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“Why don’t I find the cafeteria while you guys talk?” Jackson moved toward the hallway, but his eyes were on her. “I’ll bring you back a sandwich, okay?”
Carly’s heart stuttered against her ribs. “No, don’t go. Not yet,” she amended, startling everyone in the room, including herself. She grabbed his hand and cut her gaze to Dominic, steeling her resolve. “How is she?”
Dom’s chocolate-brown eyes settled on hers, hesitant. “We only got to see her for a couple of minutes.”
“Talk to me, Dominic. I’m not a baby.” She worked up her best I-mean-business stare. “I want to know,” she said, her voice betraying her with its waver. Frankie shot Dominic a look she couldn’t decipher, but he shook his head and answered her.
“There’s not much to tell. She was pretty out of it, both when she got here and when we saw her, but the doctor said her symptoms have been improving, which is a good sign.” Dominic steered her toward a chair in the waiting room, and she sank into it even though her back still ached from being cramped in the car for four hours.
“So, she definitely had a stroke, then?” Carly’s throat closed around the words.
Dominic paused, but he gave it to her straight. “It looks that way. But the tests will give us a better idea of what we’re looking at, okay?”
A woman wearing a crisp white coat over her pale blue scrubs poked her head into the room as if conjured by Carly’s need for answers. “Hello, di Matisse family. I’ve got an update on your mother.” The woman’s kind expression ratcheted Carly’s anxiety down a notch. A small notch, anyway.
“Carly, this is Dr. Moreland. She gave us the first update whenmamawas admitted a couple hours ago.” Vince nodded at the woman, who offered Carly a handshake that conveyed both warmth and efficiency.
“I’m glad you’re all here. I’ve had a chance to take a look at the CAT scan and the ECG and I have some good news. The CAT scan doesn’t show any bleeds in your mother’s brain, and we’ve ruled out atrial fibrillation. Her confusion has lessened significantly since she’s been admitted, as has the weakness in her left arm. I think what we’re looking at here is a TIA.”
Carly blinked hard, but Vince stole the words from her brain and gave them a voice. “Okay, so what does that mean?”
Dr. Moreland smiled. “A TIA is a neurologic abnormality similar to a stroke, but it resolves a lot faster. It’s a good thing, in that it’s not as damaging as a stroke. However”—she paused to level a serious look at all of them, lowering her voice—“the next seventy-two hours are going to be critical for her. Ten percent of people who experience a TIA will go on to have a full-blown stroke.”
“Jesus,” Dominic breathed. “So, what can we do to prevent that from happening?”
“About half of those strokes happen in the first day or so after the TIA, so we’ll keep her here to monitor her condition very closely. After that, we’ll take a look at the best medications to keep her risk as low as possible. It’s likely she’ll need to alter her lifestyle a bit to ensure she’s doing all she can to stay healthy, but there shouldn’t be any long-term damage as a result of the TIA.”
“As long as she doesn’t have an actual stroke, you mean.” Frankie’s quiet assertion flattened the air in Carly’s lungs like an upset punch.
Dr. Moreland nodded. “Yes. She’s not out of the woods yet, although the prognosis is promising. I’m on until eight, and I’ll keep you posted with any new test results. We’ve sedated her so she can rest, but you’re welcome to go in one or two at a time to sit with her for a while.”
Carly’s brain scrambled as she tried to process, then re-process the doctor’s words, so she almost missed the last thing the doctor said before she turned to head down the hallway.
“As a matter of fact, Ms. di Matisse, your mother has been particularly adamant about wanting to seeyou.”
22
Carly stood on the threshold outside of ICU Room 5 with her heart in her throat. The walls facing the hallway were all glass, but someone had drawn a set of pale curtains with a smudgy gray pattern over the length of the windows, blocking the view inside, presumably so her mother could rest.
Her mother, who might still have a stroke.
Oh, God. How much of this had she brought on with that ridiculous argument?
“Ms. di Matisse?” Dr. Moreland stopped short as she rounded the corner and caught sight of Carly on the threshold, hand frozen to the door handle. “Is everything alright?”
“Oh, yeah. Well…no.” Carly’s gut churned like sweet cream butter. “I, um. I had a fight with her this morning. I don’t…I don’t want to make things worse, you know?” She twisted the hem of her T-shirt in one clammy fist.
“A lot has happened between this morning and now,” Dr. Moreland replied, her expression softening a notch. “It wouldn’t surprise me if she had other things on her mind when she asked to see you.”
Carly shifted her weight, uncertain. “The fight was kind of a doozy. Do you think…I mean, if I go in there and she gets upset, could she have another one of those, what are they called? TIA’s?” God, hadn’t all of this crap with Travis caused enough pain already?
“A TIA is a neurological disorder, Ms. di Matisse. The one your mother had this morning would’ve happened no matter what. The argument didn’t cause it.”
“But it probably didn’t make it better,” Carly argued.
Dr. Moreland smiled and shook her head, her short gray-blond ponytail swishing from side to side. “I’ve found that arguing rarely makes anything better.” She paused, eyeing the curtain drawn over the wall of glass. “Listen, your mother does need to rest, and no, she shouldn’t be stressed right now. But shehasbeen asking for you. Why don’t I take you in, and you can sit by the bed for a few minutes. We’ll take it from there.”
Carly’s eyes burned, dry and tired. She reached out automatically for Jackson’s hand, her face prickling when she came up with empty air.
