AllFreeNovel
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How many showers and gallons of perfume would Allison need to wash the shame of those Bud Lights from her skin? “We were having a party.”
Her mom held her at arm’s length. “You didn’t drive here, did you?”
“I got a ride.”
“Of course. Of course.” She set her arm around Allison’s shoulder. Her free hand smoothed a few of her flyaway waves. “You’ve always been a smart girl.”
If, at the nurse’s station, Allison had felt childish and small in all the wrong ways, now it seemed right. With her mother’s arm around her, it was okay to be afraid. To not know what to do or how to feel or what came next. Her mom would take care of all that. She always did, no matter how old Allison was. You were never truly an adult when your mom was around.
Allison’s eyes strayed back to her father’s bed. “How’s he… I mean, what’s happening?”
“He was awake a little while ago but his heart rate was outrageously high.” Her mother nodded toward a monitor above the left side of his bed. “They put him out while they try to get his rhythm steady.”
The green numbers on the monitor pulsed:140, 142, 139.
“What’s his heart rate supposed to be?” It felt like one of those things Allison was supposed to know now that she wasn’t a kid anymore, like a normal blood pressure, or her blood type, or what to do when one of your parents was sick.
“Between sixty and a hundred when resting. It was almost two hundred when they brought him in.”
“Oh my god.”
Her mom kissed her temple. “I know.”
“It’s better then?” She gestured at the monitor.142, 141, 141, 140, 142.
“Better, yes, but still not good.”
142, 143, 140.
“What are they doing to fix it?” Allison was surprised by the ferocity of her own question. She hadn’t thought she cared enough to know. Sick or not, Jed was still Jed. But standing here in front of him, watching one machine track his irregular heartbeat while another monitored his oxygen levels, and needles pumped medicine and fluids into his veins, she found herself desperate for the details.
“They’ve tried some meds. Tomorrow they might have to shock it into rhythm—”
“Like with those paddles on TV shows?”
Her mother nodded.
Allison’s hand pressed to her mouth. “Oh my god.”
“It’s more routine than it sounds.” She squeezed Allison a little closer.
“And if that doesn’t work?”
“They have more invasive things they can try.”
That word rolled around her brain.Invasive. Intrusive. Dangerous. What if they had to cut him open? How was she supposed to handle that in this weird emotional purgatory she’d been cast into? Where was Virgil to guide her way?
“Oh sweetie.” Her mother pulled Allison more snuggly to her side.“There’s nothing we can do at this point except be here. Doctor Friedman seems optimistic the shock will work.”
“And until then?”
Her mom mussed Allison’s hair and straightened the shoulders of her dress. “Until then, I’ll leave you with your father for a quick minute and then we’ll get you home. You look exhausted.”
“I just got here.”
“And you’ll be close if he needs you. But there’s not much to be done at almost two in the morning while he’s knocked out.”
With a final kiss to Allison’s temple, her mother ducked out of the room, abandoning her daughter to a quiet broken only by the steady hum of machines.
