by Vi Keeland
“Hey. It’s me.” I looked at my watch and blew out a breath. “I left you at nine, and it’s ten thirty now. You didn’t mention making any other stops except home. You should have been here almost an hour ago. Give me a call, and let me know you’re alright.” I swiped End and hopped the back transom, deciding to go wait in the parking lot.
The walk up the dock to the ramp was unnervingly quiet. Not a single person was around, and with the fog hanging so low, the anxious feeling in my gut turned into something more ominous.
Where the fuck is she?
She could have fallen asleep. But it hadn’t sounded like she planned on spending any time at home. She’d said she was grabbing a pile of work from the table. I suppose she could’ve stopped at a store—but not too many were open at going on eleven o’clock. Eventually, I gave in and sent a text.
I waited for the Sent to change to Delivered, but it never did. Restless, I jogged back to the boat, wrote a quick note for her to call me if she got here before I was back, and swiped my keys off the counter.
Getting on the road, I navigated the path she would’ve taken from her house to mine. I wasn’t sure what I was looking for, but I really hoped I didn’t find it. The roads were pretty empty for a Saturday night—apparently all the smart people were staying indoors. The more I struggled to see the pavement, the more freaked out I got. But no news was good news. Best-case scenario, she sat down to take off her shoes at home and fell asleep.
Yeah. That’s what probably happened.
As I went farther with no sign of her car, I started to feel a little relieved.
Until I rounded a corner and saw a shitload of lights flashing up ahead.
My heart raced. I stepped on the gas, even though I couldn’t see more than twenty feet ahead of me. Something was definitely going on up there. Even through the fog, I could see there were more than a dozen lights flashing at different heights—lights like when both the cops and the fire department respond to an accident.
“It’s not her.”
“It’s definitely not her.” I started to talk to myself. Be reasonable.
“She’s probably stuck behind all of that.”
“Some dumbass was speeding in the fog and crossed over the yellow line.”
“Damn…there are a lot of rescue vehicles.”
Approaching the parade of lights, I slowed when I saw reflectors and what looked to be a safety wand waving up ahead. A cop stood in the road wearing raingear, so I pulled up to speak to him. A firetruck blocked a better view of what was going on.
He leaned over to speak as I rolled down my window. “Accident up ahead. Road’s gonna be closed for the next hour or two until we can get things cleaned up and a tow out here.”
“My girlfriend was supposed to be at my house an hour ago, and she’s not answering her cell. Do you know what kind of cars were involved? Is anyone hurt?”
The officer frowned. “Only one car. Driver was just taken by ambulance to County Hospital. It was a woman. What’s your girlfriend’s name?”
“Ireland Saint James.”
The officer stood and lifted a walkie talkie to his mouth. “This is Connors. You got a name on the woman they just put in the bus?”
My heart thumped, waiting for the answer.
Eventually a burst of static came through and then a voice. “Victim was that lady from the news—Ireland Richardson.”
I felt sick. “Is she okay?”
The cop leaned down and shined his light into my car. He was probably looking at a ghost, because I felt all my color drain. His eyes darted over my face, and he frowned again. “Not supposed to give out any information on victims. But I don’t want you getting into an accident doing a hundred miles an hour with this fog. She was banged up, but talking.” He nodded. “I wouldn’t think anything worse than stitches and maybe a broken bone or two.”
I blew out a deep breath. “Thank you. Can I turn around here?”
The officer rapped his knuckles on the hood of my car. “Sure thing. Be careful driving. Fog is dangerous.”
***
“Sir, I told you five minutes ago that I’d let you go back as soon as the doctors are done examining her.”
“A guy just walked in and went right back.”
The nurse at the registration desk shook her head. “He works here. Please take a seat, and I’ll call you as soon as you can go back.”
Whatever.
I took a seat and rested my head in my hands with my elbows on my knees. Who did they call for Ireland in an emergency? Her father’s in prison, mother was long gone, and her only aunt moved down to Florida. What if she needs surgery? Who would make that decision? I should’ve gotten Mia’s cell phone number for emergencies. Maybe she was her designated contact.
I lasted about three minutes sitting before I got up to pace again. I made sure to stay in the nurse’s line of view so she wouldn’t forget about me. When our eyes caught, she let out an exaggerated sigh and shook her head before looking away. I didn’t give a shit if I pissed her off. I only cared that she didn’t forget I was here.
About a half hour after I’d walked in, another nurse opened the door. “Family of Ireland Saint James.”
I walked to the door, and the woman looked at me. “You’re a family member?”
I didn’t even have to think about lying. “Yes.”
“And you’re her…”
I thought they might have asked her marital status when she came in, and I didn’t want to contradict her. “Brother. I’m her brother.”
The nurse nodded and opened the door wide for me to come into the back. “Right this way. She’s in bed four. The doctors just finished examining her.”
I followed her to a corner of the large, open room, and the nurse pulled the closed curtain open. “Ms. Saint James, your brother is here to see you.”
Ireland’s face was confused for a half a second, and then she smiled and nodded. She had a bandage on the side of her head and looked pale. But she was in one piece.
I went to her side, took her hand, and leaned down to kiss her forehead. “Jesus Christ. You scared the shit out of me. What happened? Does anything hurt? Are you okay?”
The nurse shut the curtain behind her.
“Yeah. I’m okay.” She pointed to the bandage on her head. “Just butterfly stitches on my head from where I hit something, I guess.” She lifted her left arm and winced. “They think I might have broken my ulna. I’m waiting for x-ray to come now.”
“What the hell have they been doing all this time if you didn’t even get any x-rays yet?”
Ireland smiled. “A nurse came back a little while ago and told me I had a very anxious visitor waiting. I can see you must’ve been a joy to keep in the waiting room. They did some lab work and examined me. But I’m fine, really.”
I dragged a hand through my hair. “Are you sure? County’s not the greatest hospital. I can take you over to Memorial.”
“I’m fine. They’ve been really great so far.”
“What happened?”
She shook her head. “I was driving, and the fog made it hard to see, so I was switching back and forth between my high and low beams, and the last time I flipped on the brights, I found a deer standing almost right in front of my car. I hit the brakes, but the ground was wet and slippery, and I lost control. Remember in Driver’s Ed class when they told you to turn in to a spinout instead of away from it?”
“Yeah.”
“Well, I didn’t do that. I just reacted and didn’t even remember that until I got here.”
I brushed the hair from her face. “You acted on instinct. It’s normal.”
Ireland sighed. “I think my car is totaled.”
“Who cares about the car?” I began to pat down her body. “Is anything else hurt?”
She laughed. “No, Dr. Lexington. I’m really fine.”
A few minutes later, the nurse came back in. She looked at me. “Can I ask you to step back into the waiting room for a few
minutes.”
“Are you taking her down to x-ray?”
The nurse shook her head. “Not yet. The doctor’s going to come back in and do another examination and would like to speak to your sister.”
My eyes narrowed. “Why? What’s wrong?”
The nurse frowned and looked over at Ireland. “Nothing is wrong. It’s just our policy to have visitors wait in the waiting room during an examination.”
Ireland smiled. “I’ll be fine, Grant.” She looked at the nurse. “Can he come back in after the doctor is done?”
The nurse nodded. “Sure.”
I leaned down and kissed Ireland’s forehead. “I’ll be back soon.”
Then, begrudgingly, I went back to the waiting room.
Sitting down, I leaned back in the chair and scrubbed my hands over my face. Why didn’t I insist that she not drive from the damn restaurant? This was all my fault. I don’t know what I would’ve done if anything had happened to her. My insides twisted at that thought. Ireland didn’t know what she meant to me. Hell, I’m not sure I even knew before tonight. But now that she was okay, I was going to make damn sure to show her from now on. I knew all too well that sometimes life changes in the blink of an eye.
Chapter 32
* * *
Ireland
Dr. Rupert, the emergency room doctor treating me, looked like Penn from the magician duo Penn and Teller. At least I thought it was Penn—I could never remember which was which. In any case, Dr. Rupert bore an uncanny resemblance to the shorter, older one. Since I was pretty sure he was in his late seventies, I figured it wouldn’t insult him to mention it.
“Has anyone ever told you that you look like someone famous?”
He smiled, reached into his lab coat sleeve, and pulled out a bouquet of plastic flowers. “Does this answer your question?”
I laughed. “I guess so.”
He tucked the flowers headfirst into his lab coat pocket. “No relation, but patients are disappointed when I tell them that. So I find it’s at least a consolation prize to perform a trick.”
Dr. Rupert picked up the chart hanging from the foot of my bed and flipped through some pages. As he started to speak, the closed curtain opened and another doctor came in, drawing the curtain behind him.
“Good timing. This is Dr. Torres. He’s an orthopedic specialist.”
“Hello,” I said.
“Normally we don’t call in ortho for a consultation until after x-rays, but I wanted to have him examine you now, so we can give you all of your options.”
“Okay…”
Dr. Rupert pulled up a chair and sat down next to me. He had an old school way about him that doctors didn’t have much anymore. Reaching out, he touched my arm.
“The reason we wanted to do an ortho consult before the x-ray is because we found something in your bloodwork.”
I sat up in bed. Oh, God. The first thing that came to my mind was cancer. Some blood cell count must’ve been elevated, and now they don’t want to radiate me unnecessarily. My heart started to palpitate. “What? What’s wrong with my blood work?”
Dr. Rupert squeezed my hand and smiled. “Nothing. You’re pregnant, Ms. Saint James.”
I blinked a few times. “What?”
He nodded. “I had a feeling the news might come as a shock to you. I noticed on the intake sheet that you said your last period was a month ago, and you answered the Is there any possibility you might be pregnant question no.
“I can’t be. Are you sure?”
He nodded. “A blood test can pick up hCG as early as six to eight days after ovulation. Urine tests generally can take a bit longer.”
Panic set in. “I can’t be. It has to be wrong.”
Dr. Rupert’s smile fell. “Are you saying it’s not physically possible for you to be pregnant? There are rare cases of false positives in blood work, such as when you’re taking certain medication for seizures.” His brows drew together. “Are you on any medications? I didn’t see any listed.”
I shook my head rapidly.
“So it is physically possible you are pregnant? Meaning you’ve been with a man in the last month or so?”
I lifted my hand to my throat, which suddenly felt tighter. “Yes. But we used protection. And I’m on the pill.”
“Did you miss any of your pills?”
“No. Definitely not. And I take them at the same time every day.”
“Were you on any antibiotics or sick at any time?”
I shook my head.
Dr. Rupert sighed. “Well, it is only 99.7-percent effective, even under the best of circumstances.”
“But we used a condom, too!”
“Well, that obviously makes the odds even smaller that a pregnancy would occur. Sometimes there are just stubborn swimmers.” Dr. Rupert patted my arm. “Would you like us to give you a minute before discussing the x-rays?”
I wanted him to rewind time and start over by saying I wasn’t pregnant. How could I be? Grant was going to—oh my God. I couldn’t even begin to imagine what Grant would say. Without realizing it, I must’ve started to hyperventilate.
“Ms. Saint James? Breathe slowly. Take some long, deep breaths.” Dr. Rupert turned to the orthopedist that I had forgotten was even in the room. “Jordan, grab us a paper bag, will you?”
A minute later the nurse came in and asked me to breathe into a paper bag while three people stood around. She held my wrist and took my pulse until she was happy with the results. “You can stop now. Just keep taking big, deep breaths.”
I rubbed my forehead. “God, I’m so embarrassed. I’ve never had to do that before.”
The nurse smiled. “I have three kids under four. If my head isn’t in a brown paper bag once a week, I’m hiding in the closet to sneak a glass of wine.”
After I calmed down a little more, the nurse left, and Dr. Rupert asked if the orthopedist could take a look at my arm. Anytime it moved at all, it hurt. But suddenly I was too numb to even feel the pain.
When he finished assessing, he spoke to both Dr. Rupert and me. “I do recommend having an x-ray. Your ulna is most likely fractured. Bruising is starting to form on your wrist already, so we need to see if the bones are aligned or might need surgical repair or a reduction.”
I heard every word he said, but none of them seemed to sink in. They went on to give me the pros and cons of having x-rays while pregnant, and then Dr. Rupert looked at me for a response.
“I’m sorry.” I shook my head. “You said it’s safe?”
“We’ll cover your abdomen with a lead apron and take the minimal amount as a precaution. Your reproductive organs won’t be exposed to radiation. In cases like yours, where the risk of harm to your unborn child is very small, and the benefit of the diagnostic x-ray outweighs that risk, yes, I recommend it.” He smiled cautiously. “If your ulna needs to be reset and isn’t, you could lose mobility in that arm. Which we don’t want.”
I blew out a giant rush of air and nodded. “Okay.”
“I’m going to admit you overnight, just as a precaution for observation. Would you like for the nurse to call someone for you?”
I thought about maybe calling Mia, but it was so late, and I needed to let everything sink in myself before I could actually say the words out loud. “No, that’s fine. Thank you.”
Dr. Rupert left with the orthopedic doctor, promising to return as soon as the x-ray results came in. I was glad I got a few minutes alone before the nurse came back.
“Would you like me to bring your brother back in? The registration desk said he’s asked about you twice and he’s pacing.” She smiled. “You have a protective big brother.”
I closed my eyes. The thought of seeing Grant now made me literally sick. But if he wasn’t allowed back here to visit me, he’d undoubtedly make a commotion and suspect something was wrong. There was no way I wanted to have the conversation with him tonight in the ER.
I nodded at the nurse. “Could you bring him back in five minutes? I ju
st need a few more alone.”
“Sure. Of course. Let’s make it ten.”
Not long after, Grant opened the curtain with concern etched in his face. “Is everything alright? That took almost an hour.”
I cleared my throat, but had a hard time looking him in the eyes. “Yeah, everything is fine.”
“Did you go for x-rays?”
“No, not yet.”
He put his hands on his hips. “Let me move you over to Memorial. I have an old friend on staff there.”
“No, it’s fine. They said it wouldn’t be too much longer.”
It was impossible to hide my inner freak out. I managed to get through telling Grant about the orthopedic doc’s assessment of aligned vs. non-aligned without mentioning the reason he was called in before the x-rays. I also told him I was being admitted for observation. But after that, I was very quiet.
“Are you sure you’re okay? Does anything else hurt?”
His concern made me feel even worse about lying. “I’m fine. Just tired.”
Ten minutes later, the nurse came in. Before I could say a word, Grant stood. “Can you examine her again? She doesn’t seem like herself suddenly. I’d like a doctor to check her out again.”
The nurse looked to me, and I suddenly panicked she might say something about my pregnancy. I hadn’t specifically told them not to, though obviously there were privacy laws. Seeing me pale and wide eyed, the nurse caught on.
“Umm… I don’t think that’s necessary. This is perfectly normal. There’s an adrenaline surge and then a sudden drop after a trauma. I’d be worried if Ms. Saint James wasn’t getting groggy.”
Grant nodded, seeming to accept the explanation. Thank God.