“She had a heart attack,” I blurt. The lie burns the back of my throat.
Tears brim in Anna’s eyes. “I’m so sorry, Ella,” she says. “I can’t imagine losing a mother so young.”
“Thanks,” I say, lowering my gaze to the table.
“Wait a sec.” Anna’s fingers fly over the keyboard. Shepounds the return key and leans forward, the light from the screen reflecting in her green irises. “It says here if someone dies in a hospital, the attending doctor issues the death certificate. What’s the name of the hospital?”
“Massachusetts General,” I say, already on my feet. I’ll go to the hospital and request a copy of my mother’s death certificate. Then I can deposit my memories of my mother back in the past where they belong.
Anna clears the plates from the table and follows me to the front door.
“What are you doing?” I ask.
“Coming with you,” she says, bending over to fasten the buckles on her cream ankle boots. “Obviously.” She grabs her handbag from the entry table and shifts her weight to one side, eyeing me up and down. “You’d better get dressed, nerd.”
The beige, knee-high boots I borrowed from Anna click against the shiny hospital floor. We cross the spacious foyer, passing under a large red sign pointing toward the ER, and my pulse jumps. It’s warmer than outside, but the heated space is tinged with bitter antiseptic and lavender air freshener.
“Are you okay?” Anna asks, and I’m thrown back in time. Silas is carrying me through the same hospital doors as if I’m dying.
“Are you okay?” Silas asks.
“Yes. And I can walk, Silas,” I say, shifting in his arms to reach up and brush the deep groove between his dark brows. “Hey. I’m fine.”
He pulls away from my touch. “You’re not fine. Nothing about this is fine,” he says through gritted teeth, a subtle tremble in the strong arms cradling me. “I did this to you.”
“Don’t say that. We were messing around, and I fell. Please don’t blame yourself.”
He shakes his head and my heart sinks. Why did I have to trip and ruin the most perfect day of my life?
We enter the ER, and I suck in a breath, but my lungs expand less with each inhale.
Silas lowers me onto a plastic chair in front of the triage nurse and spots cloud my vision. My uninjured hand reaches out to grip his strong forearm and his muscles tense beneath my fingers. “I—I don’t like hospitals. After everything that happened to my mom.” There’s a flash of limbs secured to bed rails and my heart jumps. “Don’t leave.”
Silas’s large, warm hand slips into mine, his touch firm. “Never.”
“—Ella?” Anna pulls me from the dormant memory, awakened in the absence of my medication. I’d forgotten.All of it.The strength in Silas’s arms as he’d carried me into the hospital. The tension in his clenched jaw. His pained stare.
Why did he push me away?I scrunch my eyes shut. I’d always believed the amnesia-like side effects of my medication were a curse. Now they seem like a cruel blessing.
I clear my throat. “I’m fine,” I say to Anna, feigning a smile.
We turn right and line up at the front desk in silence. The hairs on the back of my neck rise, and my head whips from the hospital entrance to the mezzanine overhead. My arms wrap around my chest.No one is following you.
“Next,” the receptionist at the front desk calls, and adrenaline pulses through my veins. Her spectacled gaze is fixed to her computer, fingernails tapping on the keys.
Anna and I step toward the glass partition, and I hunch to speak into the circular patterned holes. “I’d like to request a copy of my mother’s death certificate.” My voice seems to reflect off the glass, the sound dampened. “She died here, ten years ago.”
“Okay,” the woman says, eyes trained on her computer. I mutter my mother’s name and date of birth, and the woman types something on the keyboard. The printer behind her hums to life.
“That was easy,” Anna whispers in my ear.
The woman’s arm flings over her head to the printer behind her, and she snatches the freshly printed paper from the tray. “There you go,” she says, sliding the paper through a rectangular opening in the bottom of the glass.
I pick up the paper. “Request for access of medical information,” I read aloud.
“Complete this form and submit to the records department with photo ID. The requested information will be sent to you in six to eight weeks.” The woman’s attention slides to the elderly couple waiting behind us. “Next.”
Six to eight weeks?“But—”
