As I close the book, I feel lost in Grams’s old life, a new feeling of discontent holding my mind prisoner. I've learned about the Holocaust from books and in history classes, but what I’ve read over the past twenty-four hours doesn’t do reality the justice it deserves. This time in life became history when all the captives were liberated, but the stories continued on in the lives of the survivors. It’s hard to wrap my head around this story while I live with an abundance of freedom.

I glance up at the clock, surprised to discover it's been an hour since I sat down on this seat. I'm still debating whether to call Mom, but I don’t know anything, and it would only scare her. The only hope I have now is that no news is supposed to be good news, so I’m sticking with waiting it out a little longer.

I stand up and tuck the diary under my arm before pulling on the door handle of the waiting room. The opening invites in the bright lights to filter in from the hallway and with the gloominess of this room, it’s like moving from night to day. I don't hear any beeping noises or alarms, and no one is running around or shouting orders, which helps me remain semi-calm. Everything around me is still and silent as I approach Grams’s room, but as I peek inside, I find the room empty. Where did they take her? Why wouldn't anyone tell me? Could she have passed away and no one came to get me?

Terrified from the thoughts filling my head, I run to the nurses’ station, placing my hands down on top of the cool wooden countertop, waiting for someone to give me an ounce of their attention. The three-seconds I wait is long enough. “Excuse me?” I call out.

A nurse who is typing something into a computer turns around and walks toward me. “Can I help you?” she asks with a kind smile, one that does nothing to calm me down.

“Do you know where Amelia Baylin is?” The nurse looks past me, over to Grams’s former room.

“Are you family?” she asks.

“Yes, I'm her granddaughter, Emma Hill.” My fingernails dig firmly into Grams’s book as I wait out the longest minute of my life. I may chew a hole through my lip before getting an answer. I know I’m probably impatient, but everything seems to be happening in such slow motion around here, and it’s causing me to take quick, deep breaths that are making me dizzy.

She finally sits down at the computer she's closest to and types something in before peering back up at me. “The notes I have here says she's in surgery. That's all I can see from here, though. I'm sure someone will be down to speak with you shortly.”

“Surgery? Why wouldn't anyone tell me, or ask?”

The nurse looks confused and apologetic as she holds her hands against her chest. “I'm so sorry, I don't have an answer for you. I can assure you she's in good hands, though,” she says, matter-of-factly.

As I stare back at the straight face in front of me, I can’t help wondering how many patients she watches come in and out of this department daily because she appears to be unaffected by the emotions of the patients and their loved ones on this floor. I guess to work here, you must become desensitized to a certain degree, but her eyes show a blank slate of emotion. She may be numb to it all, but I’m on the verge of hyperventilating. Leaving a family member without any inclination of what’s happening isn’t right. Someone must know something around here. My continued stare does nothing to earn me any extra information. Instead, the nurse points down the hall. “The waiting room is just around the corner if you'd like to have a seat in there.” As much as I’d like to tell her I've already been sitting in there for an hour, I know it won't do much good.

I should call Mom now. This is going to be bad. I head back to the waiting room, closing myself out from the rest of the world, alone…again. How have I been the only one in this room for so long? It's the ICU. Are there no other patients on this floor with family members who are waiting for answers? I take my phone out of my pocket and dial mom at work, thankful when she answers, rather than her boss who doesn't appreciate personal calls during the day. “Town Clerk’s Office. This is Clara, how can I help you?”

“Mom, it’s me,” I tell her.

“What's wrong?” she asks, anxiously as if someone just jumped up behind her.

“Grams is in surgery right now. I don't know what happened. The alarms were going off when I came to see her, and they told me to go away. I didn’t want to go, Mom, but they made me. So, I went back into the waiting room, and when I went back to see what was happening, she was gone. The nurse said...well she won’t tell me anything except that Grams is in surgery. That’s it; that’s all I know, and I haven’t been able to find out anything.” I’m speaking so quickly that I’m not sure what I’m saying. I think my words seem out of order, but I think Mom understood enough.

“Why didn't you call me sooner?” Her words are just as quick as mine were, but louder. She sounds like she’s on the brink of hysteria.

“I didn't want to scare you. I just—”

“It's okay,” she cries. “I'm coming over there right now.”

I hang up the phone, feeling like a monster. I shouldn’t have waited. It’s her mother, and she should be here. What was I thinking? I’m obviously not thinking straight. Plus, I have a splitting headache, and it’s blazing hot in here.

Angry at myself, I toss my phone down onto the pile of magazines scattered along the small table. The thump of my phone landing causes the display to light up and I notice several missed text messages. I was so engrossed in the diary that I didn't feel my phone vibrate.

I can already guess who the texts are from, and I don’t want to read them. Mike doesn't give up. I have tried to break up with him so many times, and this is how it turns out each time. He begs and pleads for my forgiveness, resistance fails me, and I give in. Not this time, though. I don't have the time to think about him now. In fact, I don’t want to have time to think about him again.

The screen on my phone goes black, and it feels like I’ve overcome a small hurdle—letting it go. I drop down into one of the seats and lean back as I rest the diary on my lap. Without anything else to focus on, my attention sways to the muted TV.

Who needs sound when all you see is bad news from around the world? Suicide bombings, murders, terrorist attacks—it’s all so sad and depressing. I can’t bring myself to watch what the news is broadcasting tonight, so I close my eyes and block everything out.

If they're operating on Grams, she must be well enough to undergo surgery, or they wouldn’t operate, but I still feel like there’s a heavy weight sitting on my chest. I clench my hands around the armrests and try to slow my breaths. It’s going to be okay. It has to be. I’m not ready to say goodbye to Grams.

The door to the waiting room finally opens. “Mom?” I ask before seeing anyone walk in. I should have considered that it could be anyone walking in and waited to see her face, especially since it's not her. “Jackson!” I try to stand but my feet feel like they are stuck in cement, as I fear what he has to say.

Jackson sits down next to me and places his hand on top of mine. “Your grandmother’s in recovery,” he says.

“She is?”

“Yes, but she had another stroke. Her heart stopped, and we had to resuscitate her. We were able to break up the clot with a clot-busting drug and got to it quickly, which is a good thing. The longer the blockage is present from the clot, the more susceptible the brain and other body parts are to damage. It’s fortunate that she was already here in the hospital. It would have only been a matter of time before she had another stroke if we had not placed in the pacemaker. Her atrial fibrillation causes clots to form, and all it takes is one to get lodged in an artery. The procedure was successful, but I also put her on a strong medication to slow down her heart rate. The medication will work in conjunction with the pacemaker, which will stop her heart rate from going below sixty beats per minute.”

“Is she okay?” I manage to choke out.

“It's hard to tell right now since she was just taken to the recovery room. So far everything looks good, but we'll do more testing once she's fully conscious.”

“Wait—” My mind replays something he said a few minutes ago. “Did my grandmother die for a minute?” My face hurts from the tension around my eyes and jaw, and even though I know she’s alive, it doesn't ease my other concerns.

“Her heart stopped for a minute, but she wasn’t dead in terms of a medical diagnosis. We had to get her heart pumping again, and it was touch and go for a few minutes,” Jackson says, squeezing his hand a little tighter around mine. “Did you call your family?”

“I did.” I’m trying my best to hold back my tears because he isn’t offering me the hope I need, and I assume it's because he doesn't want to say something that may not be true.

“Are you going to be okay?” he asks, gently, dipping his head down to catch my gaze. “You’re very pale, and I’m worried about you.”

I nod my head because I don't think I can lie and say yes.

The door to the waiting room flies open again, and Jackson slips his hand away from mine, reminding me that doctors don't typically comfort family members as much as he’s been comforting me. Mom rushes inside, her hands waving around with panic. “What's going on?” she asks, breathlessly.

“Your mother is in recovery right now,” Jackson begins. He retells her the same information he just offered me, and rather than listen to it twice, I focus on Mom's face—the pain and heartache evident by the tears welling in her eyes.

“So, we don't know anything yet?” Mom asks.

“She’s alive and hanging in there,” Jackson reminds her.

Mom clutches her fist against her chest and takes a seat as her face distorts into a deeper level of distress. “How long before she’ll be awake?”

“Shouldn't be long,” Jackson says.

“Emma, did Grams sign the health care proxy papers and HIPAA release form?” Mom asks me.

“Proxy papers?” I question.

“Well, she must not have been able to sign the surgery consent forms if this happened so quickly,” she continues.

“Actually, she signed off on them last night,” Jackson tells Mom while carefully avoiding eye contact with me. I now know that Jackson was aware of Grams’s bribe about the surgery, seeing as she already agreed to it. It was a setup to get me to go out with Jackson tonight and he was in on it.

“I'm going to go check on Amelia now,” Jackson says while giving Mom a quick shoulder squeeze. “I'll be back shortly.”

As the door closes behind Jackson, Mom swings around in her seat to face me. “Were you here when it happened?” she asks.

“No, I was getting some fresh air and answering some work emails.”

Mom wraps her arm around my shoulders and rests her head against mine. “I feel like there’s never enough time to do and say the things we should, but Grams has lived an extraordinary life, more so than a lot of people her age,” I tell Mom. I don’t know if my words help, but now that I’ve seen a glimpse of what Grams has already survived through, this blip on her timeline is nothing in comparison.

“I know,” she whispers, then glances down at the diary I forgot I had out. “What's that on your lap?”

“It's nothing. I was just reading something a friend gave to me.” I place the diary into my bag and pull the flaps together.

“Looks pretty old,” she says.

“Yeah, I'm designing a book cover for it,” I lie.

“Oh, that’s nice, honey.” She’s completely unfocused on what I’m saying while she stares through the wall in front of us. We are all so close in our family that the thought of one of us not being here is incomprehensible, especially Grams. She is the backbone of our family.

Mom and I sit in silence until Annie arrives, which stirs Mom back up. Her version of the story isn’t quite as tight and to the point like Jackson's version, which causes Annie a lot of stress. She wants answers and isn’t getting enough information for her liking.

“If we're going to be seeing her soon, we should probably pull ourselves together so she doesn't see how worried we look. It won't help her,” I tell them, knowing I must not look much better.

“She's right,” Mom says, pulling a wad of tissues out of her purse and handing one to Annie. Their makeup is streaked down their cheeks, and they both have bloodshot eyes. My heart is breaking for them. After all, this is their mom. As close as I am to Grams, I know there is nothing stronger in the world than the bond between a mother and daughter.

“I broke up with Mike,” I tell them, trying to shift their focus a little.

The sniffles stop for the moment, and they both look directly at me. “For good this time?” Annie asks.

“He admitted to cheating on me. It's over. Nice timing, huh?”

Annie takes the seat on the other side of me, and both she and mom hug me, which only makes it harder to stop my leaky faucet of tears. With a sharp inhale, I grit my teeth and look up to the ceiling, reminding myself again that Grams will not want to see us crying. I need to keep it together, especially with the two of them being as upset as they are. Throughout my life, Grams has always told me that “Crying doesn't solve anything, and for those people who cause you pain, the tears give them a type of fulfillment and satisfaction they don’t deserve. Tears are just wasted emotion.”

I try to remember her words each time I'm upset, but I’m not as stoic as she is—I'm not programmed well enough to control my emotions. They work on their own accord, I suppose. Mom and Annie are the same way.

The waiting room door opens again, and this time it's the nurse who had no information for me earlier. She presses her back against the door, holding it open. All the while, she's staring down at a file, paying us no attention, which bothers me as much as her emotionless facade she showcased earlier. Why wear hearts and rainbows all over your pink scrub shirt if it isn't going to represent your attitude? “Amelia is back in her room now if you'd like to go visit with her,” she says.

I know I shouldn’t be so hard on this nurse. She’s just doing her job, and I don’t envy her. It takes a special type of person to do what she does, and I definitely don’t have it in me. It must harden them after a while—keeping their emotions in tow all the time.

We head down the hall, back into Grams’s room, and I’m scared to see what she looks like now. We find her with her eyes half closed and her skin paler than the white sheets covering her. The amount of wires and machines she is hooked up to doesn't look much different from the last time I saw her, though. I rush to her side and drop my bag down against the bed. “Grams, can you hear us?”

A groan gurgles in her throat, so I place a kiss on her cheek and kneel beside her, carefully encasing her hands within mine.

Mom and Annie take her other side and do the same. “She’s probably still groggy from the anesthesia,” I say, quietly.

“I want—Charlie,” Grams mumbles. Her words are garbled, and it’s hard to understand what she’s saying, but I heard Charlie’s name...and it makes sense now.

“Mom, who is Charlie?” Annie asks.

A frail smile struggles against the corners of Grams’s wrinkled lips. “He was spec-tac-ula—.”

Annie and Mom look at each other, questioning who Grams is talking about, and the guilt hits me since I know, but I’m unable to tell them the truth per her request. She asked me to keep this book to myself, so there must be a reason Grams doesn’t want them to know what’s inside.

“Do you know of any Charlie?” Mom asks me.

“No, no, I don't know who Charlie is. I've never heard of him before. It's strange.”

Grams tries to laugh, but it comes out sounding like phlegm catching in her throat. I squeeze her hand to let her know I understand her, but I think she's confused since she asked me not to share anything about her diary with Mom or Annie, and yet, she’s calling for Charlie again.

“How's she doing?” Jackson's voice startles me as he enters her room. “Looks like she’s coming out of it, huh?” I don’t know how to answer since this is all new to me. Instead, I stand up and move out of the way so Jackson can take a look. “Amelia, how are you feeling?” he asks her.

Grams struggles to lift her hand and moves it from side to side as her lip curls into a slight smirk. “Eh,” she mutters.

“Well, we'll get you something to help you relax,” he tells her.

“Charlie,” she says again.

“Her confusion seems worse,” I whisper to Jackson.

“Amelia, can you tell me what year it is?” Jackson questions.

Grams’s eyes open a little wider, and she twists her head against the pillow to look at him. “Why such a silly question?” she says.

“It's just a common question we sometimes ask our patients.”

Grams sweeps her hand across her forehead, pushing away her silvery white-streaked bangs from her forehead. “It's 1942, of course.”

“Grams,” I pipe in, afraid she's truly stuck inside of her head during that period of time. “It's 2017.”

“Oh, Emma,” she says. “Such a funny girl.”

Jackson backs away from Grams and nods for us to follow him out the door. As we file into the hallway, he inhales deeply, pausing for a moment, which soothes me more than my own calming breaths. “I'm going to schedule some tests to see if any brain damage occurred while she was in cardiac arrest. Honestly, I don't think that’s the case, but I want to rule it out. I'm quite confident her confusion is a result of the first stroke, and then having a second one so soon afterward wasn’t much help with progress.” Jackson clears his throat and folds his hands down in front of his waist. With his eyes squinted slightly and his lips pinched to the side, he leans against the wall. “As much as I hate to ask you three to do this, we need to avoid upsetting her, which means playing along for the time being. Keeping her heart rate in a normal rhythm is very important right now.”

We're supposed to pretend like it's 1942 and she's still in the middle of the Holocaust? I don't even know if she was still a prisoner then. “She knows my name,” I tell Jackson. “That should mean something, right?”

“It does,” he says. “It means, she's here and there, both at the same time, and that's nothing to be concerned about right now.”

I don't think he understands how not okay this is for her. “Regressing to that time may cause her more issues with her heart than telling her the truth.”

Jackson seems fixated on me for the moment, gazing into my eyes with concern as if I were the sick patient. “I think she's going to be okay,” he says. “We just need to give her time.”

“Thank you so much, Dr. Beck,” Mom says. “I can't tell you how grateful we are to know our mother is in such good hands.”

“It's my pleasure,” he says. “My shift is just about over, though, so Dr. Lane will be covering the ICU until morning. She’ll be by to introduce herself if you’re still here, but I assure you, Amelia will be sleeping for most of the next twenty-four hours, and I advise you all to get some rest, as well.”

“We're just going to spend a little more time with her,” Annie says. “Thank you, again.” She takes Mom’s arm and tugs her back into Grams’s room where they pull up chairs to sit beside her. For the moment, I just want to pray that wherever Grams’s mind is right now, it isn’t as terrifying as I’m imagining it to be.

“If you’d like to reschedule for tonight, I would understand,” Jackson tells me.

I think for a second, knowing I have nowhere else to go. It's either I go to Mike’s apartment and grab my things, or to my childhood bedroom at Mom’s. She goes to bed at eight, so I won’t be doing her much good by sitting on my bed, working for the night. I suppose I should be working, but a part of me was looking forward to tonight, despite everything that happened today. “I think I could use an escape from my life, even if it’s only for a few hours.”

“No problem.” Jackson scratches at the back of his head as he surveys the hallway—looking everywhere but at me. I don't think he understood what I meant.

“I meant yes, I’d like to still go out with you tonight. At least I’d know if something happened to my grandmother if I was with you, right?” I press a small smile into my lips so he knows I'm partially joking.

“Exactly, I'm probably the best person to be with tonight.” His shoulders straighten, and his dimples deepen. “I just need a few minutes to change and sign off my shift. Do you want to meet me in the lobby in about ten minutes?”

“I'll be there,” I tell him.

I pivot on my toes, feeling a slight bounce in my step as I watch him walk away. I turn back into Grams’s room, finding Mom and Annie with wide eyes and questioning looks on their faces. “Did we just hear what we think we heard?”

I hold my palms out. “Seriously, do you two have bionic hearing?”

“No, you were just talking louder than you think you were,” Mom says.

“You're going on a date with him tonight?” Annie confirms while clasping her hands together.

“You can thank me for that,” Grams groans.

“What do you mean?” Mom asks her.

“I'll tell you after she leaves. Oh, Emma, don't forget to find Charlie, okay?”

I pause for a moment, reminding myself to play along. “Sure thing, Grams,” I tell her as I grab my bag.

“Have fun,” Mom says. “Don’t stay out too late. I’ll be up waiting to hear every detail.”

Nothing has changed from the time I moved out of Mom's until now, and it’s been at least five years. My life is far too exciting for her to handle, even if I’m not enjoying it myself.

I take the elevator downstairs and drop down into one of the wooden chairs in the lobby. I only have a few minutes before Jackson meets me down here, but maybe it's enough time to read another page or two from Grams’s book.