Flashing lights cut through the night as I pulled around the corner. The big fire truck was parked in front of the apartment building at an angle, with an ambulance right in front of it. I don’t know how fast I was driving—fast enough that the car skidded to a stop when I slammed on the brakes. Then I was out the door and running, praying desperately that Lexi had been wrong.
This had to be some kind of mistake—Mom had been fine when I’d left.
She’d hugged me goodbye. She’d been playing cards with Kayden. She was going to stop smoking and now I had a job and our family was going to be okay, even if she did like her rum and Cokes a little too much.
I flew up the stairs, only to be blocked by a firefighter at the door.
“It’s my mom,” I gasped, desperate for information. “My sister and brother… They’re inside.”
He caught my shoulders, steadying me. “They’re working on her right now. You need to stay out of the way. Do you understand?”
“What’s happening?”
His expression stayed absolutely neutral. “All I know is that they’re taking care of her, and that you need to let them do their jobs.”
“What about my brother and sister?”
“They’re in the living room,” he said. I tried to pull away, to get inside, but his hands tightened. “Hey, listen to me.”
“What?” I asked, trying to see past him.
“They’re scared,” the man said, his voice serious. “You need to be strong for them right now, okay? Can you do that?”
I closed my eyes, taking a deep breath. My thoughts were racing way too fast, but I knew he was right. I needed to pull my shit together. Now. I pushed the panic down through sheer force of will, then opened my eyes and nodded.
“I can do this.”
“Yes, you can.”
He let me go, and I pushed past him through the door. There was another firefighter waiting inside, and I heard noise from the back bedroom. Off to the right, Lexi and Kayden sat on the couch, clutching each other.
“Randi!” Kayden shouted, launching himself across the room into my arms. He nearly knocked me over, but the firefighter put a hand against my back, catching me. Then Lexi was hugging me so tight it hurt. Her entire body shook, and I thought about how hard it must’ve been—finding Mom, calling 911, taking care of Kayden…
“Okay, we need you to move out of the way,” the firefighter said. “They’re bringing her out. You’ll need to follow them to the Grantham hospital in your car. Do you understand?”
“Yes,” I said, trying to balance Kayden as I backed Lexi into the living room. Then I saw the EMTs coming out of the bedroom, rolling the stretcher carrying my mom. There was one man on each end, and a third walked next to them, carefully pumping air into her chest with some sort of bulb thing. Her face was the wrong color, sort of a horrible bluish gray.
Living things weren’t supposed to be that color.
Time seemed to slow. Lexi’s fingers clutched my arm. I blinked, then realized the guy helping her breathe was Rome. He met my gaze, and while his face was stoic, I saw the weight of understanding in his eyes.
He knows what this feels like, I realized. He’s watched someone he loves fighting for their life…
“Call Tinker and have her meet you at the hospital,” he said, his voice serious.
I opened my mouth. Wanting to ask the question.
Wanting to know if she was already gone.
I couldn’t, though. Not in front of the kids. Then they were out the door. My back sagged, and I lowered Kayden to the floor. Rome was right—we needed to get to the hospital. What had I done with my phone and my keys?
Suddenly Lexi started giggling, like some sort of deranged hyena.
“What?” I asked. She shook her head and pointed to my feet. I looked down, trying to figure it out. Then I saw…
I’d completely forgotten about my shoes.
My feet were bruised and bloody, and they’d left streaks all over the carpet. I hadn’t even noticed. They should’ve hurt, but they didn’t. In fact, I didn’t really seem to be feeling anything at all. Shock?
Huh.
Lexi laughed harder.
“Shut up!” Kayden yelled, then he ran past me toward their room, slamming the door. I heard the sound of something breaking inside. I looked down at my feet again, because holy fucking shit. This was real. This was really happening.
Right here, right now.
“Grab whatever you need,” I told Lexi, trying to get a hold of my thoughts. She was still laughing, but laughter was the wrong word to describe the noise coming out of her mouth. No, this… this was the sound of something so sick and sad and heartbreakingly full of fear that no single word could ever describe it.
This was the sound of our world ending.
The hardest part about getting to the ER was finding my car keys. They weren’t in the apartment, my purse, or the car. Finally Lexi and I started retracing my path using our cell phones as flashlights, and Kayden spotted them in the street, about a foot away from the driver’s side door. The whole search only took about ten minutes, but it felt like an eternity.
Then we had to drive to Grantham, about twenty miles down the valley. All I could think about was my mother’s face, and that terrible, bluish gray color. Lexi sat in the back with Kayden, holding him. That horrible laughter of hers had faded, thank God. Now she whispered to him quietly, and while I knew he was still crying, he seemed to be under control.
The hospital was small and there were plenty of parking places right in front of the ER. This time I made sure to tuck my keys into my pocket, then Lexi and I each took one of Kayden’s hands and we walked inside.
Big city ERs are usually loud, busy places, but here in the valley, things were different. There were only a few people in the waiting area—the place was practically deserted. I spotted the reception desk, then stopped because Rome was standing there, waiting for us.
He looked solid in his blue EMS uniform. Strong and competent in his professionalism. I tried to read his expression for some sign of hope—any hope at all.
All I saw was sadness.
“Tinker will be here soon,” he said quietly, coming to stand in front of us. “I called her once we got your mom inside.”
I opened my mouth to ask how she was doing, but my throat was too dry. I couldn’t seem to make the words come out. Lexi asked instead.
“How is she?”
Rome sighed, reaching up with one hand to rub the back of his neck. “They’re working on her. Doc will come out and talk to you as soon as she can. Until then, there’s a family room you can go to.”
My stomach clenched—they didn’t send people to the family room to hear good news.
“Can we see her?” asked Kayden, his voice small and trembling.
“Not right now,” Rome said quietly.
“Soon?”
“Do you like candy?” Rome asked. “They’ve got a fantastic vending machine down the hallway. It’s full of chips and stuff, and I think there’s pop, too. I’ve been working all night, so I’m pretty hungry. I could use some company, and you can help me pick out food for your sisters. They might take a while, so we can hang out and eat while they check on your mom.”
Kayden looked up at me for permission. Somehow, I managed to give him a smile.
“That sounds like a good idea,” I told him. “Why don’t you see if you can find me some peanut M&Ms? Or maybe some barbecue chips.”
“Okay,” he said, his face still uncertain. I wanted to tell him everything would be fine. That he didn’t need to worry. But that was probably a lie.
“Let’s get your sisters settled, and then we’ll go find the snacks,” Rome said. Then he led us toward a set of double doors, waving a little keycard in front of a sensor to open them.
We entered a hallway that was all white tile, with a nurses’ station just inside the entry and a line of glass-walled rooms down the left side. Most of them had blue curtains drawn, and I could hear machines beeping in the distance. Ignoring all that, Rome turned to the right, opening a plain wooden door. The room beyond wasn’t big. A beige couch sat against one wall, and there were a couple matching chairs arranged across from it. The lighting was more subdued in here, and I saw a basket full of magazines on the floor.
As Lexi walked in, I turned to Kayden, putting my hands on his shoulders.
“You stick with Rome, all right? We’ll be right inside here, waiting.”
He nodded, his young face serious, and I gave him a quick hug.
“Okay, little man,” said Rome. “Let’s go find something to eat.”
Time crawled.
Lexi paced, checking her phone every thirty seconds and wiping away tears. I wanted to ask what’d happened back at the apartment—how Mom had gone from the woman I’d left laughing and playing cards to the bluish lump on the stretcher. Now wasn’t the moment. Lexi looked like she might shatter into a thousand pieces and she wouldn’t meet my eyes.
Every second that passed without the doctor coming felt like a cruel tease.
Was she dead?
She’d sure looked dead to me. But if she was dead, why hadn’t they come to tell us? As more time passed, a weird, irrational hope took root in my heart. I mean, why would they have worked so hard to save her unless there was a chance?
Then I thought about the color of her face. People didn’t turn that color unless all their oxygen was gone, and I didn’t know how long it’d taken my sister to find her. First Lexi had to call 911, and that’d probably taken five or ten minutes. It’d taken another five or ten for me to reach the apartment after she called me, and all the while, Mom had been blue.
Brains couldn’t go that long without oxygen.
We both jumped when someone finally knocked on the door, bracing ourselves as it opened. A short, wiry, middle-aged woman wearing a white coat over blue scrubs stepped in. Her badge said she was Dr. Elizabeth Templeton.
Lexi and I stilled.
“How is she?” I asked, desperate for an answer and afraid to hear it at the same time.
“Your mother suffered a very serious asthma attack,” she said, the words measured. “We tried very hard to save her, but despite our best efforts, the damage was too severe and she died. I’m very sorry for your loss.”
I closed my eyes, waiting for the pain to hit. But everything just felt numb. Numb and empty and unreal.
“But I felt her pulse when I found her,” Lexi whispered, rubbing her hands together nervously. “She was laying on the floor and I checked for her pulse, just like we learned in school. Her heart was beating. I blew into her mouth until the ambulance got there and then they started giving her air.” Her voice started to rise. “If her heart was still going and she had air, how can she be dead?”
“You didn’t do anything wrong,” the doctor replied firmly. “The damage was likely already done before you found her. By the time her heart arrested in the ambulance, it was just too late. We tried everything we could to get it started again, but her heart was weak.”
Lexi started rocking back and forth, wrapping her arms tightly around her body. “It’s my fault. I heard a thump from her bedroom, but I didn’t go check on her. She was drunk. I was taking a bath and she falls all the time when she’s drunk. I ignored it because I was shaving my legs. And now she’s dead. If I’d gotten out of the tub, she’d still be alive, wouldn’t she?”
I reached for her, but she slapped me away, staring at the doctor, willing her to answer. The woman shook her head.
“Your mother’s condition was very bad,” she told Lexi. “If you’d found her earlier, I doubt it would’ve made much difference. You did your best and so did the ambulance crew, but sometimes people are just too sick to survive.”
Lexi shook her head, turning away.
“Can we see her?” I asked.
“Yes,” the doctor told me. “But I want to warn you—she doesn’t look like herself right now. We fought very hard to save her, which means we used tubes and ran IVs to give her medication. While it’s true that some families like to say goodbye to their loved ones in the ER, it can be traumatic.”
“I want to go,” Lexi said, still facing the wall. “I need to see her. This doesn’t feel real.”
“Me too,” I agreed. “However she looks, it can’t be worse than when they rolled her out. I want to say goodbye.”
The doctor nodded. “I’ll have the nurse come get you in a few minutes, once they have a chance to clean up.”
She turned and left the room, closing the door softly. I stepped over to Lexi, putting a hand against her back. “It’s not your fault.”
“Yes, it is,” Lexi said softly. “I heard something fall, Randi. But I just figured she’d knocked something over. She hadn’t been having any trouble breathing and she wasn’t smoking. You know how she is when she drinks. I was tired and all I wanted was to finish my bath… I almost didn’t check on her before I went to sleep. She had the nebulizer out when I found her, but I think she passed out before she could use it.”
“Lexi, you did your best,” I said, willing her to believe me. “And you heard the doctor. She was sick—way sicker than any of us realized. I’m the one who left you alone with her for the night. If it’s anyone’s fault, it’s mine.”
With that, she turned and I wrapped my arms around her. Then we held each other tight as she started crying again. I found myself staring at the wall over her shoulder, trying to absorb it all. It had a soft, smooth texture covered in soothing blue paint.
The whole room was like that—calm.
I didn’t feel calm, though. I didn’t feel calm at all, because the wall of numbness that’d protected me until now was starting to show cracks, and I finally felt something. It wasn’t the pain I’d expected, though.
It was fear.
This teenage girl in my arms? She was my responsibility now. For real. Forever. So was the nine-year-old boy wandering the hospital with Rome, eating candy… If I couldn’t take care of them, they’d end up in foster care.
My mind started to race.
I needed to find us a new place to live—I couldn’t take them back to that apartment, not after what happened tonight. There would be paperwork, too. I’d have to apply for legal guardianship.
And I had to call my brothers, I realized. Aiden and Isaac had no clue. I had to tell them. Kayden, too.
Oh, Mom, I thought. How could you leave me like this?