PART 2 — THE BINGO CARD
Mrs. Abernathy, ninety-three, pulled a crumpled bingo card from her purse with writing all over the back and held it up in her small hands.
I live at the home on Bee Ridge Road, she said. Last October, when Hurricane Milton came, half the staff could not get in through the flooding. Forty of us old folks were in that building, scared to death, the wind screaming.
One woman stayed. Three days and three nights. She never went home to her own family. She held our hands, she sang to us, she called bingo by flashlight to keep us calm, and she got every single one of us through alive.
The woman Bradley mocked for calling bingo for a living had stayed in a hurricane three days so forty frightened old people would not be alone, and one of them was his own grandmother.
On the back of this card, Mrs. Abernathy said, I wrote down everything she did those three days, because I did not want anyone to ever forget it. Then she looked at Denise. I did not know until today, child, that you were married into this family.
Bradley, who wore his scrubs to brunch, set down his mimosa.
Denise just cut the ham and said she only did what anyone would. But Mrs. Abernathy shook her head and said no. The ones who could leave, left. She stayed.
My daughter leads the Hokey Pokey, her son-in-law had joked. In a hurricane she stayed three days to keep forty people alive, your own grandmother among them. That is the activities director.