“What happened?” I asked, eyeing the machines around the bed. I stole a look at her medical chart that had conveniently been left in a clear pocket on the wall.

“Oh, you know, dear. Old age finds all of us.” My grandmother smiled, but I knew it had to be something serious if she’d been dragged to the hospital. The woman would have rather climbed a thistle-covered mountain in bare feet than climbed into a hospital bed.

The room was quiet until a doctor asked from the other side of the curtain behind me, “Do you want to rest, Helen?”

I didn’t know how the doctor knew my name, but I huffed a laugh. “More than anything,” I answered, turning. I scanned the room, and leaned to peek around the curtain, but the doctor must have made a quick exit.

“Hmm?” Grandma asked. “Did you say something, dear?”

“Uh…” I made a face at the empty room and came back to her bedside. “Nope.”

The sound of rattling loose change filled the doorway and Grandma froze. “Is Quinn back?” She tried to tuck herself back in, but the smell of freshly ground coffee beans told me it was someone else.

Emily started talking even before she was visible around the curtain. “I know what I want to do with my money,” she said, coming around with two paper cups in a tray. She slid one out and handed it to me. I could have hugged her.

Grandma peeked one eye open with a confused look like she wasn’t sure if she should keep pretending to be asleep or not. She wasn’t wearing her glasses, so I imagined she was trying to guess who Emily was.

“What have you decided to do with all your money, Emily?” I asked to help the old woman out.

Grandma smiled and closed her eyes after all, leaving us to our “private” conversation.

Emily pulled out her phone and began poking the screen. At first, I thought she forgot she was talking to me, but then she flipped it around to show me what she’d been after. “We’re going to open a café. I’ve been typing out all those coffee recipes you were coming up with when you thought I wasn’t listening.” I blinked at the notepad app on her phone, filled with ingredients and directions. She pulled the phone back and flipped to a new screen before showing me again. “And this is where we’re going to do it. I need a place to live and a job, and you want to make coffee drinks, so it’s perfect. This cute building on the corner is for sale. I think it used to be a breakfast diner or something, but there’s an apartment above the store.”

A quiet snoring sound drifted up from Grandma, and Emily hushed her voice. “Let’s talk outside,” she nodded to the hall.