Total pages in book: 115
Estimated words: 108173 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 541(@200wpm)___ 433(@250wpm)___ 361(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 108173 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 541(@200wpm)___ 433(@250wpm)___ 361(@300wpm)
She stared into his deep blue eyes mutely, her lips trembling and tears slowly flowing down her cheeks.
“Did you know?”
There was a spark of something in those beautiful eyes of his and he swallowed before asking in a hoarse voice, “Did I know what?”
“That he’d made you his medical proxy?”
There was a slight tic in his jaw, before he shook his head. “No. But honestly? It doesn’t surprise me. He trusts me to make rational decisions, and you’re not always rational, Lilah.”
“Does that mean you won’t sign off on a second opinion?”
He sighed tiredly and rubbed his nape before tilting his head up to glare at the ceiling for a moment.
“Would that make you feel better about his decision to accept only palliative care?”
“His decision to die, you mean? Nothing would make me feel better about that.”
“Regardless, it’s his decision. Can you even comprehend how much pain he must have been in to make a decision like that?”
“I want to see him.”
He nodded and stood up, before—once more—offering his hand to her. She ignored it again and got up under her own steam.
“Gramps?” Lilah whispered, sitting beside the frail old man’s bed, listening to the various machines he was hooked up to bleep and buzz and whoosh.
Nothing, not even a flicker of an eyelid.
Lilah fought back her tears as she reached for skeletally thin hand, the blue-veined skin paper thin. His palm was ice cold and clammy and entirely limp.
His stillness terrified her. She’d noticed how much weight he’d lost at the wedding, but he’d dropped even more body mass in the few short days since then.
“Gramps, it’s Lilah,” she said, keeping her voice cheerful and optimistic. “Ben and I are both here. We love you… please, please Gramps. Wake up.”
She stifled a sob, but wasn’t as successful at keeping the overflowing tears at bay. She lifted the back of his hand to her cheek and wept soundlessly, not sure what else to say or do. He looked truly frighteningly ill and for the first time Lilah privately acknowledged that the doctor had probably been telling the truth, which meant that her grandfather had kept this from her for a year.
He hadn’t trusted her to support him through this. Or to make unselfish decisions on his behalf. Maybe this was his twisted way of trying to protect her but all Lilah could think of was how little time she’d spent with him over the last twelve months. First, nearly working herself to death by overbooking her business and spreading herself too thin, then her foolish vacation to Paris—the worst way to spend a medically advised break—and, after returning home, being distracted by Ben, rethinking her business model, and then the wedding plans. And this week, with the honeymoon—this time she was unable to prevent the despairing sob from escaping—he’d been on the brink of this while she’d been away on a fake honeymoon.
“We should have been here,” she lamented softly. “We should never have left.”
“Lilah,” Ben’s voice was a whisper and his hand landed heavily on her narrow shoulder, reminding her that he was sitting in the chair beside hers. “You can’t think like that.”
“If I’d known I would have stayed.”
“You must know that Cyrus was aware of that fact. And that’s why he didn’t tell you.”
She shot him a fulminating, resentful glare through the sheen of tears, and was satisfied when he appeared to flinch.
“If he kept it from us, it’s because he didn’t want to destroy our so-called happiness. He wanted us to enjoy our honeymoon because he believed in the lie you created.”
“It’s best not to have that discussion in front of Cyrus,” he reminded her, frost crystallizing on his every word and Lilah’s eyes dropped to her grandfather’s drawn face in remorse. He was right, she shouldn’t have brought it up in front of Gramps.
Her lips thinned and she returned her focus to her grandfather. She continued to talk to him, just nonsense, telling him about the Maldives, their hotel room, the bioluminescence she’d seen on her last night, things she knew he would have asked her about if he could.
Ben sat stoically by her side, ignoring his constantly chiming and chirping phone, and staring straight ahead with very little expression on his face. But—while she would never admit it out loud—it comforted her to have him there.
Nursing staff entered and exited the room so quietly, Lilah barely registered their presence—they merely checked his vitals and monitored his IV drip, which someone had told her contained only fluids and nutrients. He was on a morphine drip as well, and Lilah suspected that was the reason Gramps was so quiet and unresponsive. She considered asking them to lessen the dosage, to see if he would be able to speak with them, but after hours of sitting by his side, staring into his beloved, emaciated face, she’d privately acknowledged that for him to have deteriorated so quickly, he must have been in immense pain, and she couldn’t subject him to that… not even to speak to him and ask him why he had chosen to leave her out of this crucial part of his life.