Desperate Measures

Need You Now

With her jaw set and rain beating down on the windshield of her SUV, she turned up the music to block out her racing thoughts.

The day had started out fine; her parents had called, said they were grilling out and invited her, her boyfriend Dean Winchester and his brother Sam over to eat and hang out. The boys were on a hunt and wouldn't be back until later in the evening, so she decided to go by herself. When she arrived; her Dad handed her a beer, she traded insults with her older brothers, Mark and Leon. She helped her Mom with the side dishes and got caught up. They sat down to eat, which turned into the siblings taking turns stealing tater tots from each other's plates. Dad cleared his throat and said

"You knuckle heads cut it out, I got something to tell ya'll."

"All right Dad," Mark said, sipping his beer "which one of us is cut out of the will this month?"

Dad shot Mark a look, though it was a running joke in the family, Dad made it clear he wasn't messing around at the moment.

"This is serious." Dad said and Mark backed down. "Diana called last night and Gigi was admitted to the hospital."

Diana was Dad's sister, Gigi was their grandmother. Gigi had gone to live with Diana after her husband, whom they called Papa, had passed away more than seven years ago.

"What happened?" She asked

"Well she sounded like god damn Death warmed over and that's an insult to Death," Dad started

"Actually he speaks with a slight British accent." She thought. Her family had no idea what Sam and Dean did for a living, when being interrogated by her Dad, Dean had said that they worked for the FBI and couldn't talk a lot about what they did.

Dad went on.

"She had an allergic reaction to her medication and once they got her into the hospital, they think she may have COPD and congestive heart failure." Dad said "They got the allergic reaction under control and they started her on treatments for the COPD. They're testing for the congestive heart failure, but I'm telling ya'll right now, it doesn't look good."

For the first time in nearly twenty years, all three children were silent. After a few beats, Dad answered any questions they had, which mostly came from Mark and Leon. She was silent.

"Courtney?" Dad asked, getting her attention and she looked up "Anything?"

She shook her head

"Nope," She said "I'm good."

She felt torn; how she felt about her grandmother was a complicated thing. As a child, she had nothing but fond memories of Gigi and Papa. Going to their house, watching movies together, being stuffed full of food and interesting stories. They showed up to every school performance, birthday party and graduation, they always sent cards for any holiday. Each of those memories brought a smile to her face.

When Papa passed away and all hell seemed to break loose. Courtney saw a side to her Gigi that she had never seen. Under the surface of this strong willed but sweet woman, was a cruel and vicious person which according to Mom, had always been there.

Unbeknownst to Courtney, her grandparents were flat broke, but Gigi spent absorbent amounts of money anyway. Gigi kept taking out mortgages on their house, for what, Courtney was never sure of. Once Papa was gone, Gigi went from two social security checks to one. They didn't have any type of life or mortgage insurance and with all the extra mortgages she still owed well over $300,000 on a house they had been living in for well over forty years and Gigi could no longer afford to live there

The family had banded together, offering to help clean out the house and get it ready to go on the market.

This also revealed something none of them had known about Gigi; she was a hoarder. She didn't keep trash, thankfully, she did however keep magazines, newspaper clippings, catalogs. She still had clothes, shoes and furniture that had belonged to her mother and sister who had long since passed away. Gigi claimed she'd use them all. One day.