25
Over the next few days, summer hits the island with a vengeance. Every morning is dazzlingly bright and warm, every songbird
has come out singing, and Kiara and I swap our hot coffee for iced coffee and start planning picnics on the beach. I’m going
to invite Rose along, since I just know that she and Kiara will hit it off (and because I have a secret plan to merge all
my tiny friend families into one).
The Canada Day event is right around the corner, and John has been putting in nearly as much time on it as I have. We’re still
spending almost every night together, and the prickly feeling I felt at the racetrack has almost completely gone away. I don’t
even know what it was about. John is the perfect boyfriend. Like, the other day, he actually cleaned out a drawer at his apartment
for my stuff, without acting like it was a big deal at all. And then when I mentioned to him that I was thinking I’d stay
around Waldon a while longer, he gave me this casual shrug and said, “That’d be cool”—but then I caught him grinning to himself
as he made us coffee. It makes my heart fizzy just remembering it.
Honestly, I’m probably just not used to things being so easy. I remember my university boyfriend throwing a fit when I put
a thing of floss in the bathroom cabinet at his house. He said it felt like I was trying to move in with him.
(With a thing of floss .)
(Which I wouldn’t have had to put there, by the way, if he ever bought floss for himself.)
So, yeah. That prickly feeling obviously has nothing to do with John himself. And it’s basically gone now, anyway.
On Wednesday, the week before the Canada Day event, I spend most of my day at the shop running through my event checklist
for the millionth time and trying to figure out if I’ve missed anything. Craft booths, check. Food and drinks, check. Entertainment,
check. Give Shelley just enough to do that she feels important but not so much that she starts whining about it, check.
At five o’clock, I say goodbye to John and Dave, who show no sign of finishing anytime soon, and head out into the parking
lot. On the way to my car, my phone rings. It’s Mrs. Finnamore’s daughter, Debra.
My stomach tenses unpleasantly.
“Hello?” I say warily.
“Emily? It’s Debra.”
Uh-oh. She sounds pissed.
“Hi, Debra. How are you?”
“I’ve been better,” she says, her voice dripping with nasty sarcasm. “I suppose you’ve heard what’s happened?”
My stomach tightens. “No.”
She lets out a harsh, disbelieving breath. “My mother has been taken to the hospital,” she says. Every word feels pointed,
an accusation rather than a statement.
My hand flies to my mouth. “What happened? Is she all right?”
“She’s broken her hip,” Debra says tersely. “And the doctor said her blood pressure was sky-high. Clearly she hasn’t been taking her medicines properly.”
“But—she has been!” I stammer. “I swear—”
“I have to go,” Debra says coldly. “I’ll expect reimbursement for the remainder of the month.” She makes that harsh noise
again. “This is exactly why I wanted her to have proper help.”
I open my mouth to say, I don’t know, something—but she’s already gone. I stand frozen with my mouth open, my phone screen
blank in my numb hand.
Mrs. Finnamore broke her hip ?
I have to get to the hospital, right now.
I leap in my car and drive there in a blind panic. My mind is running through every visit I’ve had with her over the past
week. Did I leave something on the floor that she could have tripped over? Did I actually see her swallow her medications after I handed them to her? I’m struck by a vision of her taking the pills from me and then stuffing them
in her pocket when I’m not looking. Oh god. I should have watched her take them, I should have made her open her mouth after
she swallowed them.
The local hospital is small, only two stories, but I still get lost three times on the way to the emergency room. The waiting
room is completely full, a hundred curious eyes boring into me as I walk up to the doors and press the buzzer. After a few
minutes, I press it again. A moment later, a young woman in scrubs opens the doors. She looks irritated.
“Take a number and the triage nurse will call you when they get to you,” she says, pointing to a big sign that says the same
thing in huge letters.
“Oh, no,” I say hastily, before she can close the door. “I’m just looking for someone who was brought in earlier. Betty Finnamore?”
The girl calls over her shoulder to someone I can’t see. “Do we have a Finnamore down here?”
“Exam 2,” someone hollers.
“Exam 2,” the girl repeats to me, pulling open the door just enough to let me in. I don’t really blame her. I can feel everyone
in the waiting room staring, as though they’ll be able to guess how long they’ll have to wait by glimpsing through the doors.
Based on the chaos going on back here, I expect they’ll be waiting a long time. In my short walk to Exam 2, I see a woman
with a huge bloody gash on her forehead, a toddler screaming bloody murder as a nurse tries to give him a needle, and a terrifying
middle-aged man hollering furiously at a doctor.
I rush into Exam 2 and hastily close the door behind me, but the scene inside is no less frightening.
Mrs. Finnamore is laid out on a stretcher with an IV bag dripping fluid into her arm. She’s dressed in a flimsy hospital gown,
and her hair is sticking up on one side, and she just looks so...
Old .
I mean, I know that she’s old. She’s eighty-eight. But at home, with her hair done up and her day clothes on, puttering around
her house, it’s easy to forget how old she really is. Lying there on the stretcher, she looks so incredibly frail. If I saw
a picture of her as she is right now, I would say, yeah, that’s someone who shouldn’t be living alone.
God, what have I done ?
I approach her timidly. “Mrs. Finnamore?”
No response.
I try again, a little louder. “Mrs. Finnamore?”
Still nothing. I reach out nervously and touch her shoulder. She stirs, her eyes opening slowly. Her gaze is cloudy. She stares at me, but I don’t think she really sees me.
“Mrs. Finnamore, what happened ?”
She doesn’t answer. Her eyes close again, and within seconds, she’s asleep.
I step back from the stretcher, feeling cold and slightly nauseated. I look around the room, taking in the scary IV; the awful,
astringent smell; the frantic beeping of an alarm sounding from somewhere outside the room... all of it coalesces into
one single, awful thought.
Debra was right.
Mrs. Finnamore needed a nurse, not a na?ve, unskilled receptionist whose only qualification was “liking old people.”
The door swings open and a tall man in blue scrubs comes in. His badge says Ethan Edwards, RN.
“How’s she doing?” I ask anxiously.
“Ah, she’s still pretty loopy from the pain medication,” he says. “Her blood pressure’s better, though. Are you a relative?”
I shake my head. “No, I’m... her neighbor.” I almost say caregiver , but I’m too scared he’ll judge me for doing the job so poorly. “Is it okay for me to be in here?” I ask.
“Yeah, but she’ll be heading out soon.”
“Heading out?”
“The closest orthopedic surgeon is in Charlottetown. The ambulance should be coming to get her any second.”
“Why does she need to see an ortho—a surgeon?”
“She needs surgery to fix her hip.”
“Can’t you just—put a cast on?”
“Not for a hip fracture, no.”
I look at Mrs. Finnamore again. What if she doesn’t survive the surgery? What if she dies , because of me?
“Are you all right?” the nurse asks, peering at me.
“Oh... yeah. Sorry.”
“No worries.” He leaves the room, only to return again seconds later. “The ambulance just pulled up,” he says. “We’ll get
her ready to go now.”
I step back out of his way, and soon the room is crowded with two nurses and two paramedics. I back up against the wall, trying
not to get in anyone’s way. Before long, they’ve strapped Mrs. Finnamore onto a wheelable stretcher and are maneuvering her
out of the room. She barely stirs as they move her, beyond groaning once in pain.
“You following us there?” a paramedic asks me suddenly.
I blink at him in alarm. Should I go with her?
I hesitate, then shake my head jerkily. She needs nurses and doctors, not me.
The paramedic nods and they wheel Mrs. Finnamore away. I take a half-step after them, the word wait on the tip of my tongue. But it’s too late; she’s out the door.
I wander back through the hospital and out into the parking lot in a daze, a hundred horrible thoughts running through my
mind. I take out my phone and open my contacts, scrolling until I find the name I’m looking for.
John picks up on the third ring. “Hey.” Then, when I don’t answer, “Emily?”
My eyes fill with tears at the sound of his voice. “Hey,” I choke out.
His tone sobers. “Is everything okay?”
I shake my head, sending a flood of hot tears spilling onto my cheeks. “No.”