“Esa, get this idiot off me!”
“Jeez, what are you doing here?” Carla suddenly asked from the darkness on the other side of Jess and Rachel.
“Calling the police…” Glory said in a shaking voice that alarmed Esa.
“I am the police, Grandma. Finn? What’s going on?” Caleb demanded.
“Quiet everyone,” Esa shouted. She inhaled slowly, gathering her frayed nerves in the silence that followed.
“Rachel, stop acting like a loon and promise not to hit Jess again if he lets you up. I swear—I don’t know what’s gotten into you. Finn, if you would be so kind as to go to the kitchen and get some orange or apple juice?”
“What?” Finn asked incredulously.
“Glory…I apologize for my sister’s dramatics.” Esa placed her hand gently on the older woman’s arm and felt the clamminess of her skin as well as the fine tremor in her flesh. “Why don’t we go inside and I’ll try to explain.”
“Esa?” Rachel asked from the ground in a beleaguered tone.
“Just do as I say,” Esa barked before she took Glory’s arm and led her through the small crowd toward the house.
She was glad that Glory didn’t put up any resistance when Esa guided her down the corridor to the right of the living room.
“Her room is right in here,” Molly Madigan directed from behind Esa.
Esa glanced around, thankful for Finn’s mother’s presence. She led a dazed Glory into her bedroom and set her on the edge of her bed.
“May I see her medications please?” Esa asked Molly briskly as she checked Glory’s pulse.
“That woman was your sister?” Glory asked.
“Yes, she’s my sister. From the sound of her voice, Jess scared the hell out of her. I’ve never heard her act that way before,” Esa mused as she removed Glory’s black Cleopatra wig and unclasped the heavy gold necklace from around her perspiring neck.
“Thank you. I’m so hot…but I can’t stop shaking,” Glory muttered.
Esa read each of the four pill bottles that Molly had brought her. “Do you have an Accu-Chek, Glory?”
“I’ll get it,” Molly answered for her mother-in-law.
“Oh, good,” Esa said both to Molly and to Finn, who had just entered the room carrying some apple juice. “Set it down there, would you, Finn? When’s the last time you ate, Glory?”
Glory’s forehead wrinkled as she tried to recall.
“Can’t remember,” she finally answered dully. “Maybe four or five this afternoon. Didn’t want to eat too late and be bursting out of my Cleopatra costume.”
Finn’s handsome face was creased in mixed concern and confusion when Esa requested that he go and get some food from the kitchen but he went without comment. Esa took the blood glucose monitor from Molly when she returned to the room.
“Is high blood sugar what all of these episodes have been about?” Molly asked.
“This has happened before?” Esa asked sharply.
Molly nodded. “Several times in the past month. Her doctor ran some tests but everything was fine. Glory’s been taking diabetes medication for two years now and there’s never been a problem. Her sugars weren’t that high to begin with and her doctor said that they were well-controlled with the medication,” Molly fretted as Esa poked Glory’s fingertip with the lancet.
“Ouch!” Glory protested sluggishly.
“A little too well-controlled, I’m betting,” Esa said. She nodded her head in self-confirmation when she saw the numbers that came up on the screen and handed Glory the apple juice. “Drink up. Your sugars are low.”
“Low?” Glory frowned. “I thought I was supposed to be taking medication for high blood sugar.”
Esa prodded the bottom of the glass as a reminder for the older woman to drink. “You are. But all that exercise and meditation at the senior center is changing the chemical scenery of your body. Your dosage on the diabetic medication is too high. Lots of people have to be recalibrated, so to speak, when they start a regular exercise or meditation routine. I’ll bet your blood pressure has gone down nicely as well.”