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“Will she be okay?” Carly asked in a small voice.
She wrapped her arms about her daughter. “I think so. Her vitals were good, so we just have to wait and see what the doctors say.”
Carly nodded against her shoulder. “The ambulance woke me up, and I was worried.”
Anita exhaled. “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you. Things happened really fast. Come on, I need to find her son’s phone number and call him.”
They went into Phyllis’s house, and Anita rummaged through the kitchen to find an address book. With relief, she found Cameron’s number and called it while standing in the middle of Phyllis’s kitchen.
Carly sat at the small kitchen table, looking as dazed as Anita felt.
“Cameron,” she said when he answered. “This is Anita Gifford, your mother’s neighbor. She had a medical incident and was just taken to the hospital.”
After the phone call with Cameron, she looked about the kitchen.
“It’s weird being here without Phyllis,” Carly said.
“It is,” she agreed.
“How did you know to come over? Did she call you?”
“No...” Anita told Carly about seeing all the lights on, but she didn’t bring up the early morning phone call from Bobby yet. “It looks like she burned whatever she was cooking.” She picked up the burnt pot from the floor and set it in the sink. “Let’s turn off the lights.”
Once they’d turned out the lights throughout the house, they headed back home.
“Can we go visit her in the hospital?” Carly asked.
“I think so,” Anita said. “Unless they restrict it to family members.” She looked over at her daughter and her worried expression. “If you want to skip school today, we can go over in a couple of hours. See if they’ll let us visit.”
“All right.” Carly stepped into the house. “Can we make hot chocolate? I’m not really hungry, but I’m cold.”
Anita understood perfectly. Once they had their hot chocolate made, Carly decided to go back to bed.
So Anita found herself alone once again in her kitchen, which felt strange in its familiarity. Perhaps her adrenaline was finally wearing off, but tears started as the house became silent again.
She stood for a long moment, looking out the back windows to the garden that was beginning to come to life with the first hints of dawn. The deep lavender of the sky gradually lightened, promising to be a beautiful day. A day of uncertainty, though, for Phyllis. How was she doing? What had the medical staff discovered?
Anita reached for the phone and settled in a kitchen chair with the phone book. She looked up the hospital number and called, hoping to find out any updates. But the person who answered wouldn’t give out any information to a non-family member.
She sighed and hung up the phone. Dropping her head into her hands, she closed her eyes. The argument with Bobby flooded her mind, and she pushed it aside. He could be dealt with later. Phyllis’s life was more important.
Anita stood from the table and paced the kitchen, folding her arms against her torso as the kitchen gradually lightened with the sunrise. At least Carly had gone back to sleep, and she could wake her in a couple of hours. She thought through the times when she’d been impatient with her neighbor, and now guilt slammed her in the chest. Phyllis was a sweet woman—nosy, yes, but that was probably a good thing in a neighbor. A neighbor who cared.
Anita moved back to the phone and called another number.
When Wyatt answered, she felt another rise of emotion in her chest. “Hi, Wyatt, I hope I didn’t wake you.”
“Not exactly,” he said. “I just returned from my run.” His voice did sound a little breathless.
“Is everything okay, Anita?” he asked.
She realized she hadn’t said anything for a moment. “My neighbor Phyllis was just taken to the hospital. You remember her from my backyard?”
“I remember,” Wyatt said. “What happened? Will she be all right?”
“I don’t know.” Anita’s voice cracked. She dragged in a breath, then told Wyatt all that had happened.
“It does sound like a stroke or maybe a heart attack,” he said. “I’m glad you were able to get ahold of her son.”
