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It helped both Father Salinas and me, since the way he’s feeling is a good gauge of how we should be feeling. It was very anxiety-inducing to just sit in the waiting room, not being able to do anything while we waited for news of her.
Woods takes a closer step toward us, dropping his voice a bit before he speaks. “It's going to take a little bit for her to recover, but she doesn’t need surgery. Tomorrow, they’ll need to do some tests to make sure that she's fine cognitively but yeah, she should be okay, and they’ll probably discharge her before we know it,“ he says. “And then…well, then we’ll have to figure out everything with her mom, I guess, but for the time being, all I care about is that she’s going to be okay.“
Salinas sighs, grabbing the back of his neck as he groans. He meets Woods’ gaze before he speaks. “Can we go in to see her?“
“Probably very soon, but we might want to wait,“ Woods says. “Let's give her some space, she probably wants to see her mom first.“
I glare at him.
Rei sighs. “I mean…look, she has to, it's hospital policy. Her mom is her next of kin, regardless of her relationship. It’s not just policy, it’s the law.“
I shake my head. “That’s fair, but that has to suck for her, considering they aren't that close,“ I say.
Woods nods. “Yeah, but she did try to call her, and Aura was the one to call us, so I don’t know if we can take any of that for granted. Right now, it wouldn’t surprise me if she needed her mom. I know I would need mine.“
I resist the urge to roll my eyes again. He’s an empathetic person, but he’s also lucky. His mom is great. From the little Woods says about her, she always has been. I don’t think it’s the same situation at all.
“We can talk to her about that after this is all done,“ he continues. “Plus, I think you have to remember what the accident actually was. The police are going to be here any second and we’re going to have to talk to them about it.“
“What was the accident anyway?“ Salinas asks, leaning against the crisp white wall in the hallway. We’re standing in the space between the bathrooms and the waiting room, which is spacious and quiet. No one else seems to be here. “I still can't really wrap my head around it. Everything about it was so weird.“
“I agree,“ I say. “It makes no sense.“
“What makes no sense?“ Woods asks.
“Why it was so bad,“ Salinas says before I can answer. “Even driving by it was fucking weird.”
“Yeah, I agree,” I say.
Salinas nods before he keeps talking. “It’s in what’s practically a residential area, so I can understand something like a fender bender, but that accident seemed kind of extreme. She also doesn’t strike me as the kind of person who’d be speeding enough to make that happen.“
“Yeah, and it was obviously not her fault,“ I say. “From the way it looked.“
Woods’ gaze flits between the two of us before he nods. “Yeah, I don't disagree with the two of you. It’s weird,“ he says. “We still need to answer these questions.“
“Wait,“ I say, dropping my voice to a whisper. “Are we thinking that this could be something more?“
“I mean, the possibility exists,“ Father Salinas says, just as quietly. “She is possessed. That is the reason we're in this Northern Florida town and not back home, right?“
“Right,“ I say.
Salinas shrugs. “Whether your understanding of that is psychological or spiritual, does it really matter?“
Woods seems a bit surprised by this, but he meets Salinas’ point anyway. “It absolutely matters. If our understanding of it was purely intellectual or about how she felt, then how could she get into an accident that feels so bizarre?“
“Wait, though, doctor,“ I reply. “If we follow the model than you're trying to sell us, then I can see it happening,“
“You can?“ he asks. He sounds a little more doubtful than he normally does, probably from how stressed he is.
“Yes, I can. I mean, look, she was upset, she didn't see someone that pulled out in front of her. Or something like that. Maybe.“
Woods scoffs. “Don’t try to humor me like this,“ he says. “Because if that had been the case, the accident wouldn’t have been nearly as bad as it was, and there were at least three cars in that pile up. “No one else had a scrape on them, guys. I'm sure we all agree this was weird.“
“You're not thinking it's the devil,“ Salinas says, a note of humor in his voice. “Are you?“
Now that Trine is okay, it seems like we’re able to fall back into our normal dynamic, which feels nice. Stabilizing. It didn't feel like we could when we were still not sure what was going to happen to her. Not that the doctors were immediately reassuring. They would have told Aura if things were touch and go, they just didn’t want to give us incomplete information before they knew that she was definitely going to be okay.
I guess I can’t blame them for that, but I really wish we’d been allowed to sit with her so that she saw us when she woke up.
