Sickened, he’d turned to a scrubby patch of bushes and bent over. Perry vomited twice, hands on his knees.
Back at the hospital, when Amelia had gone home and he was sure Emma was still ensconced in the dreamless sleep of the sedative, he walked out. He turned left, passing the nurse’s station. Past the darkened rooms of other sleeping patients, to the row of elevators at the end of the hall. Perry rode up to the third floor and stepped out onto the bright white light of the surgical unit. A male nurse standing in the hall looked up. “I’m sorry, sir. Visiting hours don’t start until eight a.m.”
“I’m staying downstairs with my daughter, in the observation unit. She and my brother, Jake Goodwin, were brought in from an accident yesterday. I’m looking for my brother.”
The nurse glanced at his clipboard and flipped through. “Jake Goodwin. Our compound distal femur fracture.” He looked up at Perry. “Tough guy.”
“They were in a boating accident. I haven’t seen him yet.”
The nurse let out a breath. “All right, I guess I can give you a few minutes. But if he’s sleeping, please don’t wake him.”
“Thank you,” Perry said.
The nurse led him to the doorway of Jake’s room.
Jake lay on his back beneath a dimmed overhead light. His gown was open at the chest, and from the waist up he looked as young and strong as he had to Perry that day on his boat. But his right leg was ensconced in an enormous white cast, elevated in a sling. The rest of his lower body was covered in a thin white blanket. Perry approached the bed and looked at his little brother.Tears pressed at the corners of his eyes, and angrily he swiped them away.
“What happened out there?” he whispered.
Jake did not stir. Perry stared at the IV bag, momentarily lulled by the slow, precise drip of fluid. Unlike Emma’s, Jake’s face was miraculously clear of any trauma. But then Perry noticed his hands. They were scabbed over and swollen, his knuckles purple and scratched. They rested at his sides, palms up, in a repose that struck Perry as uncharacteristically vulnerable. As if asking for forgiveness. Perry was half tempted to touch them, but he could not bring himself to.
Instead a wave of anger overcame him, and he felt his face flush with it. Jake was an avid boater, a skilled captain who knew the lake better than any of them. He was the only adult on the boat. He should’ve known better. He should’ve kept those girls safe.
If there had been another boat, Perry could have made sense of it. In his life he’d passed too many inexperienced boaters out on the water. Teens going too fast. Large parties of adults having imbibed too much. Water-skiers who swung out too far and too wide on turns, crossing dangerously into his path. It was the thing Perry hated most about the lake he loved: people were so damn irresponsible, putting others and themselves in harm’s way.
But not Jake—even carefree, jovial Jake would never let that happen. Perry shook his head. It didn’t make sense.
But how to explain the alcohol in Emma’s bloodstream? Perry remembered that Jake had been holding a beer. He couldn’t say for sure how many he’d had that day; they’d all had a drink or two during the clambake. But Jake was different with Emma. She’d always called him her “favorite uncle,” even though he was her only one. It wouldn’t have mattered if there’d been five more, Perryknew Emma would have preferred Jake to anyone. Because Jake was fun. Jake bent the rules. He understood her. If Emma had pressed, would he have given her a sip of his beer? Clearly more than a sip had been had; her blood tests were evidence of that. Perry’s fingers curled around the cold steel of the bed railing.
Jake was out of surgery. He was out of the woods. And so help him, he had questions he needed to answer.
Now, with Emma about to be discharged, Perry needed answers. But Emma was too upset and Amelia was glaring at him like he was some kind of monster. Perry needed to step out. “Discharge will probably take a while. I’ll be back in a few minutes,” he said. Neither asked where he was going.
Without thinking, he found himself heading briskly down the hall to Luci’s room. But he faltered in the doorway. There, resting in the corner chair was Olivia, her head tipped back against the wall, eyes closed. He was about to turn when her eyelids fluttered. She glanced first at Luci, who was curled on her side beneath the blankets. Then at him. Wordlessly, she stood and followed him into the hall.
Olivia rubbed her eyes. “I’ve been going back and forth between them all night.”
Perry knew she meant Jake and Luci. She looked exhausted, her eyes clouded with red. “How is he doing?” he asked.
“He was gray with pain when he woke up in recovery last night. They seem to have controlled it, since he’s finally able to sleep. But you know Jake. He wouldn’t complain anyway.” She sighed. “He’s so upset about the girls, I doubt he’s gotten much rest.” She checked her watch. “Would you mind sitting with her while I check on him again?”
Perry nodded. “Take as long as you need.” But there was something else on his mind. The anger had not dissipated on the elevator ride down. Nor in the dark, cool recesses of Luci’s room. Not even standing by Olivia, who seemed to have that strange effect on him. “Have you been able to talk to him? Has he said anything at all about what happened?”
Olivia’s eyes softened. “No. He was really out of it after surgery. His pain levels were so high they gave him medication that pretty much knocked him out. I barely had time to tell him I loved him and that the girls were okay.”
Perry flinched. He had not said any such thing to Jake. The image of the shattered dock flashed in his mind. The police tape. The Candlewood Lake Authority boats. What kind of big brother felt ire for his sibling, who’d narrowly escaped death?
Perry flexed his fingers, then uncoiled them consciously from the balled fists that hung at his side. He forced the words out. “If he wakes, tell him I send my best.”
Phoebe
She was losing her mind. She knew it the second she signed into the hospital for her visitor’s pass and stepped out of the elevators onto the wing where Emma and Luci had been admitted.How lucky they are, she’d thought.
Hospitals were like an alternate universe. Time stopped, the normal push and pull of everyday life ceased. Here you did not worry about the onslaught of news, the mortgage bill you had to pay, the baths you had to give your kids, and the farmhouse sink you’ve always coveted for its deep recess but realize, come to think of it, the uncanny volume of dirty dishes it can contain might just prove cruel. Such concerns vanished, if temporarily, when you were admitted to the hospital. Here, people took care of you. Nurses strode purposefully between rooms administering to their patients. Trays of steaming food were plucked off carts and delivered. To one’s bed! There was staff who mopped, changed your sheets, inquired about your vitals. They even helped you shower if you needed it! As Phoebe walked down the corridor, even the views were intoxicating: the verdant hills of Litchfield rolled between window frames. She could stay here, like one stayed at a spa retreat. Suddenly, she desperately wanted a bed. Yes, she was losing her mind.
Focus, she chastised herself.This is not about you.
It was the first time she’d been allowed back to see any of them since the accident. The previous day, she’d felt useless. Only Amelia, Perry, and Olivia had been allowed back in the ER, and eventually her parents. Unable to loiter in the waiting room fielding construction texts from Dave and alerts from the bank, she’d tried to help instead, by running errands. It also gave her good reason to avoid the pressing matter of renovation issues, and she texted Dave just that:Sorry, but I can’t be reached today.She was needed here! This was her family. And this was what family did when crisis hit.
