"Ready?" he asked, opening the door for me.
"Yes, Felix."
I got inside and felt ten times smaller alone in the big black car. Funny. I thought, how Grandmother Emma never looked small in here, even when she was driven off or back from somewhere and I saw she was alone.
"Never thought something like this would happen to your grandmother," Felix said as he drove. "Thought everyone else would fall apart around her first, including yours truly."
I could see his face in the rearview mirror. He shook his head and his eyes looked glassy, tearful. Everyone who I thought was afraid of Grandmother Emma and really worried she would yell at them or fire them seemed to really like her now.
"If anyone looked like she was made of steel, it was Emma March," Felix continued. "Holding up your grandfather, helping your parents, especially now with all that's happened, your brother and all, and doing battles with anyone or anything that crossed her path. They don't make them like that anymore, believe me. I hope you inherited some of her grit," he added.
After he parked at the hospital, he took my hand and we went in and up to Grandmother Emma's room. Dr. Dell'Acqua was in the hallway speaking with a nurse and saw us walking toward her. She turned to us and smiled at me.
"How are you, Jordan?"
"I'm fine. Fin here to visit Grandmother Emma."
"Good. That will cheer her up," she said. "She's doing a little better, but she's still a sick lady and she won't be the same to you." She looked at Felix. "She has paralysis on her right side and it's affected her speech," she told him. "Her attorney is in there with her, she added.
Felix nodded. "How's it look?"
"Too soon to tell how much of a recuperation there'll be," Dr. Dell'Acqua said. "You taking your medicine every day?" she asked me.
"Yes," I said.
"Good." She patted me on the top of the head and walked off with the nurse.
We entered Grandmother Emma's room. Mr. Ganz was seated on her left, a long yellow pad in his lap. Grandmother Emma's bed had been raised so she was in more of a sitting position. I couldn't remember ever seeing Grandmother Emma in her bed. She had a bed as big as the one I slept in, so I imagined she looked small in hers as well, but in the hospital, without her elegant clothing, her hair neatly brushed and pinned, she looked aged and tiny. She looked like she was shriveling right before my eyes.
"Morning, Mrs. March," Felix said. "I brought Jordan as you asked," he told her.
Grandmother Emma nodded and looked at me and then at a chair. Felix understood immediately and brought the chair up to the bed so I could sit beside Mr. Ganz to talk with her. Then he stepped back and left the room.
"You know that expression, no moss gathers on a rolling stone?" Mr. Ganz asked me, smiling.
"No, sir."
"It means as long as you're busy and you keep moving, nothing will slow you down and cause you to fail. That's your grandmother here," he said, nodding at Grandmother Emma. Her mouth was twisted so I couldn't tell if she was smiling or smirking, happy or angry about what he said. "Another woman her age would be thinking about herself and getting better, but she's thinking about all her business needs and about you," he added.
I looked at Grandmother Emma. Me?
"She's worried that now you have no one to look after you. The truth is," Mr. Ganz continued, "your grandmother never gets surprised because she anticipates the good and the bad. She's been doing that for as long as I've known her and that's a long time, Jordan."
Grandmother Emma made a guttural sound and moved her left hand.
"All right, all right. She wants me to get right to it," he said. Right to what? I wondered.
"Your grandmother has always been a realistic person, Jordan. She never sugarcoats anything. I tell her that's because she's a Sagittarius and she has to tell the truth come hell or high water."
Grandmother Emma grunted and tried to say something. She slapped the bed with her left hand in frustration.
"All right, all right, Emma. I'm getting to it. Your grandmother realizes that she is seriously incapacitated and her recovery, any recovery, will take a long time and may not be a full recovery."
Again. Grandmother Emma grunted and made a guttural sound.
"Won't be a full recovery." Mr. Ganz corrected. "Consequently, she is aware that she will not be able to do the things for you she had intended to do and she is concerned about that.
"She is also well aware of the fact that your father won't be able to do these things as well."