Room 14's Secret: The Heiress Who Outsmarted Her Betrayers novel · Chapter 23 of 24

Chapter 23: The Jet

The ambulance came in four minutes.

I rode in the back with her and held her hand the whole way.

She couldn't talk. Her eyes stayed on my face, sharp and furious, as if this were somebody's fault and she meant to find out whose.

At the hospital they took her through a pair of doors I wasn't allowed through.

Matthew came twenty minutes later with the women behind him.

All eleven of them, and the orderly, filling the waiting room.

The old woman sat down next to me and took my hand without asking.

The professor's wife went to the nurses' station and asked the charge nurse three questions in a row, very politely, and got three real answers.

"A stroke," she said when she came back. "A small one. They caught it fast. That's what matters."

At midnight a doctor came out.

She was young and tired and looked at the crowd of us in the waiting room with some alarm.

"Family of the patient?"

Thirteen women and one large man stood up.

"Ah," the doctor said.

My grandmother was awake.

Her mouth drooped a little on the left, and her left hand lay still on the blanket.

Her eyes were exactly the same.

"Adele," she said. It came out thick and slow.

"I'm here."

"Who are all those people in the hall?"

"The women. And Matthew."

"Send them home. It's undignified." She shut her eyes. "Tell Matthew to stay."

For four days, Grandmother made life hell for the nurses on that floor.

She refused the hospital food and had lobster rolls brought from a place in Gloucester.

She told the neurologist his tie was a cry for help.

She made Flora and Edie, when they came, sit on the bed on either side of her and tell her every word of a cartoon.

Her speech came back a little more every day.

Her temper came back all at once.

On the fifth morning, the attorney arrived with a leather folder.

"Sit," my grandmother said to me.

I sat.

"I'm not dying," she said. "I want that clear before anybody starts weeping."

"I'm making you trustee. Of all of it. Effective today."

"Grandmother..."

"Not a conservator. Not a husband. Not a court." She lifted her good hand and pointed at me. "You."

← Chapter 22 · All chapters · Chapter 24 →

Want to keep talking to characters like these? Chat with AI romance characters: AI Boyfriend · AI Girlfriend · Dark Romance · Fantasy Romance · BL (Boys’ Love) · Billionaire Boyfriend · Mafia Boyfriend · Possessive Boyfriend · Hockey Boyfriend · Older Boyfriend · K-Drama Boyfriend · Anime Boyfriend · Vampire Boyfriend · Werewolf Boyfriend · Demon Boyfriend · Fae Romance · GL (Girls’ Love) · Anime Girlfriend · Goth & Alt Girlfriend · Gamer Girlfriend · Tsundere Girlfriend · Fantasy Girlfriend