Thirty-One
Shiloh answered the phone before she was awake. She thought it must be Ryan. “Hello?”
“Shiloh?” It wasn’t Ryan.
“Who is this?”
“It’s Cary.”
“ Cary? Are you okay?”
“I’m fine. I’m sorry I woke you. I, um— My mom—”
“Is she okay?”
“No. Actually. She fell, and she’s been waiting for someone to come home. I think it must be bad for her to reach out to me,
but she won’t let me call 911—and now she won’t pick up the phone.”
“I’ll go over there,” Shiloh said. “I’ll go now.”
“Okay.” He sounded relieved. “Thank you. There’s a key in the mailbox. Not the actual mailbox. The old one, inside the porch.”
“Got it.”
“I really appreciate this, Shiloh.”
“Don’t worry about it. I’ll call you when I get there.”
“I know you don’t like dogs—”
“I’ll be okay.”
“If it doesn’t feel safe, just call 911. Call 911 if you have to, anyway.”
“I’ll call you when I’m there,” Shiloh said again.
“Thank you,” he said.
“Bye.” Shiloh hung up and looked at the time—3 a.m.
The kids were at Ryan’s. She threw on clothes and went down to tell her mom where she was going. “I’ll come with you,” her
mom said.
Shiloh almost told her to go back to sleep, then reconsidered. “That might be a good idea, thanks.”
Shiloh grabbed some cheese sticks from the fridge. Her mom walked into the kitchen, wearing a pajama shirt and sweatpants.
“Dogs can have cheese, right?” Shiloh asked.
When they got to Cary’s house, there were no cars in the driveway. The dogs went nuts when they heard people on the porch.
“You talk to the dogs,” Shiloh said, handing her mom the cheese sticks and fishing out the key.
Shiloh cracked open the door. “Lois? It’s me, Shiloh.” The dogs were jumping on the door, scratching at it.
“Go in,” her mom said. “Be confident. They can smell fear.”
“Thanks, Jerry Maguire. Lois? ” Shiloh called. “I’m coming in!”
Shiloh pushed the door open. Her mom was talking to the dogs in baby voices, already handing out cheese. Shiloh hurried past
them, into the living room. She should have asked Cary where his mom had fallen. Was she upstairs?
“Angel?” someone called from the back of the house.
Shiloh headed for the kitchen and carefully swung open the door. Lois was lying on the floor, against the cabinets. Her oxygen
can had rolled away from her. Her baggy shirt was twisted up, exposing her stomach. The phone was sitting next to her, like
she’d pulled it off the counter.
Shiloh got on her knees. “Lois, it’s Shiloh. Cary called me. Where are you hurt?”
“Shiloh...” Lois said breathlessly. “I think I... I twisted my ankle, honey. If you could help me sit up...”
“It’s just your ankle that hurts?”
“I’m an old woman, everything hurts. If you could just...” She reached out her hand. Shiloh took it. Lois’s hands were
soft and felt swollen. She was cold.
Shiloh reached under her shoulder, to lift her. Lois immediately gasped in pain.
“Lois, I think we should call an ambulance.”
“No!” She shook her head. There were tears on her cheeks. “They can’t come in here... The dogs... If Petey bites somebody, they’ll put him to sleep this time.”
Shiloh wondered if Petey was the one who looked like a pit bull or the one who looked like a Chihuahua. “I’ll have them come
to the back door, okay?”
“The back porch is a mess.”
“That’s okay.”
“Honey, no... I want to wait for Angel.”
“Lois, I can’t leave you here. I promised Cary I’d take care of you.”
“He worries too much,” Lois said. “I shouldn’t have called him, but I know his number by heart.”
“Shiloh!” her mom shouted from the next room. “I’m waiting on the porch, I ran out of cheese!”
Shiloh got out her cell phone to call Cary. But then she looked at Lois again—pale and gasping—and called 911 instead.
Lois started to cry when she heard Shiloh talking to the operator. Shiloh held her hand. The operator told Shiloh how to check
that the oxygen canister was connected.
Shiloh called her mom’s cell phone and told her to make sure the EMTs went to the back door when they got there.
She tugged Lois’s shirt down and slid her own hand between Lois’s head and the cabinet. “I’m sorry,” Shiloh told her. “I promised
Cary I’d treat you like my own mother.” She hadn’t promised that, but she would have.
“I hate hospitals,” Lois cried.
“I’m sorry,” Shiloh said again. “I know they’re going to take care of you.”
“They don’t care about”—she took a rasping breath—“fat old ladies on Medicare.”
“We’ll make sure they take care of you.”
When the ambulance got there, Shiloh went to open the back door. She struggled with the lock. And then the screen door wouldn’t open because there was so much junk on the back porch.
“Shiloh?” Lois said. “Don’t leave me alone.”
“I won’t leave, I’m here.” The door finally gave. Something on the other side broke. The EMTs came through the refuse and
into the kitchen.
“Shiloh?” Lois called. “Don’t leave me!”
“I’m here,” she said. “I’m not leaving. I’ll stay with you.”
The EMTs got Lois onto a stretcher. They were gentle, but she cried the whole time. One of them, an older man, was irritated
that they had to take the stretcher down the back steps. “There’s no light back here.”
“The dogs...” Shiloh said.
When they got Lois outside, they asked if Shiloh was family. “That’s my granddaughter,” Lois said.
Shiloh got into the ambulance—they made her sit up front. Shiloh’s mom said she’d leave a note for Lois’s family. Shiloh gave
her the keys to the car.
“in ambulance,” Shiloh texted Cary. She had a shitty cell phone; it took forever.
“heading 2 immanuel ER
lois is in pain but awake
will call soon”
Cary texted back immediately. “Standing by for more information. Thank you.”
The EMTs put Lois on more serious oxygen. They were trying to judge her pain, but she was still minimizing everything, even
through tears. She told them she’d slipped on a wet spot on the kitchen floor, that it was nothing.
When they got to the hospital, the admissions people wanted Lois’s personal information. Shiloh couldn’t even remember Lois’s
last name. She called Cary. “We’re at the hospital,” she said. “Can I hand you over to someone?”
The woman behind the desk gave the phone back to Shiloh a few minutes later. “Your husband says he’s going to call back with her insurance info.”
“Okay,” Shiloh said.
They let her go into the exam room with Lois. Shiloh sat by the bed and held her hand. Lois already had an IV, and they’d
started her on pain medication.
It made Shiloh nervous, how urgently they were attending to Lois. Shiloh’s other ER experiences—for the kids, and herself,
and Ryan when he had appendicitis—had been a lot of sitting around and waiting.
Cary wanted to talk to his mom, so Shiloh held the phone up to her ear. Then she gave the phone to a nurse, so Cary could
give Lois’s patient history.
Shiloh went with Lois to radiology and held her hand on the way back to the exam room.
When the doctor eventually came in to say that Lois had fractured her hip in two places and would need surgery, Lois was asleep.
Shiloh called Cary.
“I’ve left messages for my niece,” he said, “and I finally got through to my oldest sister, but she’s in Denver. She might
send her kid.”
“I’ll stay as long as I need to,” Shiloh said. “I’ll keep you posted.”
“I told the nurse you were family,” he said.
“So did your mom. It seems fine.”
“I’m sorry for all this, Shiloh.”
“You can thank me,” she said, “but you can’t apologize.”
“All right. Thank you.”
The operation was set for seven thirty that morning, when the surgeon was scheduled to start her shift. Shiloh followed Lois
to pre-op and sat with her as long as it was allowed. Then she went to wait in the special room set aside for family. She
sent Cary a text. “she just went back”
“Thanks,” he replied.
“did you get any sleep?”
“It’s afternoon here. Did you?”
“i’m fine,” Shiloh typed. “where r u?”
“Singapore. For now. Do you have to work tomorrow?”
“not rly” Shiloh had decided to take a sick day. “fyi—i left dogs in house alone”
“Someone else will deal with them.”
“mom + i fed them lots of cheese”
“Is your mom with you?”
“no but she came w/me to your house”
“What about the kids?”
“with their dad, it’s fine”
“Thank Gloria for me.”
“i will”
Lois was out of surgery and in recovery when Cary’s niece Angel showed up. Shiloh recognized her from when they were kids.
Angel was in her mid-twenties now. She had shaggy blond hair and Cary’s brown eyes, and she looked ragged and exhausted in
a way that wasn’t entirely explained by being at the hospital first thing in the morning.
Shiloh waved. “Hi. I’m Shiloh, Cary’s friend. Your grandma just got out of surgery.”
“Are you the one who brought her in?” Angel seemed suspicious.
“Yeah. Cary called me.”
“She hates ambulances.”
Shiloh wasn’t sure how to respond to that. She decided not to apologize. “She was in the operating room for about two hours,
but the doctor was in a good mood when she came out.”
“I’ll talk to the doctor,” Angel said.
“Can I get you some coffee?”
“I can get it.”
Shiloh nodded. She texted Cary:
“ angel’s here. i think she’d like me 2 leave”
“She’s mad at me,” Cary sent back. “Not you.”
“can she handle this? should i go?”
“Yeah,” he texted. “My sister’s coming, too. They’ll all show up, I think.”
“will they tell u what’s happening?”
“Begrudgingly,” he sent. And then —“You should go, Shiloh. I can’t thank you enough for this.”
“i’m still around,” she said. “call if u need anything, i mean it”
“Thank you.”
Shiloh picked up her purse. “I think I’m going to head out—unless you’d like me to wait with you. I don’t mind.”
“Nope,” Angel said.
Shiloh called her mom for a ride home.