Hailey laughed. “Very nice hair, indeed.” She wrapped her arms around Grant’s waist. “And you’ll have great hair again before you know it.”
“I don’t know,” Grant pondered. “What if it comes back all curly?”
“Curls…I couldn’t imagine,” Hailey kidded back. “How awful!”
“What if it’s curly and dark…” Grant curled his lip.
“We might have a problem then,” Hailey nodded. “I signed up for a hot blond.” Grant followed Hailey into her room. “I got you something,” she smiled.
Grant took the bag she handed him and eyed her curiously. “A present?”
“Yes,” Hailey smiled. “And it’s not about your hair or how you look, so don’t even go there. This is so much more than that, Grant…it’s a reminder that you’re gonna beat this… it’s a reminder of what we have to look forward to…a symbol of the future that you and I will have together.”
“Future…I like that word,” Grant nodded as he reached into the bag and pulled out a crimson baseball cap with a Harvard insignia.
“Me too,” Hailey smiled as she put her arms around Grant’s neck.
Hailey stood in the middle of the gym floor, her uniform on and a basketball resting on her hip. She looked around, seeing the court, the hardwood floors, the opposing team, the cheering crowd; she was vaguely aware of the fanfare that had taken over the University of Memphis’ gymnasium for the first round of the high school playoffs, but everything seemed to be happening behind a thick layer of fog that Hailey couldn’t shake.
She knew she owed it to her team to play her best. She knew how badly Grant wanted to play, how much he longed to be out there playing point guard and how much it disappointed him to be forced to the sidelines during such a crucial point in their season. Not only could he not play, he couldn’t even come to watch his team because the crowds posed too much of a risk to his devastated immune system.
Hailey made it through the first quarter, though her game was clearly off. She had played countless basketball games in her lifetime without Grant, but, no matter how many times she tried to convince herself that tonight was no different, the devil on her other shoulder assured her that it was different…very different.
Hailey dribbled down the court, her legs feeling sluggish beneath her. Her thoughts seemed to be spinning out of control even as her eyes focused on the basket. In her mind’s eye, she saw flashes of hospital scenes and then vivid memories of the moments when she had been falling in love with the person she wanted to spend the rest of her life with. Lost in her own thoughts in a crowd full of people, she remembered it all so clearly…she and Grant in the snow, she and Grant in the barn, she and Grant on their morning runs, she and Grant playing one-on-one in the driveway, leaping into his arms after a big win. The muffled sounds of the crowd seemed a hundred miles away. The next thing Hailey knew, she was on her knees watching the air ball sail out of her hands and the crowd had gone silent.
Paul knelt next to her and pulled her into his arms. “It’s okay,” he whispered. “I got you, Hails.”
Only then did Hailey realize she was crying. She started to wipe her tears, but it struck her that this boy who had his arms around her now, this friend she had grown up with, was not the boy whose arms she wanted around her. Hailey looked up at Paul, but when she looked into his eyes, she didn’t see her friend, she only saw the boy who had made Grant’s first days in town so miserable. She shoved him away from her. “Don’t touch me,” she demanded.
“Hailey,” Paul sighed as he held her tighter.
“You never even gave him a chance,” Hailey cried. “You were so mean to him.”
Paul’s words weren’t defensive or careless. He simply continued holding Hailey close and said, “I was wrong, Hails, and I’m sorry.”
Hailey sobbed as her head fell to rest against Paul’s chest. She wanted to apologize for lashing out at him, but she just let him guide her toward the sideline as the crowd began to cheer.
Hailey was embarrassed to hear them applauding her; an on-court meltdown after an air ball that didn’t make it anywhere remotely near the basket was certainly not how she imagined her stellar high school basketball career ending, but, then again, nothing in her life was how she had imagined it.
It was Saturday night. Granny Miller sat between Nora and Randy in the waiting room, and Pastor Jordan had just walked in. Jack was on the telephone thanking Maude and Jim, who had delivered dinner to the house right as a spike in Grant’s temperature had them preparing to go back to the hospital. They had followed all the rules; Grant had missed the game, avoided the crowd, but here they were…back at the hospital after the thermometer read 102.1º.
“Nora wanted me to make sure y’all knew how much we appreciate, not only dinner, but the kindness that everyone has shown her,” Jack was saying. “Randy sends his compliments to the chef; I told him that once the diner is reopened, we’ll have to bring him down for some world famous meatloaf and potatoes.” There was a pause; Maude was talking. Jack smiled and nodded his head. “Yes, Ma’am, we brought it right along with us. The girls ate theirs right here in the waiting room floor.”
Hailey listened to her dad as he explained over the phone how a diagnosis of Pneumonia had landed Grant in the ICU. She watched as Pastor Jordan sat with Grant’s parents, offering words of encouragement. Jessica was on one side of her, and Emily was on the other; when Granny Miller hobbled over to offer them cookies from a tin, all three gladly accepted.
“How are you holdin’ up, Sugar?” Granny Miller asked her.
“I’m okay,” Hailey nodded as she sipped sweet tea from a straw in a large styrofoam cup. “I was able to say a prayer with Grant before they took him back. He’s a fighter; he’ll be over this in a couple days.”
Granny Miller nodded as she pointed her bony finger at Hailey. “I told him to stay inside and out of that cold,” she shook her head.
Hailey smiled, knowing that the extent of Grant’s exposure to the mild winter elements had been the trip he made from the car to the house the day he had been released from the hospital the time before. She also knew that cold weather did not actually cause colds, but she bit her tongue, knowing it would do no good to say anything.
Granny wasn’t done. “I tried to get that boy to take some of the homemade vitamin syrup I whipped up, but you know how stubborn he can be. It probably would have done him a world of good.”
Hailey smiled and shook her head in polite agreement. “He was probably just worried about those highly acidic fruits irritating his mouth,” she said with a wrinkle of her nose. There was no defensiveness in her tone, no hint that this had been previously discussed with Granny and that it was she who was the stubborn one. Granny was trying her best Hailey decided. She loved her grandson and was trying to express that love in the only way she knew how.
Granny had been baking pies and bringing them to the house every day. She had made countless tins of cookies for the hospital…for family, visitors, nurses and doctors alike. She, along with Pastor Jordan and his wife, had organized the church’s efforts, so that food had been provided for the family each day since Grant got sick. Granny and Grant may never see eye-to-eye Hailey knew, but Dottie Miller was doing all she knew how. For perhaps the first time, Hailey wondered what it had been like for her when she lost her husband…what it had been like for her when her only child, her precious daughter, had left Tennessee to pursue a life so different than anything Dottie had ever imagined for her.
Dottie had not shared in the everyday joys of her grandchildren; her relationship with them had been long-distance at best and practically non-existent by the time her youngest grandson was born. During the first two years of Grant’s life, Nora and Randy had been faced with the rape of their daughter, the birth of their first grandchild and the death of their son. Hailey couldn’t imagine the stress that Nora must have felt during those times, all the while as her husband was gone for months at a time doing a job that must have weighed heavily on Nora. Having a small child brought enough stress of its own, Hailey thought… and Nora, during that time in her life, suddenly had two babies, both very unexpected. Hailey would never understand how Granny had come to blame so much of Nora’s stress during that time, and in the years to come, on an innocent little boy, who, Hailey readily admitted had become less and less innocent with each passing year; but still, shenanigans aside and a fierce independent spirit to boot, he wasn’t the reason his mother left Tennessee or the reason she stayed away for too long at a time.
With this thought, Hailey’s mind drifted. He would be the reason she left Tennessee. He would be the reason that her life was destined to take a different course than anything Dottie Miller, or her generation of Hope Hull’s blue-haired choir ladies who represented some of the best of small town America, could envision. She thought about her father, and she made a mental note that no matter where her life took her, she would visit Hope Hull often, remember where she came from and make sure that her daddy knew that she never went off seeking anything better than the life he had provided her…because that didn’t exist.
Love can make you look at things differently than you ever have before. Love was the reason a young Nora Jean Miller had fled her hometown for life as an Army wife. Love was the reason Jack Nelson had dedicated his life to his daughters. Love, she knew, was the reason she would leave…but it would also be the thing that brought her back…often.
Granny sat down in the chair Jessica had abandoned, and Hailey rested her cheek lovingly against Granny’s bony shoulder. She tried to think of anything to say that would let Granny know she was appreciated. She was getting tired and didn’t want to get into anything too deep, so she mustered a sweet smile and said something she knew Granny would love: “I mixed up Grant a special, homemade, baking soda mouthwash that is supposed to help prevent any infection. It was easy; I got the recipe off the internet. He said I had been spending too much time with you, but he was pretty proud.”
Granny’s pride was written all over her face. “You are good girl, Hailey Jane Nelson,” she said patting Hailey’s leg. “My grandson is lucky to have you.”
Hailey closed her eyes. I’m the lucky one she thought.
Emily gently rubbed Hailey’s arm. “How ya doin’, Hails?” she asked softly.
Hailey shrugged. “I’m good,” she said confidently. “I’ll tell you though, it’s hard to imagine living the majority of your life without someone and sitting here now not being able to imagine life without him.”
