Chapter 41

Chapter 41 of 56 · 9-minute read

“Laurie? When we reach the ground floor, we’ve got to move.” Virgil presses the basement and sub-basement buttons directly below the button for the main floor. “When those doors open, you push your mom out into the hallway with all the strength you’ve got and head to the right. End of the hall, double doors. I’ll be right behind you.”

I nod emphatically. It all makes sense now. Everett’s known my every move for the last three weeks, either from watching me himself or having his girlfriend’s bestie watch and report back.

“She’ll take the stairs. Wouldn’t you, Virgil? I’d take the stairs and be making a phone call on my way down.”

The elevator comes to a halt, and the doors open but not fast enough to suit either of us. Virgil squeezes out before the doors are fully open. “Way ahead of you, Laurie!” He vanishes down the corridor to the left, toward the stairs, his cane in front of him like a staff rather than a brace for his war-injured body.

I push Mama’s gurney as hard as I can, and once in motion, it rolls surprisingly easily. Curiosity gets the better of me. I hazard a single glance over my shoulder in time to see Virgil touch the door of the stairwell with his cane.

Virgil catches up with me at the double doors and swipes his badge across a small box on the wall. It buzzes, and we push through the doors, once again before they open fully. My mom keeps her eyes closed, frowning occasionally at the bumps and sudden stops and starts.

“You locked the door?”

“I set my intention for her alone. That won’t stop her for long and won’t stop anyone else at all if they need it. There’s another exit at the bottom of the stairwell that empties out onto the chapel lawn. The security desk would have to buzz her in through the main door or through the basement doors to the elevator. It won’t stop her, but it will slow her down just enough that we might make it across the hospital campus to the behavioral ward.”

Suddenly, we’re out on a concrete walkway that connects all the affiliated buildings. No nurse’s aide in sight. Just gardens and picnic tables among well-nourished azaleas taller than I am.

Fallon’s friend, if she exited the ICU building through the first floor, would be on the chapel lawn with a whole building between us. If she exited through the elevator basement, she’d run smack dab into Dixon out front. Either way, she could still chase us to the behavioral ward’s side doors a hundred feet ahead of us but probably not beat us there.

Still, I’m not stopping for anything until I’m through the behavioral ward’s side entrance—with Virgil by my side and my mom tucked into her gurney.

“Just keep your eyes closed, Emma,” I say breathlessly as I hope I sound like my grandmother to her. “We’re taking you for a little ride. We’ll be there soon.”

She nods as if she’ll doze off but grunts quietly as the gurney rolls over a crack in the walkway and jostles her.

Hand on the gurney, Virgil sprints ahead, shouting into his phone for the psychiatrist to unlock the side entrance as we race for it. The gruff sound of Dixon’s voice carries from somewhere behind us, but I cannot make out what he is saying. Then, an abrupt silence.

An urgent buzzing in Virgil’s pocket halts our run and he yelps into the phone before hastily shoving it away. Dixon is warning us that Everett is already on our trail.

Raising his cane with both hands, Virgil casts a protective arc above us, and a brilliant blue fire envelops us. The flames lick at the edges of the gurney as we speed ahead.

Footfalls thud across the walkway to our left. Everett, still in full uniform from earlier in the day but twice as wrinkled, emerges on the walkway behind us and skids to a full stop as he twists from side to side looking for us. Fallon’s best friend stops short behind him. Dixon ambles forward, stopping almost between the two of them.

“Ev, where did they go?” The nurse’s aide stops on the walkway behind us.

I keep running, guiding the gurney, with Virgil on the other side, holding onto the rail with one hand and raising his stag-headed cane high above with the other. He doesn’t say anything, simply tilts his head toward the slowly opening doors ahead of us.

Still glancing over my shoulder, I worry over Dixon behind me. He stands there, shrugging, but Everett isn’t buying it.

“This is your fault, Dixon Caine!” Everett jabs his index finger at Dix’s face, but Dix dodges him.

“Whut?” he drawls in three syllables like the rebellious high school senior he still is in his heart. “Why you all so pissy towards me? I’m jus’ following the two of y’all.”

The nurse’s aide plants her fists on her hipbones as she sidles up next to Everett in a face-off against Dixon. After all her hurrying, now that she’s stopped, her breaths come out ragged sighs. Perspiration stains the underarms of her blouse and the underside of both breasts. The night air is sticky with late summer humidity well into the autumn season. “I saw them!”

“Saw who?” Dix shrugs again. “I’m here to see my brother and my girlfriend.”

“Well, your brother and Lauren Hartford took her mama out of the ICU. I saw them!”

“I’m not sure what you saw, Franny, but Miss Emma’s had a hell of a time in the ICU. Anyhoo, how would you know? You don’t even work there.”

“Well, neither does your brother.”

“What the hell, Franny? Are you questioning our integrity or something? Everybody in town knows that Virgil works anywhere in this hospital system that he’s needed. If somebody’s dying, that’s where he’s gonna be. Just ask Everett here who spent more time taking care of his mama in hospice than her whole family combined.”

Somehow, I miss the look on Everett’s face as I focus on the doors ahead, but I can imagine it. Virgil gets a pass from Everett and his family, but no one else does.

Together, Virgil and I push Mama’s gurney through the fully open doors. The second Virgil lowers his cane, the shimmer of blue surrounding us vanishes. Instantly, the pop of the energy bubble exposes us.

“Hey!” Everette yells, pointing. He thunders toward us on the walkway.

I can’t stop looking over my shoulder now. Virgil hits a black box on the wall. The doors buzz and shut behind us with a clang only seconds before Everett slams into the doors.

A thirtyish woman in a white lab coat stands in front of us, both eyebrows raised. “Virgil? Is everything okay?” She beckons and leads us quickly through another set of doors and closes them behind us.

I can’t stop staring at the entrance behind us. I expect Everett to shove through those doors at any minute, but he doesn’t.

“Yeah,” Virgil says, panting. “We’re fine now. We need to get Miss Emma signed in as soon as possible.”

We must look like two fugitives on the run—and maybe we are—both of us heaving so hard we can barely speak.

The psychiatrist that Virgil has been telling me about ignores us for a moment and instead takes my mom’s hand. “Miss Emma? Miss Emma.” Her voice is a little too loud, as if she expects my mom to be hard of hearing at her age. She isn’t, though. My mom’s mind may be going, but her hearing is as strong as ever.

Mama opens her eyes and blinks. She frowns at the psychiatrist. “Uh-huh” is all she says.

“All right, sweetheart. We’re going to get you into a room of your own in a few minutes.” Her volume is still painfully loud. “Is that okay with you, Miss Emma?”

Mama nods her head slightly, then squeezes her eyes shut again.

The woman pats Mama’s hand and only then fully acknowledges Virgil and me. “You’re her daughter?” she says to me as she pushes a stray black tendril over her ear and fidgets with the tight bun on the back of her head. “I understand you have her power of attorney in our database. Compliant with the State of Georgia? Good. I have some paperwork for you to sign. If you’d like to wait here with your mother while I get the documents ready for your signature⁠—”

“Yes! Please. Virgil told me a little about this ward, that I’ll be able to talk to her at least twice a day while she’s here and wave at her through the glass pane on the front side of the ward, but I won’t be able to visit. No one besides the staff specifically assigned to this ward is allowed inside. Is that right?”

“Correct. But Virgil is allowed, based on his role in the hospital system. We should have Miss Emma checked in within the next half-hour. I’ll sit up with her for a little while to make sure she’s comfortable. We’re giving her the room nearest the nurses’ station since she’s weak physically. Virgil’s relayed a bit of her history. Sounds like she’s had a difficult life. We’ll do what we can while she’s here to help her develop some coping mechanisms and maybe make peace with some of the things that have caused her pain.”

Virgil, now breathing normally, grabs his cane from the side of the gurney. “Priyanka, thank you for coming out tonight to do this. We both really appreciate how much you’ve worked with us to give Miss Emma a safe place for the next week or so while you assess her situation. I owe you one.”

She smiles back at him. Adoration shines in her eyes, but it’s more hero worship than flirtation. “You don’t owe me anything, Virgil. Your work is important, and I’m glad I can support it in any way I can.” She studies my sleeping mom for a few seconds. “Virgil, why don’t we give your friend and her mother some privacy, and you can explain to me in person exactly why we needed to do this tonight instead of in the morning. If there’s drama going on with family, I need to be aware of it so I can keep her safe.”

I barely notice as the two of them walk out of earshot to a small room with a glass door. In the distance, I hear Everett cursing and occasionally banging on the side door. It sounds as if he’s stomping around and occasionally kicking the steel doors.

But my mom sleeps, and everything else is quiet enough that the big round clock at the top of the corridor wall ticks off the seconds of our lives, taunting me with the unstopping passage of time, whether I act or not.

Swallowing all the emotions welling in my throat, I bend over Mama’s gurney and take her bony, yellowish hands in mine. I can see the veins easily through the thin skin and dark spots across the back of each. Her hands have changed so much in the last year, even since I came back right after Mother’s Day for what I’d intended to be only a short visit. She never had dark spots or discolorations on her hands until well into her seventies. It’s a trait I inherited from her—my own still look like the hands of a woman in her thirties. Gently, I rub my thumbs in an outward motion across the backs of her hands.

My heart hurts to see her like this. She’s always—until this past year—looked twenty years younger than her age. Part has been a matter of pride and trying to make herself attractive for a man who could never be pleased. Part has been good genes. Her ill health has flipped a switch, though, so that I can see only the shadow of the woman who raised me. She reminds me now of the cicada shells I used to find in the backyard after they sang and molted: not the vibrant green insect that emerged but the crispy, dry husk left behind.

“Mama?” I whisper.

She doesn’t respond.

“Mama?” My voice breaks.

I’m scared that every conversation with her might be our last, and I have so much to say. Not to ask her to be accountable for anything, not now, but just to talk to me one last time like we used to talk when I was a teen needing a friend and didn’t have any, and she was there for me and all the times we talked about the possibility of escaping this little town and running far away.

Please, I pray. One last good conversation.

She stirs. Her eyes pop open. She blinks at me, then frowns. “Do I know you? You look familiar.”

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