Blackwater Springs

Chapter Fifteen

1

    Audrey didn't realize how homesick for Lexington she was until she turned onto New Circle Road. The hospital was downtown. On the way, she passed their old apartment complex, and the sight tugged at her heart. She really, really wished she hadn't given in to John's pleas to move to the country.

    The second floor of the garage was nearly empty. Audrey found a place to park in record time, and stepped into the cool hospital. The smell hit her the moment she walked in the door; bleach and death and, well, hospital. She hated them.

    A blonde woman was behind the receptionist desk, filing her nails.  Ew, Audrey thought, don't hospitals have rules against that kind of thing? The woman was off in her own little world, and it was several moments before she looked up and saw Audrey standing in front of the desk. "Can I help you?" she asked. Both her expression and her tone said that she hoped not.

    "Yes. I'm here to see my grandfather. Thomas Adams. My mother called and said he was here?"

    The woman heaved a sigh, clearly annoyed that she actually had to do her job, and clicked away at the computer. "Third floor, room three seventeen."

   "Thank you." The woman acted as if she hadn't heard, and went back to her manicure. Bitch.

   

2

    Room three-seventeen was a private room. The lights were dimmed, and the old man in the hospital bed was hooked up to all an IV drip, among other machines. Audrey crossed the room and sat down in the lather chair that flanked the bed. She slipped her hand into her grandfather's and gave it a reassuring squeeze. He didn't respond. Audrey felt tears well up in her eyes. "Oh, Pap. I'm sorry I couldn't come yesterday." She stroked his cold hand.

    "You can keep talking, you know." Audrey jumped and turned to the doorway. "He's just been sedated. He'll be awake in a little bit."

    Save for a few more wrinkles, Audrey's mother hadn't changed. She still had the same tan skin and the same dancer's body. Her auburn hair was longer than when Audrey had last saw her, and her eyes were a clear, brilliant blue, without any trace of the haziness brought on by drugs.

    "Hello, Catrina."

    If the older woman had any objection to her daughter calling her by name, or the frigid tone she used, she kept it to herself. "Audrey. How have you been?"

    Oh great. Small talk. As if the first twelve years of my life had never happened. "I've been good." Really, wasn't that what Catrina wanted to hear, whether it was true or not? "I got married."

    "I heard." There was an awkward silence. Fifteen years were between Audrey and her mother. Fifteen years was a long time to go without speaking. Neither of them knew what to say.

    "So…" Audrey began at the same time Catrina said, "Look-"

    "You first," she told the woman who was and wasn't he mother.

    "Audrey. I'm so sorry for what I put you through. I wasn't being a mother-"

    Understatement of the century, Audrey thought. She couldn't meet Catrina's gaze, so she hung her head and studied the tiles.

    "-and when I lost you, I realized that. You have every right to hate me-"

    And I do.

    "but you have to know that that wasn't me. It was the cocaine. I was running from...something. I thought the drugs would help. But they didn't. I lost sight of what I loved most in life. You." Audrey lifted her head and looked at Catrina. Tears, blackened from her mascara, rolled down her cheeks. Audrey lowered her head again. "I've been completely sober five years now."