Chapter 20
The flight to Olympia had seemed to take forever and now the others had dozed off in the waiting room waiting for some kind of word.
Heath jolted awake with a start when Brian finally came in. "Dad?"
Audrey stirred shortly after, followed by Steffi. "Did they tell you anything?"
"It's not as bad as it appeared to be at first," Brian replied. "Thank God Ma got here when she did. They're going to keep her a couple of days for some tests, but she should be fine."
"Thank goodness for small miracles," Steffi sighed with relief.
"Yeah, life would suck without Grandma and her funny stories about Dad," Heath added.
"Which she's told too many of those as it is," Brian said, giving him a look.
"Can we see her, Daddy?" Audrey asked.
"Let me check on her first," he replied. "I don't want us all bombarding her at once. She's had a rough night. Why don't you guys go down to the cafeteria for a few minutes?"
"Sure," Steffi nodded. "Come on, kids; I could use some breakfast anyway."
As soon as they had gone, Brian headed for his mother's room, where she lay dozing. He sat by the bed, looking at her for a moment before saying anything.
"Ma?" he finally asked. "Do you know me?"
"Sure," she grumbled.
"Who am I?"
"Brian," she said, as if he had taken leave of his senses. Of course she had recognized her oldest son.
"How are you feeling, Ma?"
She looked at him. "I think I'll be all right. I'm going to live anyway."
"What happened? Do you remember anything?"
"Well, all I know is that I was doing some errands and all of the sudden I got sick. This nice young girl came along and called the paramdics and stood with me until they came. And then I ended up here. I guess they had you in my emergency contacts."
"Lucky for you, the doctor says it doesn't look as bad as it initially appeared," Brian reassured her. "You should be out in a couple of days, but I don't want you back home by yourself."
"Aren't you getting a little extreme? I've managed all this time alone. Besides, I can call your sister if I need something."
"Ma, you have a better chance of catching me than Shanny, and that isn't saying much. Now I'm going to talk to Stef about arranging something for you. I don't want anything like this happening again, because you may not be so lucky next time and I don't want that shit on my conscience."
"But–"
"No 'buts' and no arguments. As your oldest child, you are now my responsibility and I am sure Steffi will agree with me when I talk to her about this in a bit."
"Steffi's here too?"
Brian nodded. "She and the kids came up with me when I got the call about you being here. They're down in the cafeteria right now getting breakfast; we came here straight from the airport."
"Was that really necessary? You can see I'm all right. Those children could have least gone to my house and slept first."
"Sure, but they wanted to come with me. As you know, it's no fun arguing with teenagers."
Barbara rolled her eyes. "Oh, how well I know, especially you. You always were a stubborn, mouthy one. In the end, I guess it worked for you, though."
He smiled down at his mother before kissing her cheek. "Thanks, I love you too."
She made a face. "Brian David, are you still smoking?"
"Oh, Ma, don't you start. I hear enough of this shit from Steffi and Audrey."
"As you should. You keep up the filthy habit, you're going to end up right where I am right now, only much worse. Do you really want to put Steffi and those kids in that kind of position?"
"Jesus, Ma…."
"Don't you want to live long enough to see Heath graduate from college or Audrey get married and have her own babies?"
"Ma, seriously, calm down. If you must know, I passed my last physical."
"That's not the point. You need to quit that habit. Those kids breathe that stuff and they can get sick too."
"If you must know, Stef makes me go outside to smoke, Ma. No chance of Heath or Audrey breathing anything, all right?"
"She should throw those things down the garbage disposal."
"She's done that too. And I just go out and get more." He then sighed and smiled. "Now quit worrying about me and get some rest. I'm going to go find Stef and the kids and we'll catch up with you later."
A short time later:
"How is she?" Steffi asked when he found her, Audrey and Heath in the cafeteria.
"Is Grandma going to be okay?" Heath wondered.
"She's great," Brian nodded. "At least well enough to nag about my smoking."
"Good old Grandma," Audrey grinned approvingly. "Really, Daddy, you need to stop that smelly thing."
"Hey, I just endured a ten minute sermon from your grandmother upstairs about that; don't you start on me, little lady," Brian warned her.
He then turned to Steffi. "I need to talk to you about something later when we get back to Ma's house."
She gave a slight nod. "Of course."
"Can we go see Grandma now?" Heath asked. "I mean, we didn't fly clear up here just to sit around, did we?"
"Let her get some rest first for about an hour," Brian replied. "Then we can visit all we want. Meanwhile, I'm getting me some coffee and finding the nearest smoking hut. Lord knows I've earned both a large black coffee with Splenda and a couple of cigarettes."
Audrey and Steffi looked at each other, rolling their eyes and sighing. Some thing would never change.