Friday. Down in Claremont, Becca hopped in her Civic around noon and headed west across the northern edge of Los Angeles, crossing Pasadena and then Burbank, the San Gabriel Mountains hovering to the north. Becca crawled slowly along the 101, heading west. Eventually, the route took her to Ventura and she glimpsed the Pacific. Becca gazed ahead at the road, the water on the horizon. She thought of Jules, groaning in the sand. She noticed a lump forming in her throat.
“Was this going to be it?” Becca wondered to herself.
Reva texted Becca Thursday afternoon, as soon as she’d heard from Seamus.
“Dad is in hospital. Eating lunch with Seamus away from Brookhaven. Fell down stairs. Broken ribs. Stitches needed on forehead. Will need tests. I’m flying Friday night. Getting in to SB Saturday at 6am. Still driving up tomorrow? Love you.”
A strange sense of peace came over Becca that didn’t seem rational. She thought, “Shouldn’t I be filled with sorrow or selfish longing at the thought my Grandpa might die?” But she wasn’t overcome with sadness or the sense of her own potential loss. She thought it might hit her when she saw him.
Her plan was to arrive at the hospital. Stay with Jules until dinnertime, then find a motel for the night. Reva was due to arrive around six a.m. Becca would shower, pick her mom up at the airport, then they’d head back to the hospital.
Becca drove in silence. No music. No podcast. She drove with her thoughts.
Becca pictured Jules in the hospital bed, heavily medicated. He was breathing shakily. The fractured ribs would make it painful to take anything resembling a deep breath. An MRI was needed. There was likely a bandage covering the stitches above his eyes, which had closed the gash on his forehead. She could imagine a purple bruise on his stubbly chin.
Becca’s awareness of the brain’s regions shaped her thinking, rather than simply imagining her grandfather in bed with tubes coming out of him. The frontal and temporal lobes were already issues, as the dementia had become clear. He’d undergone an MRI months ago that showed deterioration associated with dementia. If Jules’ brain was concussed by the fall, it could lead to dramatically worse memory issues. Becca wondered how bad it was. The gash meant a concussion was likely.
Becca stopped for gas a few miles after Ventura, in a tiny town called Mussel Shoals. As she filled the tank, Becca’s stomach growled. She thought “Jules would want peanuts.” She finished filling the tank, removed the nozzle and replaced the gas cap. Becca strolled inside the food mart. She found a tin of lightly salted Planters on the bottom shelf and then took a diet root beer from the wall of refrigerated drinks. Becca paid for the gas and walked back to her car. She was about to pull out of the gas station, but decided to pull over and park for a minute. As she sat in the Civic, eating a few peanuts and gulping down the root beer, it began to sink in.
She screamed and pounded the steering wheel.
Becca hated the idea that Jules would never know her when she became a mother, probably in her late-30s, holding her newborn baby girl. She hated that Jules would never know that the baby girl would be named Julia, in his honor. She hated that she might not be able to beat him at Monopoly one more time. She hated that she might not be able to walk with him on a cold and windy beach one more time. She hated that she might not be able to eat foot-long sandwiches with him one more time.
The fear of losing Jules washed over Becca’s body. The lump in her throat made it hard to swallow as the tears poured out of her eyes.
She texted Reva: “I don’t want to lose Grandpa. I love you.”
Reva replied: “Me too, honey. Let’s hope he’s okay. Love you.”
After a few minutes of sobbing, Becca collected herself by slowing her breathing down.
Before getting back on the freeway, Becca drove down to the beach and parked. She walked down the half-dozen steps, imagining Jules falling.
She removed her shoes and socks and let the cool sand sink in between her toes. She walked down to the water and stood still, gazing out at the horizon. A deep ache flowed through her. She needed a long moment. With the wet sand, the chill breeze, and the afternoon sun on her cheeks, Becca took in the impossible truth that the universe was unfathomably enormous and she was tiny. That no human being would survive for longer than a blip. That the ocean was endless, the waves crashing in and then the water retreating. The pattern looped on and on.