Where Do We Go From Here?

When we reached West Brooke, there were already a lot full of cars. My guess is that Saturday mornings were everyone’s convenient visitation days. As the four of us piled out of my father’s car, we saw my mother and Yia Yiá waiting on the stone bench just outside of the sliding doors of West Brooke.

Yia Yiá is my grandmother on my father’s side, but she surprisingly gets along quite well with my mother. My father hails from Santorini, Greece but actually doesn’t have a single drop of Greek in him, something that—when I was a kid—I had a hard time grasping. However, I now know the somewhat tragic story that encompassed my father’s childhood. Yia Yiá adopted my father after the passing of his real parents; two people that my father hardly remembers since he was an infant when they were involved in a terrible car accident. His parents were in Greece, staying at a quaint inn called Santorini’s Paraklésis. Yia Yiá—whose name is really Katerina, but I’ve grown accustomed to calling her Yia Yiá—alerted authorities in the states that the parents of my father had passed. After a few months of no one claiming this orphaned child, Yia Yiá took my father in as her own. She already had five children of her own; all resembling a beautiful Greek marble statue of some sort. She raised my father, allowing him to keep his English and heritage name since Yia Yiá didn’t see it fit to take that from him.

I always viewed Yia Yiá as a strong woman because of this. She raised a good family as a single mother—since her husband died from a heart attack after the birth of her fifth child—while knowing how to run a successful business. However, as we walked closer to Yia Yiá I could see the age lines framing around her eyes and mouth. I pulled Yia Yiá into a big hug before standing next to my mother. Nowadays Yia Yiá lets my oldest uncle, Cadmus, run the Inn while she travels from living in the states and back to Santorini.

“My Verity, always wonderful to see you.” She smiles before looking at Jason.

“And you!” She chided. “I have to hear from your mother that you got engaged?! Not very Greek of you.” She scolded while waving a chastising finger at him.

“Lympàmai.” Jason apologized. “I thought you flew back to Santorini last week.” He replied sheepishly.

Yia Yiá shook her head. “No, and I won’t be leaving for another week.” Turning to Cassandra, Yia Yiá smiled. “My grandson knows how to pick the prettiest of flowers.”
Cassandra blushed. “Thank you.”

“Now let me see my other granddaughter before I rot of old age.” Yia Yiá said adamantly as we all entered West Brooke.

The first thing that stood out in West Brooke was that it smelled like antiseptic soap and pine needles. It very much resembled the smell of a hospital. The next thing you noticed was the white tiled floors that seemed to be impossible to look at due to the bright fluorescent lighting from the ceiling. It’s the kind of bright that’s a little off putting; you’ll either adjust to it or you’ll simply inherit a headache from it. The glow of the lights made you squint your eyes just a little before coming up to the first check-in point. West Brooke had one main nurse station that was blocked off by a thick slab of glass and a thin metal cage.

“We’re here to see Veronica Abraham.” My father informed the head nurse at the station.

She already knew us quite well since my parents made it a habit to visit Ronnie regularly. “Sure Mr. Abraham. Let me write up your passes and then Nurse Beth will take you to the south wing.” She informed us before writing the each of us a path.

Thankfully, West Brooke doesn’t have a limit on how much visitors a patient can have in one day. We followed Nurse Beth, a young woman with short honeysuckle colored hair, to the south wing. We walked past the small coy pond near the designated yoga area all the way to a large brick building that had banks of flowers lining alongside the cement pathway.

The south wing was a large building that had three types of “main rooms”. There was the arts and crafts room, the reading room, and finally the TV room. However, we weren’t meeting Ronnie in any of these rooms. Beth took us to the small garden just past the TV room. It came with round picnic tables and lawn chairs. Ronnie was sitting on one of the chairs with a notebook in hand, scribbling down her thoughts since Moira—who still happens to be her therapist—instructed her to keep a journal of some sort.

Ronnie looked up at us and offered a weak smile. Her face still looked hollow and her bones still jutted out like roots from the earth, but for some reason she looked better. Her eyes no longer looked dull and empty, lacking a certain flair she used to always have. They now looked familiar and no longer weighed down with dark bags.

“Looking good Ronnie.” I smiled at her as I was the first to wrap her in a hug.

Everyone soon gave their greeting followed by a hug while Cassandra just offered a small smile. I guess she was still nervous to meet our family, not that I blame her though because we can seem a little overbearing at first, if not dysfunctional. We spent the first hour of our visit discussing about Ronnie’s recovery routine. Apparently, Dr. Stroheim—the head doctor at West Brooke—has Ronnie attending one-on-one therapy sessions with Moira along with group therapy sessions. She is also instructed to take the mid-noon lectures on bodily care that teach Ronnie the importance of nutrition of the different types of healthy ways to take care of yourself. Ronnie was also proud to inform us that she actually finished an entire meal last night, but then told us that she had a hard time eating breakfast. She grew somber and guilty as she said this—it was another thing Ronnie was told to do; to be utterly honest about everything.

“We’ll take all the progress you can give us.” My mother said in a warm tone.

Ronnie smiled happily, glad that she hadn’t disappointed any of us. Yia Yiá surprised me the most. I thought she’d be lecturing Ronnie or even giving her an earful, but instead Yia Yiá held back her strong opinions and gave Ronnie a hug before telling her about the Inn and the rest of our family back in Greece. The second half of our visitation was spent talking about Jason’s news. Just as I expected, Ronnie’s face lit up. Cassandra was even sweet enough to ask Ronnie and I to be a part of the bridal party.

“I’m sorry that none of you can be my maid of honor, but I would be more than happy to make you two my bridesmaids.” Cassandra announced happily.

Ronnie smiled. “I’ll be honored.”

I nodded too since you can’t really turn down an offer like that without sounding rude. I never been a part of weddings before, and I really wasn’t in a rush to do so.

Ronnie asked about Tony, in which I said he was finally my boyfriend. Yia Yiá’s reaction was the best since she couldn’t contain the smile growing on her face.

“My Verity has a boyfriend?” She squeaked out her question.

My family’s reaction is understandable since they all probably thought I’d be a lesbian or something.

“As weird as that sounds, yes I do.” I replied while scrunching up my nose.

Jason then proceeded to tease me and say that Tony and I were madly in love. I rolled my eyes in response while keeping quiet since no matter how many times I said we weren’t he didn’t seem to grasp it. We spent another twenty minutes talking about nothing really until Ronnie was called to attend group therapy. Giving the each of us a long embrace, we said our goodbyes before walking back to the main building to head out into the parking lot.

“I was planning on getting the grill going for today.” Jason commented. “Yia Yiá, you wanna join us?”

Yia Yiá smiled. “Of course!”

I figured now would be the time to ask my dad about the pep rally, but in all honesty I really didn’t want to go. To be completely honest, I just wanted to spend my Saturday in my room doing absolutely nothing.

“You look like you have something on your mind.” My father commented as we all piled into his car.

“Callie wants me to go to the pep rally tonight and asked if you could ease up on my punishment.” I replied before adding “However, I don’t want to go to the pep rally, so for argument’s sake can I tell her that you said no.”

My father looked a little staggered from my rapid pace of speaking. “Uh, well I guess.”

Jason snickered. “You have got to be the weirdest teenager in the world.” He remarked. “You’re practically telling dad to keep you grounded so you aren’t allowed to go out.”

I rolled my eyes at him. “It’s a pep rally. I’m sure I’ll live if I miss one.”

Notes

Filler alert :3

Enjoy <3

Thanks for reading! :D