Disclaimer: I do not own Twilight and I do not own the Bible.
Disclaimer number two: If you are offended by a little poking fun of the Christian religion and crude language, this is not an excellent chapter for you. Also note that I don't want any "I hate atheists" reviews. They aren't necessary. You have been warned.
PS My reviewers are pure awesomeness.
I could hear a little girl wailing just outside my door. Poor Susan I thought sadly. You're far too sweet for this. Her grand daughter was going to grow up and be a royal bitch someday, but in the meantime, she had to be contented with causing a huge toddler-like scene in the middle of a hospital. It was even worse than having a temper tantrum in a hotel lobby. The kind of thing where everyone else just stares at the awkwardness playing out before them in a place that was made for continual peace and quiet.
"I already told you, I want to go to Beth's birthday party!" I heard the little voice scream. It made me want to cover my aching ears.
"And I already told you, we are visiting your grandmother," the mother's voice was pure poison. "Who knows how much time she has left with us?" she added in a much softer tone.
"I don't care! I don't care, I don't care, I DON'T CARE! I want to leave!" I was surprised the family hadn't tried to exorcize the little fuck yet. I always half expected her head to start spinning and spout projectile vomit every time she came to see her grandmother.
"Lisa," the mother whispered. Her voice was so low, I almost couldn't catch it, but it was threatening too; made the hair stand up on the back of my neck.
"Respect. Your. Elders. Or you won't see Beth for such a long time, she will assume you died."
I snickered under my breath. It was probably bad - ok, it was horrible - but I honestly couldn't help myself. I was much, much older than Lisa and I still didn't respect my elders. I'd flaunted that spectacularly just a few hours ago.
See, I'm a little bit more than ill and have never been terribly religious; the whole concept never appealed to me. But poor Susan had not-so-slyly implied on several occasions that maybe I should start going to the little masses the hospital had in the chapel down a couple halls with her. It wasn't a bad idea. If I was on my way to seeing the big man upstairs, I figured it would be smart to work out the kinks in my non-existent relationship with ol' Yahweh. Or Allah. Or Brahma. Whatever you wanna call it.
Besides, I knew the demon child was scheduled to make an appearance in the afternoon and I wanted Susan to have something to look forward to.
Susan had asked the orderly with the nice butt to go grab someone else and wheel us down to the chapel. I really had no complaints right then - the view was fantastic - but I would soon learn that was where the fun would end.
I should have known when that man came out of the door crying. It was a sign just reeking of badness. I had never been the most sensitive person in the entire world and tears scared me, especially when they were pouring out of a person with shoulders as wide as he had; the kind where it would appear as though nothing in the world could knock them down.
"Poor dear," Susan had cooed as he walked away without looking anyone in the eye, but then she immediately wheeled around towards the door to the chapel again and pushed forward. I wished I could let things roll off my back like her.
Needless to say, when we where finally settled, I was a little bit shakier than usual. In my jumpy state, I got bored rather quickly and wasn't fully paying attention to the sermon. There was nothing wrong with it, not that I had heard many in my life time, it was just that the pastor had a voice like an air conditioner - not something so boring that made you want to fall asleep, but more like a drone that keeps you up all night.
Susan had nudged me weakly and looked at me with wet eyes. I couldn't understand how she could possibly find this moving, but I was too big of a chicken to say so out loud for fear of my failing health. Susan, I had found out the hard way, could not sit quietly to the knocking of her Jesus.
"Listen," she had whispered in her tissue paper voice. "This is my favorite part!"
I reflexively leaned my head forward, trying to catch it all.
"And so I would like to end today's sermon with a favorite bible passage of mine from Matthew 10:28-30," he began. I was positive his nose must secretly be an airplane propeller.
"Do not be afraid of those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul; fear him rather who can destroy both body and soul in hell. Can you not buy two sparrows for a penny? And yet not one falls to the ground without your Father knowing. Why, every hair on your head has been counted. So there is no need to be afraid; you are worth more than hundreds of sparrows."
The entire room was abruptly filled with obnoxious guffaws ricocheting across the high ceiling. It took my wheezing brain a little while to figure out I was the only one laughing.
It was just so ironic. I mean, shit. Did you listen to what he said? Why, every hair on your head has been counted. So there is no need to be afraid; you are worth more than hundreds of sparrows. Well, that's great and all - I'm sure the sentiment would have been appreciated else where - but what about those of us who had no hair left. I managed to use one of my hands to stroke the smooth skin of scalp, just to check. Rubbed the place where my eyebrows should have been, too. Nope. Not a single fucking hair.
I had tears in my eyes, so it made it a little bit more difficult when I tried to look around to see if there were any other chemo patients in the chapel. I could see that a few of the fellow baldies had smirks, but some were glaring in my general direction because they couldn't exactly see me with their senile eyes. Most just had their mouths hung open, eyes as wide as dinner plates in shock.
"Well you guys," I had tried to catch my breath to finish speaking, but it was hard. "I guess I'm screwed then, eh? I don't even have feathers!" I had heard a few snorts, but all the smirk-ers started up when I started rubbing my shiny head like a Buddha's belly.
I was chuckling at the memory when Ginger, my favorite nurse, popped into the doorway. I had found her name appropriate from the first time I saw her; she had a smile that reminded me of fresh baked cookies.
"Your daughter just called. Renee said Bella and she are running a little late, but they'll be here within fifteen minutes. How are you holding up today?" she asked while taking out her stethoscope.
"You tell me," I answered cheekily and took a deep breath when I felt the icy cold touch my back.
"Better," she said happily and I wanted to believe that she meant it.
I gave her the normal polite smile as she left the room and got ready for the wait ahead. Fifteen minutes translated to more along the lines of just under an hour in Renee time.
It was a peculiar thing, getting older. The closer to the inevitable end I got, the more I came to accept it, unlike some of the stress heads around here. Death didn't seem all that bad. I mean, billion and billions of people have died before me and I'm sure most of them went through the experience fine. What was there to be afraid of? Time was that way, too.
My appreciation for it had swelled, even if it was just being spent waiting patiently for my flighty daughter to get her ass moving. Each second meant more than it had when I was younger. I kind of liked that feeling; it made me mourn my little time left a little less because each second had more weight.
Wow thought to myself I'm so fucking deep, I can barely stand it. Did I mention one of the best things about contracting stage III lung cancer was the pain meds?
Right then, one of the male nurses came into the room, probably going to give me a quick once over before my visitors showed up. I liked this guy. Not as handsome as sweet-ass, but he was so … he acted so normally with people here. For a few minutes, you could forget you were a patient and you could simply be a human being again while talking to Dave. It was really nice.
"Hey there, honey," I said to him quietly as he checked a few of the monitors and sat down in a creaky plastic chair.
"Hello my darling," he drawled while wiggling his eyebrows. "I heard about this morning," he informed me with a significant look, glancing up from a clipboard.
"From whom, may I ask?" I examined my stubby finger nails like this conversation meant nothing to me at all.
He snorted loudly. "Guess."
"Peter?" I tried playing dumb.
He wrinkled his brow deeply. "Has Peter ever said anything in recent memory?"
"No."
"Try again."
"Susan?"
"Ha. No. I'm scared of Susan right about now. I don't think she appreciated your little gesture earlier and I shudder to think of her mood after the demon child's visit." He kept his word and shuddered delicately. Dave and I shared a mutual hatred for bratty children, especially loud bratty children.
"You know, she'll be one of those rich, happy ones, though. Big house, hunky husband … Pretty girls have all the luck, no matter how grating the voice."
He nodded absently. "Sounds about right, except you forgot about the part about the husband being deaf. Then the picture makes sense."
I was choking out a laugh that sounded very weak next to Dave's strong baritone when I heard the door swing open with more force than the hospital staff even knew how to make.
"Grandma!" A happy, bubbling voice exclaimed.
I saw a petite figure rush forward without a thought and knock lightly into Dave's chair. I closed my eyes when I heard the awful creaking and slipping noise, but was surprised when there was no bump.
I opened one eye experimentally and was very happy to see a deeply blushing Bella being hoisted onto my bed by a grinning David.
"Watch your step, darling," he reprimanded lightly and his voice was affectionate.
Bella was still blushing madly and had her eyes trained to the off-white tiles.
"Ok." Her voice was so small. It made a little piece of me die on the inside from happiness by just looking at her.
"Don't be so shy," he said, lifting up her chin with his index finger. "Lollipop?" and there it was in his hand. The coloring of the candy matched her flushed face perfectly and she hesitantly accepted it into her little round fingers.
"Thank you, Davey," she said brightly and her dimpled cheeks made my heart want to burst.
Now, I'm not sure you are aware, but I have the best grandbaby anyone has ever had. No lie.
She has very dark brunette hair, almost black, but so much prettier to look at because it wasn't nearly as severe. She has expressive, deep brown eyes that could light up so acutely with joy and a pair of plump red lips that reminded me of the Betty Boop I'd had on my lunch box in grade school. Her skin is porcelain, but never looks sickly. It is radiant and smooth.
When she blushes, forget it; she would then have total claim over your soul. May god have mercy on it because it was no longer under your control.
The kicker was her perfect innocence, not a passing faze like most other children, but innocence was her.
I knew it wasn't just me being the loving grandmother, either; just watching Dave and everyone else around her was confirmation of that. She was an absolute angel and nothing gave me more pride than knowing that exactly one quarter of her chromosomes came straight from me. The only problem was that she wouldn't light up the room unless you were looking for the light. Bella liked to stay as far away from the social radar as physically possible.
"Hey Dave," Renee said as she breezed into the room with a huge bouquet balanced with what looked like a few children's books in her hands. I tried to smile genuinely because I didn't know how to tell her nicely that they would just throw the flowers out as soon as she and Bella left. I couldn't have flowers - or more like their pollen - in my room. It made the whole breathing thing a hell of a lot more of a challenge than it already was.
"Hey Ray," David said as he quickly walked out of the room. Something about my daughter made him very uncomfortable and something about that made me think I didn't really want to know.
"So …" I tried to distract myself by turning to the fantastic creature now occupying a small area of my mattress. "What'd you do this time?" I asked, nodding to her elaborately decorated arm cast.
"Oh," she looked at me through her eye lashes sheepishly.
"Well. Ya know. I wanted to read up in our tree like we used to except it would be only me. I needed to carry the book up, too. And I only have two hands." She held up both arms as evidence.
I looked at my daughter and we both laughed loudly while poor Bella blushed and buried her face into my pillow.
After we had contained ourselves and Bella had recovered from her embarrassment, she reached into a light blue pencil box and pulled out a dark green sharpie.
"Will you sign it?" she asked innocently, holding out the marker.
This was my problem … well, the biggest out of the bunch any way. I could have politely said 'no thank you' and I don't think she would have been too offended when I explained that breathing in the fumes from the marker was like swallowing glass, but that's not what I said.
"Sure cookie," I said as cheerily as I could manage and grasped the offending poison in my wasted hand. I couldn't deny her anything, especially when I knew I didn't have much longer to give her these little gifts.
Her smile made it worth it, though.
"Thank you," she said simply.
"So," I said, trying to ignore the way my chest ached now. "What are we reading today?" When I said 'we,' I really meant 'you.' My eyes were getting real old.
"A Cricket in Times Square." She sounded excited as she picked up the skinny paperback and her mother sat right behind her, to help her if she didn't know a word.
This is why they came here, every Sunday, at or around 4 o'clock in the afternoon, depending on Renee's mood. Bella came and she would read to me; I didn't need her to do anything else either.
She wasn't perfect - not by a long shot. Sometimes, she had trouble finding a rhythm and other times the words were too big for her to sound out, but she tried so hard for me and that made me feel loved. She didn't try to make me happy in my shit poor state because she was getting paid or even because she was supposed to be the capable daughter who was sometimes an adult to be concerned for me in my old age.
Those were both appreciated deeply by me, but it wasn't the same. She didn't care about me out of obligation, but simply because she wanted to. She wanted to.
When she finished the chapter, I clapped my hands and cursed them in my mind for being so weak.
The door slowly swung open then, and wouldn't you know it, but David was standing right there. Stupid ease dropper looked shocked that he'd been caught and it was easy to see that he certainly didn't mean for the door to open.
"I'm going to go now," he muttered as he ran out the door again.
Renee immediately got up as he turned to leave and then looked back at me guiltily.
"Restroom," she had mumbled and followed right after him.
It was kind of obvious that they were fucking, even if I didn't want to admit it.
"Hurry back." I called, even though I knew she would already be too far away to hear it.
I stared at the door a few seconds more after it had been closed. It was really quiet and looked back at Bella to see why.
She was sitting Indian style now, with her head resting on a propped up hand and was concerned, staring at my heart monitor. That had always been her though, for as long as she'd been alive. It was others first, her second, especially when it involved her mother.
She watched Renee like a hawk and worried after her constantly. Lately, Renee had been even more out of it and I think it was at least partially my fault. Or more like my cancer's fault. She was the one having the most trouble dealing with my sickness and that of course affected Bella. It almost made me glad I was going to die soon so I wouldn't have to be a mass producing factory of anxiety anymore.
"Hey Cookie?" Even though I had accepted the whole death thing, that didn't mean that I didn't need a little bit more closure.
"Yes," she turned her head away from the monitor and gave me her full attention. Always a giver.
"I want you to remember something when I'm not around to tell you anymore, ok?" I hated that her tiny face broke, but she handled what I said much better than how Renee would have.
The last time I had picked her from preschool, I had noticed something that had bothered me very much ever since. The entire class was outside on the play ground and it wasn't that the other kids were picking on her or ignoring her purposely. They all looked perfectly polite from where I stood.
And while not everyone was part of a huge mass of little bodies, they seemed to at least have one partner in what ever game they were playing. A friend. I had looked and looked from my spot in the parking lot, trying to locate her chocolate hair when something caught my eye from the edge of my sight.
Bella. On the extreme edge of the sandbox, all by herself. She didn't appear like she was upset by that fact, on the contrary. She was grinning proudly at her little mound of a castle, but even so, the sight seemed … odd.
"You might feel sometimes like you don't belong and sometimes, you're going to fail at things. Nobody ever said life is always easy. But everyone has a place that belongs to them and a someone to share it with. I want you to find your place because you deserve it the most - out of everyone else - and never stop until you do. You understand?"
She nodded her head slowly and her eyes were shiny. I knew she didn't really understand everything I'd said, but I hoped she would remember when it mattered the most.
And maybe I was saying my goodbye at one of my last chances, but that was fine. Just because it was goodbye didn't mean it was the end.
I watched as my daughter came back into the room and chattered happily quietly for a while. I watched the way Bella watched me. I watched her collect her mother smoothly and kiss my cheek when visiting hours had ended. She patted my hand lightly, but not carefully like everyone else, and gave me a genuine, light-up-the-room smile.
No I thought to myself. Not the end by a long shot.
What do you think? Mildly cute? Funny? Horrible? Any thoughts?
Oh, and just so you know, I really tried to do my research for this one and not just stock it all up to creative license. I went on to the Lexicon and found out that after Renee and Charlie got divorced, Renee and Bella lived in California. Since we get the distinct impression that Renee and none of her relatives are from Forks in the book, I had Renee go to California because she needed help with being a young, newly divorced woman with an infant in her hometown. If I was in her situation, I would want my mama too =) Plus, I thought it would make sense that if said mother died, that would give her incentive to move to Phoenix afterward and the timeline said they moved to Phoenix right around here, where I wrote the chapter. O.k. I'm done now.
