Page 53 of See You Next Tuesday

He called out, “Mom? Are you here?” then went inside. Anya wasn’t sure if she should follow, but if something was wrong, she certainly wasn’t going to leave him to deal with it by himself.

“Do you think she went out?” Anya asked as she walked in behind him.

“She doesn’t go out.” Gabe ran through the mammoth front hall and up the grand stairway. Even if Anya weren’t in heels, there was no way she could keep up with him.

“Mom?” he shouted again. “Where are you?”

There was panic in his voice, and Anya’s heart rate rose accordingly, though she couldn’t understand why he seemed so worried. Who cared if you left your front door open when your house was up a private road behind a giant gate? Anya followed Gabe down the upstairs hall, but then he pushed through a door at the end of the hall and went stock-still.

“Gabe?” Anya asked. “What’s wrong?”

He was standing in a dimly lit bedroom where everything was plush and white—white carpet, white walls, white furniture, white bedding—and in front of him, a woman in a white silk robe was passed out on the floor.

“Oh my god, is she all right?” Anya looked at Gabe, but he looked oddly emotionless, his face blank and wan. The woman was older and blond and gorgeous; Anya would have known she was Gabe’s mother even if they weren’t in her house. She was slumped on her side and breathing audibly. The sound of it was wet and labored.

“Mom?” Gabe said. He knelt beside her and gave her a shake, but she didn’t rouse. “Mom? Can you hear me?”

He picked up her wrist and counted her pulse.

“Is she okay?”

“I think so. I need to call 911.”

He stood up and took out his phone. Anya felt confused; she couldn’t make sense of what was happening.

“911, what’s your emergency?” came a female voice from the speakerphone.

“Hi, my name is Gabriel Hunt, I’m at 824 Blue Lark Lane. I found my mother unconscious in her bedroom. Her breathing and heart rate are both sluggish. I think she mixed pills with alcohol—maybe vodka, probably lithium. We need an ambulance right away.”

“I understand,” said the voice. “Please stay on the line.”

Gabe gave the operator a few more details—his mother’s birthdate, the code for the gate—and they promised an ambulance would be there soon.

When Gabe hung up the phone, there was no sound in the room except Mrs. Hunt’s strained breath.

“Do you need anything?” Anya asked him. “Some water or something?”

But he just stared at his mother, seeming nearly as unresponsive as she was.

“Can you go downstairs to wait for the ambulance?” he asked. “Tell them where we are when they get here?”

His voice broke—Anya wanted to run to him and hug him as tightly as she possibly could. But he seemed to want to keep it together, so she thought the kind thing was to let him.

“Of course,” she said. “I’ll be right downstairs if you need me.”

She went back down to the entry hall, still trying to wrap her head around this situation. Gabe seemed so calm. Had this happened before? Was this why he never came home? Gabe hadn’t even called his dad—where the hell was he? Sitting in the empty hall, staring at that eerily open front door, Anya couldn’t help noticing how impersonal the place felt. There were massive paintings on the walls but no family photos anywhere, no stacks of mail or discarded coats or travel mementos like the ones cluttering every surface at Anya’s parents’ house in Chicago. It felt more like an upscale hotel lobby than a home.

After a couple of minutes, a siren roared up the driveway. Anya ran outside to find two EMTs unloading a stretcher.

“She’s upstairs,” Anya said. “Make a right at the top of the big staircase.”

One of the EMTs nodded and pointed toward Anya’s rental car, which was parked in front of the ambulance. “Can you move that before we get down?”

“Sure, oh my god—of course.”

They raced inside, and Anya followed to grab her keys. By the time she had moved the car, the paramedics were already loading Gabe’s mom into the ambulance, and Gabe was getting in with them. Anya ran over to the back of the ambulance.

“What hospital?” Anya asked the EMT. “I’ll follow you.”