Forgotten Lyrics

6. Infirmity

The plastic chair was making her butt go numb, but Lydia barely noticed. Her legs were crossed underneath her, and she wasn’t sure if that was making it better or worse. Delia kept shifting her weight in the chair next to her, so it was probably a bit harder on her than it was on Lydia.

“Do you think he’ll be okay?” Lydia asked.

“I don’t know,” Delia replied honestly, and Lydia would never expect anything less from her grandma than total honesty.

Lydia had been staring at the empty hospital room across the hall from her. The bright blue door had been left open, so she could see the stark white room within. She looked away from it now to turn to Delia.

“You don’t have a sense about it?” Lydia asked.

“No.” Delia had leaned back so her head rested against the wall behind them, and she shook her head. “I don’t always have senses, you know that. Sometimes they come, sometimes they don’t.”

“How come I don’t have them?” Lydia asked.

“Well, your mother didn’t have them, so that’s part of it. And your father . . .” Delia let out a long breath. “He probably blocked a few things out.”

“Did your mother have them?”

“She did, but my aunt didn’t. Some people have them. Other people don’t.” Delia shrugged. “There’s not always a rational explanation for the supernatural. But that’s kinda the point.”

During the car ride over, Daniel’s had blood had stained Lydia’s shirt, so one of the nurses had given her scrubs to change into. She stared down at the oversized shirt, absently picking at a loose thread.

“Don’t you ever worry?” Lydia asked.

“Of course I worry about some things. Was there anything in particular you had in mind?” Delia turned her head so she could look at her granddaughter. 

“That I’m not right to be apprenticing with you,” Lydia said, speaking softly as she stared down at her lap.

“Well, first of all, you’re not apprenticing with me right now,” Delia said. “We both agreed that you’d finish college before you went into the family business. And second, why would I even think that?”

Lydia lifted her head, staring at the empty room across from them again, and sighed. “I don’t think that I could’ve done what you did tonight.”

“With Daniel?” Delia motioned to his room behind them. “Of course you could’ve. You practically did do everything I did.”

“No, Nana, I didn’t.” She turned to her grandma, her brown eyes sad and worried. “I didn’t even know he was coming. If I had been there by myself, maybe I wouldn’t have woken up or Aggie wouldn’t have known how to find me.”