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Granted, she didn’t have to text me at all, but I appreciated when she had started. Although I visited her often, I still worried about how she was when I wasn’t there. Sure, she had lived twenty-three years of her life without me there watching over her, but just look how that had turned out.
Finally, my phone buzzed and I reached for it, ready for her to tell me what hijinks she had been up to that made her two hours late on a Wednesday, but then it kept right on buzzing.
A call, not a text? That wasn’t like her. Given her old job consisted entirely of talking on the phone for entire shifts at a time, I knew she preferred to text whenever possible. If she was calling, then it had to be an emergen-
It wasn’t her. The area code was the right one for St. Louis, but her contact wasn’t coming up. A thousand theories flew through my mind, but I hit the call button before I could get truly carried away.
“Hello, is this Daniel Hines?” The voice on the other end asked. It wasn’t anyone that I recognized, and their tone was kind, but entirely too formal.
“Yes, it is.” I said coolly, my heartrate shooting up.
“Ah, I’m am contacting you because we have a patient here who has listed you as their next of kin.”
“What? Next of kin? What are you talking about?”
“I’m sorry to tell you this way, but one Miss Nicole Arden has had a minor accident and is receiving treatment here. However, doctor’s orders are that she cannot drive for forty-eight hours and they won’t release her unless there is a cognizant adult willing to transport her home and take care of her for the night.”
I was on my feet in a second. “What happened? Is she alright?”
“I cannot disclose anything beyond what was told to me by the doctor. How soon would you be able to get here?”
“If I catch a flight right now, about five hours. This is a hospital, right?”
“Oh yes, of course. If you’d like to provide me with an email address, I’d be more than happy to send you directions from the airport.”
“Yeah, do that,” I said before quickly listing off my address. I already had my keys in one hand and was striding out the door, not quite running, but certainly not walking either.
I was sick to my stomach and no matter how much I told myself to breathe deeply and that it was probably fine since they already mentioned Nicole being released, I couldn’t help my mind going off in a million worse case scenarios.
Was she hit by a car? Had she lost the baby? Had she had some sort of gestational heart attack?
I had no idea, and the thoughts just kept on going and going, making me more frantic by the second.
I’d never hailed and hopped into a cab so quickly in my life. I was breaking personal records right and left, but it still wasn’t fast enough. I should have been there for her. I never should have left. But at the same time, we weren’t together, and we were in the middle of trying to separate our lives. I couldn’t rightly do that and just crash at her place forever. Not to mention that whole running a business thing.
From the airport in my city to the one in St. Louis was a solid blur. I spent most of it texting my upper management and lawyer to just let them know the situation and that I would be out of the office for a week most likely. Then I emailed my secretary asking her to send me my company laptop so that I could do some work while I was taking care of Nicole.
And I was going to take care of her. Whatever she needed, whatever she wanted, I intended to make sure she got it. I hadn’t known fear in quite a long time, but there was no other name for the cold, dreadful feeling clamping onto my spine.
But it seemed like life had it out for me, because getting a cab outside of the St. Louis airport to take me to the hospital was its own ordeal. I grew angrier by the minute, and I was sure that wasn’t a very enticing look for possible cabbies.
But after fifteen minutes of waving, I managed to flag one down. I threw myself in, saying the hospital name so fast that I was surprised the drover was able to understand me, but sure enough he took off.
I watched the city whip by the window, appreciating that the driver was taking my urgency to heart. But every second slipping away felt like too great a loss and it was hard to keep all of my energy inside of my own skin.
