And though singing karaoke hadn’t been my dream, I realized that standing onstage with the crowd going wild for us was the feeling I had been after all year.

Gram and I put down the train and the four of us walked to the edge of the stage and took a bow.

As I came up from our bow, the crowd gasped, and I felt something land on my left foot.

I looked down.

Gram lay at my feet.

She had collapsed.

Again.

“Gram! Gram!” I yelled over the noise and confusion.

Then I dropped to my knees next to her.

And Brandon yelled, “Call nine-one-one!”

I grabbed Gram’s wrist to feel her pulse, and the rhythm of her heart raced like a runaway locomotive. But when I put my ear to her mouth, her breath felt shallow.

No matter how many times I said “Gram,” and no matter how many of my tears fell on her face or dripped onto the leather-fringed jacket she wore, she didn’t open her eyes.

That was all not even an hour ago, but it feels more like a few hundred years, because I’m sitting in the Borlandsville emergency-room waiting area with Mimi on one side of me and Brandon on the other. And now that I’m finished writing this letter, I don’t know what I’ll do to keep myself from going completely hysterical, because since we’ve gotten here, no one has told us anything at all about what’s wrong with Gram or how she’s even doing.

I think you’d agree that there’s only one worse thing that could happen in this situation, and no matter how ingrained that camp motto is in my head, I don’t even want to think about that, let alone prepare for it.

Love,

Me

Dear Me,

I didn’t know it at the time, but the emergency-room doctor called Mom shortly after we got here. Mimi must’ve given them Mom’s number when she gave the nurses all Gram’s information.

So, a little while ago, Mom called me.

I cried while Mom tried to talk.

And ever since then, I’ve been sitting in the corner of the emergency-room waiting area writing you another letter.

I won’t keep you in suspense.

Gram didn’t die.

And the really good news is that Mom said the doctor told her Gram’s going to be okay, but I’m not so sure about me, especially because of what Mom told me next.

The doctor told Mom that Gram hadn’t been taking her medication.

I exploded with a whole new batch of tears.

“How can that be? Her pill container’s been empty.”

But Mom had more to say, so she tried to calm me down, so I could listen.