Family Tree Part 29

"Gram," Dana gasped, and, losing all other thought, rose on one knee and touched her grandmother's face. It was warm, and the pulse at her neck was strong. But Ellie Jo couldn't speak.

Terrified, Dana touched a pocket for her phone and realized she had left it in her bag at the shop.

"Stay here, Gram," she breathed quickly. "I have to get help."

She scrambled down the ladder, grabbed the cordless phone from the bedroom, and raced back up. First she called the shop. Then she called Hugh.

When she heard his voice, it all came back-the closeness they had once shared, the stability he offered. This was an emergency. She needed him now.

"Yeah," he said in a tone that was oddly restrained.

Dana struggled not to panic. "Where are you?"

"On the highway."

"How far from the yarn shop?"

"Fifteen minutes." He must have sensed her panic, because his voice grew concerned. "What's wrong?"

"It's Ellie Jo," Dana said. She was squatting in front of Ellie Jo, lifting a limp hand and pressing it to her own neck. "They're calling an ambulance, but I may need your help with Lizzie."

"Her foot again?"

"No."

"Heart?"

"I don't think so."

"Stroke?"

"Maybe," she said. "Can you come straight here?"

Hugh arrived at Ellie Jo's just as she was being put into an ambulance. Dana ran toward his car.

"They think it's a stroke, but they don't know," she cried, looking terrified. "I need to be with her, Hugh. Lizzie's over at the shop, and I have no idea how long I'll be. I can't bring her with me. We have those little bottles of ready-mixed formula. All you have to do is open them and screw on a nipple."

"I can do that," Hugh said. Granted, he hadn't done a feeding yet, what with Dana nursing, but he had read all the books.

"Excuse me?" called the EMT.

Dana backed away from Hugh. "Everything you need is in the cabinet to the right of the refrigerator."

"How long do I warm the milk?"

"Just so you can't feel it on your skin," she called, climbing into the ambulance.

"Will you let me know what's happening?"

She nodded. As the ambulance door closed, Tara separated herself from the women who were watching anxiously, and came to his side.

"Thank goodness you're here," she said. "This isn't good. Want me to take the baby, so that you can go to the hospital?"

Hugh trusted Tara, but he wanted to be with Lizzie himself. "Not yet," he said, "but we need a breast pump."

"I'll pick it up. If I run it to the hospital, I can show Dana how to use it and bring you back milk."

"That'd be a help," he said and spotted Lizzie asleep on the shoulder of a woman who was worriedly looking after the ambulance. He had seen her before at the shop and been introduced to her at the hospital two weeks before. "That's...Saundra?"

"Saundra Belisle," Tara refreshed his memory. "She's the best."

Saundra met him just inside the shop. She was not much shorter than Hugh, and was stylishly dressed in white slacks and a chocolate-brown blouse. She had short gray hair, light brown skin, and eyes filled with pain. "Did the EMTs say anything?"

"Not that I heard."

Saundra looked distraught. "She hasn't been herself lately. Looking back, I wonder if her first fall was the result of a mini-stroke, a TIA. It could be that she's had several, but she's been adamant about not seeing the doctor. We should have insisted." Easing the baby from her shoulder with hands that were strikingly gentle, Saundra cradled her for a final moment before giving her to Hugh. Lizzie slept blissfully on.

"You're a lucky man," the woman said.

Watching Lizzie, Hugh was. .h.i.t by a gust of emotion stronger than anything he had ever felt before. She was his child. "Thank you for holding her."

"It's my joy."

Something in Saundra's voice made Hugh look at her more closely. He could see that joy and was comforted by it.

"If I can help at all," she instructed, "I live five minutes away. Tara has my number. Please call."

"Thank you," Hugh said, and watched her return to the shop. That was when he spotted Ali Johnson. She was sitting in a big chair at the long table, holding her dolls and regarding him with soulful eyes. "Ali," he approached, "how did you get here?"

"Dana," Ali said in a frightened voice. "What's wrong with Gram Ellie?"

"I'm not sure." He knelt down.

"Is she going to die?"

"I certainly hope not. I need your help, Ali. They're off to the hospital, and here I am alone with Lizzie and not really knowing what to do. It'd be a big help to me if you'd sit in the backseat and keep an eye on her while I drive. Think you could do that?"

Ali nodded.

Hugh smiled. "That's my girl." He stood. "Got a bag for your things?"

A short time later, they pulled up at the house. In the ab.u.t.ting driveway, David was climbing from his car.

Ali was out the door in a flash and running to him. "Daddy, Daddy, something awful happened to Gram Ellie. They had to carry her out of the house on a stretcher. Isn't that what they do for dead people?"

"She's okay," Hugh called over, and took Lizzie from her seat. By the time he straightened, David was there.

"What happened?"

"She had a stroke, I think. The ambulance scared Ali. Is she inside?"

"Yeah."

"Want to know something amazing?" Hugh asked, and what he had learned spilled right out. "My grandfather was half black."

David's face went blank.

Hugh sputtered. "Yeah, I feel the same way. I just found out. This is the first time I've said it aloud."

David frowned. "Say it again."

"My grandfather was half black."

"Which grandfather?" David asked, like it was a joke. Was it the business mogul, or the amba.s.sador to Iceland? Hugh could hear him thinking.

"A lawyer my father's mother apparently fell for one summer on the Vineyard."

David was another minute realizing Hugh was serious. Then he was suddenly livid. "You b.a.s.t.a.r.d."

"Not me. My father."

"After what you put Dana through? So you're liars, the lot of you, pa.s.sing for white? Taking every advantage you could all your life. Parading as holier-than-thou, when you were hiding the fact that you were of mixed race."

Hugh didn't argue this time. He figured he had it coming, figured that he had to let David get it out of his system if they had a prayer of being friends again.

"What do you mean, you just found out?" David asked.

Hugh told him about the sickle-cell tests and his subsequent confrontation with Eaton.

"And he really didn't know?" David asked. "Do you believe that?"

Hugh thought for a minute. "Yeah. I do. I saw his face. I can fault him for not checking it out sooner, but he didn't fake that surprise." He didn't go into Eaton's horror at the thought of his book. It wasn't a flattering picture.

David searched Hugh's face a minute longer, seeming to be waiting for him to laugh and take it all back. But there was nothing to take back. This was for real.

David's eyes lost their anger. He ran a hand over his bald head. "That's actually pretty funny, y'know? Your dad must be in shock. Speaking of shock, I told Susan about Ali's dolls. She flipped out at first, but as soon as she calmed down, she reverted to form. She says I'm imagining things, and that I'm just trying to upset her, and that I've spoiled Ali so she doesn't want to leave." He glanced at Lizzie. "Want me to watch the baby while you go to the hospital?"

"I'll wait to hear from Dana." He held David's gaze. "Thanks, though. I appreciate the offer."

"About the other," David said, more quietly now, "it isn't the end of the world."

"No, but it sure changes my view of the world."

"That could be a good thing."

"Maybe. I haven't gotten that far yet. I only got the news a couple of hours ago."

"I'm glad you told me."

"So am I."

David glanced again at Lizzie. "Do you know what to do when she cries?"

"I've never fed her before, but we'll manage. If she's hungry enough, she'll eat, right?"

That was the theory. In practice, it was harder. He couldn't find the bottle warmer and, when Lizzie began to cry, had to go to Plan B, which entailed heating the pre-bottled formula in a pan of water on the stove. Unfortunately, the books hadn't warned against overheating the milk. He stood the bottle in the refrigerator for a minute, then, when Lizzie's cries accelerated, in the freezer. He finally took a second bottle, heated it briefly, and screwed on a nipple.

Apparently, Lizzie didn't like that nipple. She continued rooting around for the real thing and grew frantic when she couldn't find it. She finally tried the bottle, promptly gagged, and started crying again.

He checked the discarded package and saw that the nipples were medium flow for bigger babies. Rummaging around in the cabinet, he found a slow-flow package, wrestled one out, and snapped it on the bottle again. When Lizzie continued to fight him, he took a calming breath and tried soothing words. That helped.

Then the phone rang. Lacking a third hand, he tried holding Lizzie and the bottle with a single hand so that he could pick up the receiver, but she started crying again. He propped her safely between pillows on the sofa and held the bottle in her mouth, but even with his arm outstretched, he couldn't grab the phone. When he figured there was only one ring left before it went to voicemail, he took the bottle out of her mouth and lunged for the phone. He was glad he did. It was Dana.

"Hey," he said, "hold on a sec." He picked up Lizzie, quieted her with the bottle, then clamped the phone between shoulder and ear. "How is she?"

"They say she's stable. Why was Lizzie crying?"

"I took the bottle out of her mouth so I could get the phone. What does 'stable' mean?"

"She's breathing on her own, and her heart is okay. The problem is on her right side. They're doing tests to find out the cause."

"What can I do?"

"Stay there with Lizzie. Tara's coming here with a pump. She'll bring you my milk."

"Lizzie seems to be taking the formula okay."

"But I'm ready to burst. And anyway, I need to learn how to do this. Gram will be a while going home, if she does go home."

"She'll go home, Dee. Don't even consider the alternative."

Brokenly, Dana said, "If they find the cause of the problem, it'll either be surgery or medicine. They don't know if she'll ever regain full mobility."

"If they don't know, it means that she might."

"She'll never be the same, Hugh."

The words touched him. "I'm coming to think that's what life is about, a chronological chain made up of links of change. Each new one aims the whole in a slightly different direction."

"But I want to go back."

"Chains don't have the flexibility to make one-eighties."

"She's my grandmother. She's all I have of the past. She's been my mother. That's a special role."

"Yes," he said, suddenly thinking of Eaton. Eaton had been close to his mother. Hugh remembered when the woman died. Eaton had grieved for months.

"I'd better go. I'll call when I know more."