“He’s in good hands, baby. Don’t stress until you know more.”
“I’m gonna visit him more. I definitely will.” Her leg jiggled and she fidgeted all the way there, and for a change, I wasn’t hitting any red lights. None at all.
***
“What happened?” she asks her younger brother, who has curly hair and the same eyes as Violet. He’s gotta be no more than seventeen or eighteen and looks like he hasn’t grown into his six-foot frame quite yet.
“I was cleaning his gutters and he just collapsed while holding the ladder for me,” Cody says. “Scariest shit. I phoned the ambulance first, then Mom and she and Dad are flying back now. Told me to call you. Aunt Sara and Uncle Hugh are on their way, Uncle Brock, too.”
“I messaged with Aunt Sara and Colleen by text on the way here. They’ll be here soon,” Violet tells him.
A woman in scrubs approaches. “Hi. You’re family to James Gabriel?”
“Yes, I’m Violet Gates, his granddaughter. Cody’s sister.”
Violet sways, and clasps the neck of her sweater. I know she’s bracing for bad news, so I move closer and put my arm around her.
They tell her that her grandfather is stable, but they’re running some more tests. They tell her they’ll keep him in overnight.
***
I’ve grabbed coffee for me and Violet and a Coke for her brother and then not long later, I’m introduced to an aunt and uncle that arrive. And then another uncle. Then two cousins of hers roll in, a brother and sister, the sister around her age, the brother early thirties.
She only introduces me as Killian. No identifier with it. No, he’s my friend even. Just ‘Killian’.
They all look me over. The women, with intrigue. The uncles and male cousin, the same way as Violet’s brother looked at me. I’m guessing they’re not gonna miss Iadanza, that they’re protective.
The bulk of the afternoon is eaten up by sitting and waiting while these people talk amongst themselves. They seem like a nice family. I don’t have experience with functional family units in a crisis such as this, so the whole thing is interesting for me to witness. All of them coming together during a crisis. Talking about family stuff. Catching up with one another since they last saw one another. Violet and her cousin Colleen seem chummy and they call the uncle, Brock, who teases them both affectionately Uncle Broccoli.
There’s stress in the air, they’re obviously worried about Violet’s grandfather. He sounds like a stubborn old man trying to do too much for his age. Violet explains to me that he’s lived on his own for years since his wife died.
Violet whispers to me that I can go, that she’ll catch a ride back, but I shake my head. She does it twice and then the third time, I grab her hand and kiss the back of her knuckles, then hold on.
She sits there, looking at me with huge and panicked eyes while I hold her hand on my knee. I don’t know if those eyes are pleading for me to leave or for me to let go, but I’m not going anywhere.
Her brother gives me a lingering side-eye. I know he’s making sure I know he’s got his eye on me.
I head across the street to a coffee shop to grab more coffees for everyone with sandwiches and pastries while they’re taking turns filing into Violet’s grandfather’s room, two at a time to see him for five minutes apiece.
Apparently, he tells them all to go back and finish doing the outside work at his house for him, insisting that he’ll be fine unless he has to go home and finish it – in which case he won’t be fine because he’ll probably drop dead.
The girls are all upset about this, but Cody mumbles that’s his grandfather’s way, to be irreverent in the face of death.
That he leaned over to explain that to me was cool, him trying to help me not feel like a complete outsider. And the way he talked, the kid shows maturity for his age.
Not long after that, Cody, the two cousins, and Brock go off to finish the yard work. Brock - forty-something, pudgy, and a big and friendly smile on the guy - invites me to come along, but Violet declines before I can answer, saying she’ll stay and wait for her parents to arrive.
***
“You don’t need to stay,” she says to me for the fourth time. This is the first time it’s just us two in the waiting area. I’m sitting beside her and have my arm around the back of her chair. Her aunt is gone to feed a parking meter, her uncle is in the bathroom.
“My mom and dad’ll be here in less than an hour and you don’t need to really-” She stops talking and stands up, color draining from her face. “Dad. Mom.”