The Brilliance of Fireflies by Leslie Hauser

Author:Leslie Hauser [Hauser, Leslie]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781642375923
Publisher: Gatekeeper Press
Published: 2019-04-25T16:00:00+00:00

All my positive vibes dissipate when I arrive home after school. There’s another shouting match happening inside, with Grandma alone at the kitchen table. It must have been bridge day again because the cards and perspiring iced teas are out on the table. I only see Rose and another blond bridge friend this time. They are inches from Susan’s face.

“What’s going on?” I shout into the chaos, dropping my stuff right inside the door.

“Oh good, you’re here,” the blond friend says, turning toward me. “When we arrived for bridge this afternoon, your grandmother was having one of her spells. And this one,” she angrily points to Susan, “put her hands on Connie.”

“What?” I glare at Susan.

She throws up her hands. “Oh please. That’s a gross exaggeration. I was just trying to get her out of the chair.”

“Yes, by yanking at her,” Rose chimes in.

Susan turns to me. “Look, I was supposed to leave at three today. There should have been another nurse here at two for the transition, but she hasn’t arrived yet. I was just trying to get your grandmother to take her pills. She’s been refusing lately, and it’s something that has to get done.”

Grandma’s friend mutters, “Leaving early again...”

Cartoon steam shoots out of Susan’s head. “I’m very sorry that my sister’s illness is an inconvenience to you.”

“I feel for you and your sister, I really do, but our priority is Connie. And she’s not getting the care she needs.”

“Or that she’s paying for,” Rose adds. “She’s supposed to have a regular nurse.”

“Well, then you should request a change,” Susan says matter-of-factly.

Rose and the blond lady turn to me. “Your grandmother—”

They’re interrupted by a knock at the door followed by the entrance of the young Asian nurse who had been here before. Susan launches at her like a tiger and begins mauling her with reproaches and accusations. The young nurse immediately snarls out a defense, and their arguing draws in Grandma’s friends. About this time, another bridge lady emerges from the hallway waving a paper and claiming she’s found the in-home care contract in Grandma’s bedroom. This takes the anger to a new level as they all claw at the paper like crows fighting over a dropped French fry.

They’ve forgotten about me, so I walk over to Grandma. I sit next to her as she stares at the ruckus but looks somewhere far beyond it. The shouting continues and my mind flashes back to Mom and the hospital.

When they rushed her out of the ER, she went immediately into surgery. Afterward, as she was recovering in the ICU, the nurses let me spend the nights in her room. The doctors always showed me cheery faces and spoke optimistic words, but more than once I saw them shaking their heads with more serious faces at my aunt and uncle outside the room.

I woke up one morning in Mom’s ICU room—the third or fourth day, I’m not sure because all the days blurred together—to the shouts and screams of the

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