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“Well . . . we’ve been talking.”
Anita closed her eyes, hating this, hating everything right now. “One more day,” she ground out. “You can delay one more day. Do it for your daughter. Or don’t you care at all? Were all those words in the grocery store just platitudes?”
“Anita, I’ll be back in a few days. Next week at the latest. I’ll call Carly after school. Explain everything. It will be peachy, you’ll see.”
She wanted to throw something. Anything. She knew by experience that begging, pleading, or even yelling wouldn’t change Bobby’s mind. “Fine. Whatever.” She hung up.
Either he’d call or he wouldn’t. There was nothing she could do about it except try to soften the blow for Carly. But first, she needed to get out of the house, out of these four walls, before she combusted.
Anita stepped into the backyard in the predawn light. The moist fragrance of the plants and soil surrounded her, bringing a measure of calm. She walked the dim paths of her garden, letting her disappointment and anger seep out of her. Breathing measured breaths helped to slow her racing heart. As she reached one edge of the garden, she glanced over at Phyllis’s house. Strangely, all of her lights were on.
Was that normal for this early in the morning? Anita tried to think of a time when she’d been up this early and outside to notice the lights at Phyllis’s. Surely, it had happened, but she had never seen all the lights on. Not even at night.
Her stomach tightened. What if something was wrong? What if there was a medical emergency? Phyllis wasn’t a young woman, no matter how healthy she might seem with all of her strict diet fads.
Anita moved toward the gate that led to the front yard. Her steps moved faster until she reached Phyllis’s front door. Maybe the lights had been left on from the night before, and she was sound asleep in her bed—oblivious. But from her position, she could see that the bedroom light was on too. Hopefully if she was overreacting, Phyllis would find humor and forgiveness.
Anita knocked on the door, loudly. As she waited for an answer, her heart rate climbed. The phone call from Bobby had been a crappy setback, but it didn’t compare to Phyllis having some sort of emergency.
She knocked again and rang the doorbell for good measure. Then she called out, “Phyllis? Are you home?” It was a silly question because her car was nestled beneath the carport. Maybe she’d gone somewhere overnight with her son’s family and forgot to turn off the lights?
“Phyllis?” Still there was no answer. Anita couldn’t just stand here on the porch, yelling in the near-darkness. “Please be all right,” she mumbled as she reached for the doorknob and turned. She fully expected to find it locked, but the door opened.
And that’s when she smelled smoke.
“Phyllis!” she yelled, hurrying inside, looking wildly about. Was there a fire, and if so, where was the smoke? She couldn’t see anything, but the scent was unmistakable. Her eyes watered as she shouted again.
“Phyllis!”
She hurried into the kitchen to find all the lights on and a scorched pan on the linoleum. None of the stove’s elements were on, but whatever had been in the pot was charred beyond recognition.
Anita felt a small measure of relief. There wasn’t a fire, it was just a burnt pot. But where was her neighbor?
“Phyllis? Where are you?” she called out as she headed down the hallway.
The bathroom lights were on, but it was empty. The first bedroom lights were on, but Phyllis wasn’t in there. It looked like a guest bedroom anyway. The second bedroom lights were on as well.
She stopped in the doorway and gasped. Phyllis was on the bed, curled up on her side, clutching the receiver of her phone. Anita hurried toward her. “Phyllis? What’s wrong?”
Phyllis opened her eyes, but said nothing. She seemed to be breathing all right.
“Phyllis, what happened?” she asked, taking the phone receiver.
Phyllis released it easily. Anita put the receiver to her ear. “Hello?” she said in case there was someone on the line. Who had she been trying to call?
Heart thumping, Anita pushed down the switch hook, then dialed 9-1-1. She gave the operator the address, then waited for the ambulance to arrive.
“I’ve called the ambulance,” she told Phyllis as they waited. “Everything will be all right. You’ll see.” She grasped the woman’s hand, holding on, wishing that she knew what had happened.
Her mind raced through scenarios as they waited, and she wondered how to track down Phyllis’s son. His name was Cameron, but that’s all she really knew.
When the paramedics arrived, Anita answered as many questions as she could. Then she watched as Phyllis was loaded onto a gurney, then into the ambulance. It was an eerie feeling watching her being driven away, leaving her house and neighborhood behind. A few neighbors came out of their houses, and Anita could only tell them the basics.
“Mom?”
Anita heard Carly’s voice and turned. She’d come out of the house, wearing a robe, her eyes as wide as saucers. “What’s going on?”
Anita hurried over to her. “Phyllis has had a stroke or something. I found her in her house and called the ambulance.”
