I stopped in front of my brother, my hands twitching at my sides. He grabbed my fingers and pulled me to the empty seat next to him. I let myself fall into the uncomfortable chair then leaned forward and rested my head in my hands.
How long did it take to run a few tests?
A man moaned to my left as he clutched his stomach, and I shifted closer to Damien. Already we’d been subjected to a bloody gash on a kid’s forehead, a broken arm with the bone protruding, and a woman obviously in labor being wheeled in by a frantic husband. We didn’t need to add projectile vomiting to the list of horrors the ER waiting room provided.
The automatic doors to the ambulance bay opened, and paramedics wheeled in a gurney.
I slammed my gaze down to the floor before I’d be forced to steal the sick man’s barf bag.
Black-and-white-checked Vans stepped into my line of vision. My eyes trailed up and met with a brown paper cup, steam swirling and then disappearing from the hole in the lid.
“Hear anything yet?” Betsy asked as I took the coffee.
I sipped, wincing as the scalding liquid burned my tongue. “Not yet.” I turned back to Damien. He looked as rumpled as I felt, his Cal State LA T-shirt wrinkled from hours of sitting in these infernal chairs. “Tell me again what happened.”
He sighed but launched into the recitation of events for the third time. “Like I said, Mom and I were having breakfast at a little bistro by campus when she started having trouble breathing. She got super lightheaded, broke out in a sweat, and said her chest hurt. I called 911 and the ambulance was there in less than ten minutes. They whisked her back, you endangered hundreds of drivers getting here as quickly as you did, and we’ve been waiting ever since.”
“You want me to talk to the person at the desk?” Betsy eyed the reception area.
I leaned back and let my hands fall to my sides. “No, but thank you.” I squinted up at her. “Don’t you have someplace you need to be?” Amanda had squeezed me tight and made me promise to update her but hadn’t come to the hospital at all. Phobia, I think, or something like that. I’d insisted Nicole not bring Sierra and expose her to all the germs. Molly had stayed for a while but then needed to get home to Chloe before Ben had to leave for his next shift.
I pulled my phone out of my purse and waved it like jazz hands. “I’ll text you an update as soon as we hear anything.”
Ping.
I lowered my phone. A new message bubble lit atop my lock screen photo of Domino. I swiped the screen and face ID unlocked and opened the message. I didn’t recognize the number at the top.
Just heard about your mom.
I hope she’s ok.
This is Malachi, by the way
“What are you grinning about?” Damien’s shoulder bumped mine as he leaned in. He grabbed my phone and tilted it toward him.
Nosy pest.
“Who’s Malachi?”
Betsy bent at the waist, her head casting a shadow across the screen. “Malachi texted?”
I pulled my phone to my chest and slanted a look at my brother. “He’s a friend.” To Betsy I said, “I guess so.”
Damien jutted his chin toward Betsy. “She usually gets this flustered over a text from afriend?”
Betsy snorted. “I can’t even remember the last time afriendtexted her.”
I deposited my phone back in my purse, even though I wanted nothing more than to punch out a response to the text. But that would only make these two hound dogs sniff around all the more. “You guys are awful.”
“No, we’re bored,” Damien corrected.
“Damien and Jocelyn Dormus?” A nurse in blue scrubs stood at the double swinging doors, scanning the waiting room. Damien and I stood, and the nurse smiled at us. “You two can come back and see your mother now.”
I gave Betsy a hug and then followed Damien and the nurse down a long corridor. She stopped beside a partitioned off area and pulled back the curtain. Mama lay prone on the hospital cot, her dark hair sprawled across a white pillow, a sheet pulled up to her chest. Tubes and wires and a whole lot of other medical stuff that I knew nothing about trailed from her chest and arm to monitors and what nots.
My stomach rolled. There was a reason I’d never entered the medical field.
I swallowed back rising acid and forced my lips into a smile, hoping they didn’t tremble as much as my knees were shaking. I took a few steps toward Mama and half sat on the edge of her bed before the grayness crowding the edge of my vision totally took over and I wiped out on the hospital floor. I slipped my fingers into her cupped palm. “How are you feeling?”
