Page 117 of And Now, Back to You

I spend the rest of the drive in a fog. I keep my legs tucked under me, my forehead against the window, my heart in my throat as we creep closer to Baltimore. By the time Jackson pulls up to the emergency room entrance at the University of Maryland Medical Center, my face feels itchy and swollen, my stomach hollow.

I unbuckle my seat belt. Outside of the covered walkway that leads to the hospital, snow is falling in earnest. We must have moved with the storm as it swept across the state. Or barely beat it into the city, I don’t know. The specifics of the drive are lost on me and for once, I don’t care about the weather.

“Thanks for the ride,” I say to Jackson, distracted. I fight with the strap of my bag to get it over my shoulder. “I can pay you back for the gas, or—”

A big hand untangles the strap and eases it over my arm. Jackson’s face is patient.

“I didn’t pay for the gas, Delilah. It’s the work van, and we had to drive back anyway. We just sped up the timeline a little bit.”

What he means is he moved heaven and earth to get me here, just like he promised. He gives me a small, tired smile.

“Thank you for driving me through a snowstorm,” I whisper.

The lines by Jackson’s eyes deepen. A secret there, somewhere. “There’s very little I wouldn’t do for you, Delilah.”

A single explosive firework twinges somewhere in the middle of me, but there are bigger things shadowing my head and my heart. My anxiety and my sorrow make everything else feel muted, like I’m swimming through Jell-O. Up with the clouds and the snowflakes.

I compartmentalize and tell myself I’ll give this the attention it deserves later. When it’s fair to the both of us.

A surly-looking security guard with a snowflake blanket wrapped over her uniform makes an impatient gesture at us through the windshield of the van. “You two need to move,” she yells. “This is an emergency lane.”

Jackson glances pointedly at the empty driveway. The ambulance is parked in the bay, its lights off. There’s a guy leaning against the bumper, eating a sub from Wawa.

Her eyes narrow. “This is not a dance hall!” she barks.

“Dance hall,” Jackson repeats. He squeezes my arm and leans over my middle, wrenching open the squeaky door of the van. I want to press my face into his neck. I want to run inside. He brushes a kiss across my cheek.

“Go make sure everything is okay,” he says. “I’ve got this.”

I nod, then float out of the van and into the lobby. I press the elevator button and watch the glowing numbers change. A collection of people in different color scrubs streams out, more file in, and I’m swept up in the wave.

The last thing I see before the doors close is Jackson pointedly ignoring the security guard, refusing to move until he’s sure I got in safely.

“Breaking news,” my grandpa says as soon as I wrench back the curtain around his bed. “Old man slips in his favorite slippers. Knocks himself out on a nightstand.”

I’m so relieved to see him lucid, I could cry. In fact, I do. Aggressively so. Right into his shoulder. I cry ugly, heart-wrenching sobs that hurt coming out. I snot all over his hospital-issued gown.

He smells like the lemon drops I know he keeps in his pocket and the laundry detergent he used to wash my pajamas in, and he laughs while he pats the top of my head.

“Delilah, my sunshine girl,” he mutters. “I’ve really put you through the wringer, haven’t I?”

His eyes crinkle when I finally lift my face from his chest. When I was little, it was my favorite place in the world. The place I was safest. The place I was wanted most. He’d wrap me in his arms and sing me some cobbled-together nursery rhyme that never made any sense and we’d stare out my tiny bedroom window at the satellite towers. The ones right outside the news station that stretch all the way up to the clouds, alternating red and white lights. Wishes on a string, he used to tell me. That’s where the stars live when they come down here for a bit.

“What are you doing here? I thought you were covering that big snowstorm,” he says. “The one out in the mountains.”

“Yes, well.” I sniffle and settle back, running a hand under my nose. It’s a relief that he remembers where I went this time. After the last two phone calls we had, I wasn’t sure what state I’d find him in. “I was covering that snowstorm in the mountains. Then Anita called and said you fell.”

“I didn’t fall. I tripped.” He gestures at his forehead. “I barely scratched myself. A whole lot of hullabaloo for nothing.”

I stare pointedly at the ugly bandage across his forehead and the gauze that circles his entire head. “She said, and I quote, There is a lot of blood.”

His eyes crawl back to mine, chagrined. “You know Anita is prone to hysterics.”

“Grandpa,” I whisper. “Please.”

These moments with him are so rare. I don’t want to waste them arguing.

He blows out a heavy breath. “Yeah, I know.”