And?”
“He said that years from now, when we look back on today, he doesn’t want to associate our first kiss with the smell of herring. He said he wants it to be just like me.”
“Like what?”
She takes a deep breath, then whispers, “I’m pretty sure the word he used to describe me was ‘perfect.’”
Perfect? Ann? It is SO not fair that I’m not a few years older…
“Good night, Ann.”
“Good night, Bree.”
Chapter 36
Emily
WHEN THE TELEPHONE rings on Sunday morning, the news is good. Grandma Grace is being released from the hospital and they are transporting her back from Seaside to the nursing facility in Cannon Beach. We meet her there at ten o’clock, unsure of what her mental state will be, but hoping for the best.
As I enter the room, the first thing I notice is the expression on Grandma’s face. It’s a tired smile, but peaceful.
The second thing I notice is that she has noticed me. “There you are,” comes her familiar greeting, drawn out in slow, deliberate syllables. “My fam’ly.” Her speech isn’t perfect, but better than most days. More important than the pronunciation, her simple words make it abundantly clear that she is “there.” We really can’t ask for more than that.
She is still very weak, so we can’t stay long—thirty minutes, tops. During the course of our visit, we all take turns telling her about our Winner’s Game.
“You play with Dell?” she asks excitedly. “Oh good.”
When it’s Ann’s turn to speak, she points at the old Altoids tin that is still on the table next to Grandma’s bed and asks if it was a regular part of the original Winner’s Game with Great-grandpa. I already know the answer, since I recently read about it in one of her journals, so to save Grandma the effort, I help fill in the details. “Burying treasures for each other started years after they began the game. She’d bought him the metal detector after they retired to Cannon Beach, but he rarely found anything of value. So one year for Valentine’s Day she planted something in the sand out behind the house—a love note in an Altoids can, along with a candy heart. He found it a few days later. In response, Grandpa made a treasure map for her, and sent her out with the metal detector to do some searching of her own. She returned with a love note too, along with a different candy heart, glued to a plastic ring, just like the one Cade found. After that, it became their own little tradition to bury love notes and candy hearts in the sand near the house for the other one to find.
“Took turns,” Grandma adds with some effort, but with a giant smile. “Him, then me. Back and forth.”