CHAPTER 2
690 Words
CHAPTER 2
“Time to wake up.” Ruby touched Grandma Lucy’s shoulder. The old woman looked so tiny when she slept, like a white-haired toddler taking her afternoon nap.
“Grandma Lucy?” she repeated.
“What time is it?” she mumbled.
Ruby held her breath. The next ten seconds would be the decisive ones, the time it took for Ruby to find out if Grandma Lucy would be herself and quote Bible verses all evening from her prayer chair or if she’d spend the night confused and weak, unable to remember her niece who’d lived with her for so many years, asking about relatives who’d been dead and gone for decades.
Before he ran off to become a missionary, Connie’s son took Grandma Lucy to some place in Seattle, a memory clinic specializing in dementia, but at the time of her appointment Grandma Lucy had been completely lucid. She claimed divine healing. The day Ruby started working at Safe Anchorage Farm just a few months later, Grandma Lucy didn’t even remember the night she got her stitches.
Grandma Lucy sat up in bed with a groan. “Why’s my back hurt?”
“You’ve probably been lying down too long without rolling over. You want to get in your wheelchair?”
She shook her head. “No, take me to my prayer chair. I’ve got some things to talk to God about.”
Even when Grandma Lucy forgot her own children, she knew that her life’s greatest work was to rock away in that sitting room, praying for loved ones whose names she couldn’t even recall.
“We’ll go to your prayer room soon,” Ruby told her. “But first, let’s go use the bathroom, and then Connie made you a little snack to have with your medicine.”
Oops. She shouldn’t have said that.
Grandma Lucy shook her thinning head of white hair. “No medicine. I feel fine.”
Ruby had learned not to argue. “All right. Well, how about a cinnamon roll?”
Grandma Lucy’s face lit up like a preschooler’s on Christmas morning. “Now you’re talking.” She rubbed her hands together. “I love cinnamon rolls. Did Mom make them?”
Ruby was busy putting the brakes on Grandma Lucy’s wheelchair and didn’t answer.
“They smell delicious.” Grandma Lucy inhaled deeply, even though Connie had been working at the Safe Anchorage gift shop and hadn’t cooked a thing since yesterday, when she’d spent the entire morning cooking to prepare for Grandma Lucy’s upcoming birthday party. “There’s nothing like fresh bread rolls straight from the oven. You smell that yeast?”
Ruby nodded and wheeled the chair up to the bedside. “It will be delicious, I’m sure.”
Grandma Lucy c****d her head, and Ruby guessed what she was going to ask even before she said the words. “Is that you, Nora?”
She didn’t have the heart to remind Grandma Lucy her daughter Nora had been killed by a drunk driver decades earlier. “No, I’m Ruby. I’m the nurse you led to Jesus at County Hospital.”
“Really?” Grandma Lucy looked pensive. “So we’ve known each other a while?”
“Just a few months. I started coming over for tea and prayer, remember? You’d sit in your rocking chair and teach me about Jesus.”
Grandma Lucy nodded. “Did you know that when a sinner repents, even the angels in heaven rejoice?”
“You’re the one who taught me that. Come on. Let’s get you out of bed.”
Grandma Lucy was lighter than the bulky wheelchair. She didn’t need it always, but with her memory acting up, Ruby didn’t want her trying the walker. Not today.
“Thank you.” Grandma Lucy’s voice was soft when she patted Ruby’s hand. “Aren’t you a sweet thing to help out an old woman like this. What’s your name?”
“I’m Ruby.” It was a good thing Ruby had babysat and nannied her way through nursing school. All that work with children had given her a heavy dose of patience.
Grandma Lucy continued to pat Ruby’s hand. “And are you a born-again believer, Ruby? Do you know the Lord Jesus as your personal Savior?”
“I do. You’re the one who taught me.” Remember? she was about to say but stayed quiet and wheeled the chair toward the door.
“Where did you say we’re going?” Grandma Lucy asked.
“Into the kitchen to get a snack.”
Grandma Lucy inhaled loudly. “Well, it smells delicious. Did Mom make bread rolls?”
- Writer
