Erin walked into her gran’s room, smiling as she looked down at the huge bunch of freshly cut roses she’d picked from the garden this morning. She was hoping the scent of something familiar would do Gran some good, but her smile faded abruptly as she approached the bedside and saw the tubes.
Her gran had looked frail before, but with the tubes coming out of her nose, she looked even worse. Seeing Gran was asleep, Erin put the flowers down carefully by the bedside and tiptoed back to the door, stopping a nurse who was walking past the room.
‘Excuse me, but can you tell me why they’ve put those tubes in my grandmother’s nose? Has something happened?’
The nurse shook her head gently. ‘Nothing’s happened. But because your grandmother hasn’t been eating, the doctor wanted to try nasogastric feeding.’
‘Oh. Is that normal? Her not eating?’
‘It’s not unexpected, considering her age and her injury.’
Erin thanked the nurse, then headed back into the room. To Erin, the fact Gran wasn’t eating suggested she’d given up, and her heart felt heavy at the thought.
That night, Erin finally managed to track her mother down via her overseas foundation, but she was working in a remote village somewhere in Borneo and the connection dropped in and out, making conversation difficult. She filled her in on Gran’s accident and the news that she was now in the nursing home, but her mother’s blasé reaction annoyed her.
‘It sounds like she’s where she needs to be.’
‘She is, but, Mum, she’s not too good.’
‘Darling, she’s ninety-two. What do you expect?’
Erin let that go; the static was making it difficult enough without wasting the call on getting upset. ‘When do you think you will be back?’
‘I wasn’t planning on returning for at least another three weeks.’
‘I think you should come home now.’
‘What do you think I can do for her? She’s being well cared for, and you said they won’t let her go home. I don’t know what you expect me to do.’
‘The doctors are worried about her. They’ve had to start tube-feeding her. She’s . . . Mum, she’s fading away. I think you should come home,’ said Erin, realising she sounded a lot curter than she’d meant to. The image of her grandmother being force-fed through a nasal tube to save her from starving to death had been a confronting sight when she’d visited earlier that day.
‘Who gave them permission to do that?’
‘They don’t need permission. She’s not eating.’
Her mother was quiet for a moment. ‘Look, I’ll try to wrap things up here as fast as I can.’
‘Can you give me a time frame?’
‘It depends on finding transport out. It could take a while, maybe a week.’
‘Just get here as fast as you can,’ said Erin, not even sure if Gran had till next week. The thought made her feel incredibly sad.
‘I know you’ll have everything under control,’ said her mother. ‘You’re just like your gran.’
If only, thought Erin. She was almost glad Gran hadn’t been well enough for her to tell her about her break-up with Phillip. She was already a failure in her husband’s eyes, she didn’t want to be a disappointment to Gran as well.