“Come on, the stroke unit is just along here.” He put his arm around her as they set off and she leaned in against him.
“Thank you Rory, for coming with me.”
He squeezed her. “I care about you too much to have done anything else.”
****
“Don’t worry its not as bad as it looks.” Rowan, Sky’s older sister stood up from her chair by the bedside to hug her. “She’s sleeping. It’s the medication they had to give her to suppress the symptoms.”
Sky clung to her older sister, peering over her shoulder at their grandmother in the hospital bed. Nan looked frail. It didn’t help that the hospital gown drowned her. Her silvery white hair spread out on the pillow around her, her face pale. It tore Sky apart to see her this way.
Rowan spoke quietly. “They only allow two visitors at a time, you go and sit with Gladys and I’ll grab her a cup of tea.”
“Thanks Rowan.” She stared at her sister’s familiar face and noticed she’d lost weight and changed her hair color. It was vibrant red. When she’d left it had been copper toned.
Rowan squinted at her. “How did you get here so quickly?”
“I got a lift.” She nodded vaguely to the entrance to the unit, where Rory sat in the corridor.
Gladys, Nan’s sister and their great aunt, sat on the other side of the bed. “You’re a good girl, you got here very quickly.”
Sky skirted the bed and stood behind Gladys. While embracing her, she put a big kiss on her great aunt’s cheek.
The nurse came to look at the drip and the various paraphernalia that Nan was attached to. Gladys gestured at Sky. “This is Doris’s other grand daughter, Sky.”
The nurse didn’t look as though she had time to meet and great relatives, but nodded and smiled at Sky while she went about her business.
Sky nodded at the nurse self-consciously.
“Your grandmother is doing very well.”
Sky found it hard to imagine it, seeing her so groggy and wired up.
“It looks worse than it is,” the nurse added, gesturing at the drip. “We’re keeping her hydrated. It was caught early, at the transient ischemic attack rather than a full on stroke. A mini-stroke. It’s a warning sign, if you like.”
“That’s better than expected?” Relief began to creep over her but she could still scarcely breathe because of the tension in her chest.
“We have a lot worse ladies on the ward, look around you. “
Sky didn’t want to look around her but did. A couple of the ladies were sitting in chairs, dressed, but didn’t seem to know where they were and looked very frail. Another young woman, no more than her own mother’s age was in one of the beds, with her husband at her side holding her hand. The woman was trying to speak and was upset because she couldn’t. The husband looked so distressed on her behalf,
that
Sky had to turn away.
Gladys patted her arm. “She’s been awake in the last couple of hours and she was talking. Believe me, it’s not holding her back, so don’t you worry.”
The nurse nodded. “She had a scan within an hour. As far as we can tell very little damage, we’re just taking precautions.”
Sky still felt heavy with fear, with guilt, with desperation to hear her voice. All through the journey—clinging to Rory while he forged a fast path through the heart of England and into Wales—she’d thought about what it might mean, and she’d vowed to move back, to help her Nan.
Gladys yanked her arm. “Look.”
Nan’s eyelids flickered open. She stared around at them, fuzzy-eyed. When her gaze reached Sky, her lips parted. “Sky, my precious girl, is that you?”
Sky burst into tears. “It’s me Nan, I’m here.”
Nan reached out her hands and Sky leaned in and embraced her.