Moisture stings my eyes and I rock slightly in a poor attempt to prevent tears from escaping. “All of this feels an awful lot like hurt.”
“Unfortunately, that’s something your mom and Eli were good at. Hurt. I’m trying to stop them from passing that hurt down to you.” Her hand slides along my arm until she reaches the fingers that are still clasped around my legs.
“Then maybe they were right to hide this from me. If what you’re saying is true, then maybe keeping the past a secret is the best way to stop me from hurting because this sucks.”
“The pain the two of them created was built on secrets and lies and regardless of what they think, the past would have caught up to you. Hiding and denying does nothing but cultivate the fear.”
“You sound a lot like my dad.”
Olivia smiles. “I told you already, he’s a good man.”
“He is,” I say. “He’s the best.”
I loosen my grip on my knees and let Olivia take my hand. She lowers our joint fingers to the comforter. While Olivia still scares the crap out of me, this moment feels right. Like how it should be between a grandmother and her granddaughter.
“I’m assuming Eli and your mom didn’t know you saw them hug?”
“No.” My face becomes a space heater. “I blackmailed Oz into letting me eavesdrop.”
She laughs so loudly that I’m both startled and amused.
“You are your mother’s daughter,” she says between breaths.
My eyes narrow on her and she holds up a hand. “I mean that in a good way. Meg and I were close once, which is why I’m assuming she sent you to the wake.”
Mom and Olivia were close once. I test the words in my head, but the entire sentence tastes sour. How could they go from being cozy to the bitterness they now share?
“We sat on this bed once—holding hands. In fact, she was the same age as you.”
I peer at Olivia out of the corner of my eye. “That sounded an awful lot like sharing. Are you sure you don’t want to go ahead and spill?”
She chuckles. “It’s late, I’m tired, and if I’m going to say anything else that will get me into trouble I might as well say this. Your father, Eli, he wanted you.”
A wave of agony devastates my soul. “My mother’s a great mom.”
It needed to be said. Even if she’s lied to me. Even if my worst fears are confirmed and my mother caused these people pain.
Weary and defeated, I collapse back onto the pillow. It’s soft and comfortable and Olivia pats my hand. The air conditioner blows on the bed and I’m suddenly envious of Olivia and her blanket.
“I won’t say there isn’t bad blood between us and your mother,” says Olivia, “but it would be tough to argue that she didn’t do a good job raising you.”
Was that a white flag? “See, it wasn’t so hard to say something nice, now, was it?”
She smirks. “Don’t get used to it.”
What’s shocking is that I’m not swamped with animosity for her, nor is there any pulverizing terror that I’m next to the lady who voluntarily lay in a casket. And what’s kick-in-the-head surprising? I’m genuinely grinning. I notice the bruises dotting the inside of Olivia’s arm and my happy moment fades. “How sick are you?”
Olivia produces the sad smile. The type where the corners of the mouth tilt up, but the lower lip is yanking down. The one my mom does when she pretends everything is okay and it isn’t. My stomach cramps seeing it on Olivia.
“Sick enough that I threw my own wake.”
A shiver runs through me and I push the conversation forward, away from coffins. “What type of cancer?”
“You’ve been hanging out too much with Oz. He focuses on details he can’t change, never on what he can.” Olivia’s eyelids flutter and my time with bio-grandma is coming to an end. I extend my legs to slide off her bed and Olivia stops me. “Stay.”
“But you’re tired.”
“Stay,” she demands in the kind of voice that causes me to immediately comply. “I’ll give you another clue tomorrow. This one should be easy to figure out, especially if you can convince Oz to help you.”
“You realize that this is a messed-up scavenger hunt, right? You have to admit it’s a little deranged. What do you do for birthday parties around here? Load up piñatas with snakes? You are, by far, the strangest group of people I have ever met.”
I expect Olivia’s witty comeback, but nothing. Odds are she’s heard the same distant rumble of motorcycles that has caught my attention. “Maybe that’s Eli.”
And what’s weird is the happy anticipation of seeing him again. Does it make me a bad daughter if I’m looking forward to the next few days?
The sheets shift and then my hand begins to tremble. A deadly cold overtakes my body. It’s not me that’s shaking. It’s Olivia. Her body flinches uncontrollably. Quaking in a way that’s unnatural. Her eyes roll back in her head and her arm drops off the bed.
I hover over her as I hold on to her hand. “Olivia!” She continues to shake and panic bursts inside me. “Olivia!”
Terrified to leave her, unsure what to do, I turn my head and scream, “Oz! I need you!”
Her body still twitches under my touch and she needs help and I don’t know what to do. Her body moves closer to the edge and I lean over her to prevent her from slipping off. My eyes search frantically for a phone and when I come up empty my head whips over my shoulder again. “Oz! Plea—”
My cry is ripped short as a large man in black leather barrels into the room. Fear spikes into my chest and as I shield Olivia with my body, he speaks. “How long has she been seizing?”
I blink at the familiarity of the voice. It’s Cyrus. My grandfather. Her husband. He rushes to Olivia’s side of the bed and his eyes dart to mine. “How long, Emily?”
“A few seconds,” I answer. A dip on the bed and Eli’s by my side. He attempts to tear me away from Olivia, but I dig my fingers in. If I let go she’ll fall. If I let go she could die. My throat burns and wetness fills my eyes. “I turned the air conditioner on and I shouldn’t have and we talked and this happened.”
“Holy fuck,” another guy mutters as he enters the room then yells down the hallway, “Someone call Izzy.”
The convulsing stops. Cyrus crouches next to Olivia and brushes a finger slowly along her cheek. “Olivia?”