Slowly, she turned and climbed the stairs.
She didn't say a word about the fact that Se-na was out of bed, or that the crane quilt was dragging behind her like a discarded snake skin. But it did look as if she was embarrassed that Se-na had seen the her raw and ugly collapse. She reached out, took the free end of the quilt, and wrapped it securely around the small, trembling shoulders. Then, she held out her hand.
Se-na took it. Her small fingers disappeared into the dry, warm wrinkly wrap of the old woman's hand.
They returned to the small room. Se-na was guided back under the quilt, tucked in again with that same deliberate care. The lamp on the dresser was turned down low, casting long, gentle shadows that felt like a sanctuary after the sharp, corporate fluorescent lights of the hospital she'd come from.
The grandmother sat on the edge of the bed and softly stroked Se-na's hair.
Her hand was slow and steady, unconsciously moving in the same arc over and over, temple to crown, temple to crown. Se-na lay very still and stared at the ceiling, trying to tell herself she was merely enduring it. She tried to think of it as a clinical observation: The tactile stimulation of the scalp reduces the heart rate and lowers cortisol. It was a lie, but it was a manageable one.
"He won't come back tonight," the grandmother said quietly after a while.
Se-na said nothing.
"And tomorrow... tomorrow we will figure out tomorrow. Okay?"
"Hmm..." Se-na said. Her voice cracked, a child's voice betraying her adult's pride.
The hand in her hair stilled for a moment.
"Sleep now," the grandmother murmured. "You're safe here. I promise you. You're safe." It felt she was trying to persuade herself that her grandson was safe now and Se-na could see that.
She sat for another moment, then leaned down and pressed her lips briefly to Se-na's forehead. It was a light, simple thing, the kind of gesture that happened in houses where it had always happened, unremarkable to the person doing it and entirely, devastatingly foreign to the woman receiving it.
Then without saying anything she hesitantly shifted her weight to stand.
Se-na's hand moved before she could authorize it. Her fingers caught the old woman's sleeve. Just the loose cotton between her finger and thumb, held with the desperate, uncertain grip of someone who was not going to admit they were holding on. She turned her face toward the wall, her cheeks burning with a heat that had nothing to do with fever. She was thirty-two years old. She was a Chief Surgeon. She was the one who gave orders, who held life in her hands.
And yet, she was holding a sleeve like a lifeline. And she clearly knew that it was not the child's unconscious muscle memory but her own action saying Don't go.
Old woman looked down and the sound she made was not quite a laugh. Because it was warmer shorter, startled out of her by the sheer, sudden sweetness of the gesture. It was the sound a person makes when love catches them off guard, even when they think they've seen it in all its shapes and forms.
"Ah," she said softly. "Is that so." She chuckled again as if forgetting all her worries and pains.
She shifted her weight back, lay down on top of the quilt beside the child, her shoes set aside. She arranged herself with the practical ease of someone who had done this many times, for this bed, in this room, and for this child.
She opened her arm. "Won't you hug grandma to sleep???"
Se-na was staring at the ceiling, her heart hammering a frantic rhythm. Absolutely not, she told herself. You do not …
But as she was fighting in her brain her body turned over and buried her face in the grandmother's side.
The arm came down around her, a warm, solid weight that held her against the world. The chest beneath Se-na's cheek rose and fell with a steady, unhurried breathing, it was like someone who had nowhere else to be, and nothing more important to do than this.
The lamp put a soft, yellow light on the crane quilt. The house was quiet, safe, and smelled of barley tea, cedar, and the faint, lingering warmth of the salted porridge. She could feel everything around her.
She closed her eyes. And took a deep breath.
Her brain was fighting, you are in the wrong body, in the wrong decade, in the wrong life. You have idea how to get back, and a monster is waiting for you outside this door, and tomorrow is a whole unsolved, terrifying problem sitting at the edge of the universe… bla bla bla bla… the words turned into gibberish … gibberish turned into muffles. And muffles turned into warmth.
Her arm was sturdy and warm covering her little body like a sheild. And the breathing was steady.
And she was, against all logic, against all dignity, against everything she had ever known about herself...
Safe.
She was soon asleep. And a little snot escaped her nose that surprised the old woman. Then it popped and grandma couldn't help but smile with her hand on her mouth as to not wake her up.
.
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