Invisible String

Chapter 19 - Tied Together with a Smile

I got up, still grinning from ear to ear, and went into the kitchen and grabbed a cup of coffee that had been sitting in the pot since the automatic brewer started it earlier at eleven. It was cold and disgusting, but I choked it down happily. I leaned against the counter, looking ahead of me at the table with the empty spot where the vase of roses had been until Alex dumped them. A small twinge somewhere deep inside me pulled me from my happiness as my phone rang. I looked at the ID, and while I for some reason expected it to be Robin calling me back to tell me he was joking, it was instead my mother, who I hadn't spoken to in some time.

"Hello?" I answered, more casually than I meant to.

"Hannah, honey, is that you?" she asked, her voice quiet and a little shaky.

"Yeah, mom, it's me. What's wrong?"

She sniffled loudly into the phone, "Oh, honey! It's your grandpa. He... he..." My mother started crying, wheezing into the phone, and my heart dropped into my stomach when I heard someone take the phone from her.

"Honey?" my dad's voice rang through much more robust.

"Dad, what's going on? What about grandpa?"

"Hannah, he had a stroke. He's not doing well, and... well, honey, you need to come out here as soon as you can." He paused for a long few seconds while my mind raced around, figuring out flights and car rentals quickly. "He doesn't have a lot of time left."

My fingers loosened, and the phone fell to the floor. I stood still, my body stiff, scared, and in complete shock. My mind seemed to completely stop as I fell into the couch, and I sat still for a long few minutes. My phone buzzed by my feet and I slowly snapped back into reality. I reached down and fumbled around searching for it. Finally, my fingers grasped on, and I pulled it back up to my face while swiping the call so it'd connect.

"Honey?" My dad asked, clearly worried.

"Yeah, I'm here. I just... I don't understand." I shook my head and laid it in my hand as I turned and laid on my side. "He was so great at Christmas, happy and healthy it seemed like. I don't understand."

"I know, honey, but you got to remember he smoked for a lot of years."

"He quit twenty years ago!" I exclaimed, exasperated, and broken-hearted.

"But thirty years a smoker is still hard on the body, even twenty years after quitting." My dad was always the logical one. The one who knew everything. The man who no other man could ever measure up to. I loved him, don't get me wrong. But he wasn't the saint he made himself out to be. He'd been a smoker for about ten years of his life, too. He only quit when he met my mom, and she made him cut that shit out. And this was why. Because her dad was now going to die at the age of seventy, she couldn't save him.

"How much time does he have?"

"I'm not sure, a few days. A week at most." I pulled my knees up to my chest and began crying softly. "He's deteriorating quickly."

My sobs got louder and louder as the minutes in silence passed. Finally, my dad said, "Honey, I know this is hard. We love you so much. Just come quickly, okay?"

I nodded to an empty room, sniffled, and said, "Okay, daddy. I love you, too."

He hung up, and I let the phone drop out of my hand as I pulled a blanket over myself and cried harder. I got colder the more tears I lost, and eventually, I fell asleep curled into the fetal position.

When I woke, Alex sat on the end of the couch, my feet on his lap. He was sleeping, leaned up against the couch armrest. I pulled my feet away carefully and curled up next to him.