“Through?” I shriek.
“Yeah. It’s gross and it hurts so bad, honey. Still got the stupid avocado on it, too.”
“What? Ew..” My whole body cringes at the thought.
The reality is just as bad. My mom answers the door with a tear-streaked face and a gruesome hand. She’d been holding half an avocado in her left hand, trying to stab out the pit with a super sharp kitchen knife. For some insane reason, she jumped so hard that the knife went through the avocado pit and into her hand.
“I know not to pull it out,” she says, grimacing as she cradles the hand with her other hand, holding a bloody kitchen towel to the bottom of it.
I curse under my breath. There is a giant knife sticking out of my mom’s hand. “Let’s get you in the car,” I say.
Luckily I’m able to drive into her garage and let her carefully climb into the passenger seat without getting soaked in the rain. It’s a short drive to the nearest urgent care, and I park under the covered ambulance area to get her out. Even in this massive storm, the place is empty. That’s a little bit of luck, I guess.
I try not to vomit as the doctor and nurse work on my mom. They remove the knife, which Mom says she does not want back, and then clean and fix her palm. She returns with a massive bandage-cast thing on her hand and a referral to an orthopedic doctor to make sure she doesn’t need reparative surgery and physical therapy.
“I feel so much better,” Mom says with a giant smile as they wheel her out. She holds up the bandaged hand. “It’s all numb! Can’t feel a thing!”
“That will wear off in a few hours, so she’ll need to take her pain meds as scheduled to help manage the pain,” the nurse tells me. “Pharmacies are closed now, and you shouldn't be out here driving any more than necessary so we’ve sent her home with enough antibiotics and pain pills to last two days. Get her prescriptions filled when it stops raining.”
I thank the nurse and we get my loopy mom buckled into my car. The rain is still heavy, the winds whipping my car all over the place as I drive her back home, so I take it slowly. Luckily—for me, not my mom—the loopy drugs wear off by the time I’m back at my mom’s house.
“Thank you for taking me,” she says, patting my arm with her good hand. “You want to spend the night?”
“Do you need me to?” I ask. I don’t want to sleep at her place. She moved into it years after I moved out, so it’s not like it’s my childhood home or anything, and every spare room is filled with her sewing supplies. There’s nowhere to sleep but the couch.
“Nah, I can manage just fine. I want to fall asleep and not get up until noon tomorrow.”
“The rain will be over by then, so I’ll call and check up on you,” I say.
“You’re the best daughter ever,” she says.
“I know,” I say back. “It helps that I’m your only daughter.”
There are no cars on these back roads as I drive home. It’s like everyone else but me is smart enough to stay out of this weather. The wind blows so hard, the rain falls in angled sheets. My windshield wipers do nothing. I can turn them off and have the same awful visibility. The speed limit is fifty, but I’m going thirty with my hazard lights on.
I check my phone. No signal. I did get enough signal at one point to have an email come in, but that’s it. If I get in a wreck out here, no one’s coming to help me. Bitterness fills my veins. Why would I even think I’d call for help? I’m Charlotte Brooks. I’m the helper. The Fixer. Everyone comes to me to fix all their problems, but no one is ever there to fix mine. My mom, my boss, my clients. They all see me as the one who will find a solution, even at the last minute. When a caterer gets arrested, I’ll find a replacement. When the birthday girl locks herself in a bathroom, I’ll talk her into coming out. When the boss wants sexy men making videos so she can boost her own paycheck, I make it happen.
I fix everything for everyone.
No one fixes Charlotte Brooks.
My teeth clench. Driving in a torrential storm on a backroad in the middle of nowhere with zero phone signal is not the time to have an internal breakdown over every stress and fear and resentment that has built up inside of me, but then again, when is the right time to have an internal breakdown?
A black shadow darts across the road. I slam on the brakes, car swerving. The black shadow runs off the side of the road, waytoo big to be an armadillo or buzzard, the only two animals you usually see out here. My car skids to a stop right in the middle of the road, but there are no other cars out here to worry about. My breath catches, adrenaline shooting through my chest in a painful blast of fear and confusion.
What was that?
The shadow appears again, just off the side of the road.
It wags its tail.
“Rex?”
There’s no freaking way. I peer through the window at the giant, furry creature on the side of the road. It’s a dog, for sure. A German Shepherd. It looks just like Rex. But he’s the only German Shepherd I know, so this could be any stray dog out here. I look around, and there’s nothing for miles. This is just empty farmland. I’m probably five miles from the Alden Farm, which feels like a lot for a dog to walk. I shake my head. It can’t be Rex. He has a safe kennel.
That he ripped apart a few days ago…
Fear grips every ounce of my body, but I can’t help it when I pop open my car door. I’m only half-dried out from spending two hours in the urgent care waiting room, why not get wetter?
