Chapter 12
Chapter Twelve
BLUE
This is going to be fine. Probably.
I hope.
But the fact that I’ve barely heard from Beatrice since Charlotte took her home yesterday is troubling. More than troubling.
She must have read the messages by now, but still…nothing.
My stomach has been in knots for twenty-hours straight.
“I think this part of the hospital is haunted,” Clover whispers as I push her toward the elevator.
“Why’s that?” I ask, nodding to what seems to be the only nurse on duty, currently thumbing through a chart at the front desk.
It’s eerie in here today. It’s only half past four, but silent as the dead of night.
Everyone on Clover’s ward is either asleep or something worse than asleep.
As we pass a dimly lit room, where a victim of a different car crash lies motionless under a sheet, a tube down his throat, and machines beeping all around him, I’m even more thankful to be taking Clover home.
“Vibes,” she intones ominously as the elevator doors slide closed behind us. “The vibes are not vibing. My dreams last night were awful.”
I punch the button for the ground floor, where my truck is parked in the loading area. “Meds do that to me, too.”
“Yeah, I tried to skip them this morning,” she says. “But the pain was too bad. This pain is…really not good, Blue.”
I hum sympathetically. “I know. Broke my leg in two places falling out of a hayloft when I was ten. Worst pain I’ve ever felt.”
I don’t tell her that was probably because the Children of the Storm didn’t believe in medication for any of their followers at that point.
Women in childbirth, kids with broken bones, old people with double pneumonia—we were all expected to tough it out with prayer and hope for the best. Things changed after two kids nearly died of a staph infection when I was in high school.
But in the bad old days…
I still remember waking up with tears running down my face because I’d shifted the wrong way in my sleep.
“Yeah,” Clover agrees. “So, I guess I’ll stay on the meds for a while. Even though they make me weird.”
“I like weird.”
She grunts. “Good. I’ll be sure to tell you all about the next conversation I have with a toilet. The one in my room was full of opinions this morning. We had quite the spirited debate.”
“Wish I’d been here for that,” I say as the doors open.
“Pretty fun stuff, but I’m glad we’re going home.”
“Me, too. Bea’s excited to see you.” I push Clover toward the exit, her medication bag rattling in my hand as we roll over the textured mat by the door.
They have her on some serious stuff, but she’s seriously injured.
Honestly, she looks worse today than she did right after the crash, with a bruise coming in purple under the stitches on her cheek, and her eyes glazed with pain and lack of sleep.
Hopefully, she’ll at least be able to get better rest at home, even if the pain is still bad for a few more days.
In the pickup zone, I lift her gently out of the wheelchair and settle her into the passenger seat. She weighs nothing, even with two giant casts on her arm and leg, making me mutter, “We need to fatten you up, kid.”
She smiles fondly, patting my shoulder as I buckle her in. “Feel free to try. You know how much I eat. I’m just a scrawn-dog by nature. What’s for dinner, by the way? The chicken and rice they gave us for lunch tasted like salty plastic.”
“Lasagna,” I say, folding the wheelchair to load it into the back. “I’m pretty sure that’s what Bea said.”
I honestly can’t remember, though. We only spoke for a few minutes—long enough for me to convince her that I should pick Clover up alone and make plans to eat dinner together around five—before she got a call from her producer and had to go. I still have no idea if she’s read the texts.
No idea what she thought of them if she did.
No idea if I’m driving into a new dawn or a bloody delta sunset that promises an ugly night ahead.
At least, for me.
“Oh man, meds make me carsick, too, I think,” Clover says as I pull out, reaching for the air conditioner vent and aiming it at her face. “I hate everything right now.”
Maybe an ugly night for Clover, too.
The difference is, she did nothing to deserve it.
At the apartment, I park in one of the visitor’s spaces to the right of the building, loading a visibly queasy Clover back into her chair as gingerly as possible.
“I might need something calmer for dinner than lasagna,” she says, wiping sweat from her upper lip. “Like…toast or something.”
“We can make whatever sounds good,” I assure her. “Charlotte brought groceries by this morning. Between that and the ready-made meals from Makena’s meal service, Bea said there’s enough food to feed an army.”
“Good.” Clover manages a shaky smile. “I’ll look forward to eating it when my stomach calms down.”
“There she is!” Clark rushes to trigger the sliding glass doors when he sees us coming. “Welcome home, darlin’. So glad to see you in one piece. This place wouldn’t be the same without you girls.”
Clover perks up at the old man’s genuine warmth and concern. “Aw, thanks, Clark. It’s good to be home.”
“Anything I can do for y’all, you let me know.” He shoots me a stern look as he adds, “I mean that. Don’t be afraid to ask. I know you’re busy and can’t be here all the time for them. We’re all ready to chip in. Reggie and Nelly, too.”
“Thank you,” I tell him, guiding Clover into the elevator, careful not to bump her cast on the narrower door.
“You’re a real one, Clark,” Clover agrees.
“Hang in there, young lady,” he says, smile widening as he adds, “Gotta get you up and at ‘em before the baby gets here. Lawd, what a wonderful surprise. Gonna be a blessing to have a little one in the building again. Sure will.”
Clover waves, making sounds of agreement as I hit the button for their floor.
“A baby really is coming,” she says, in that bemused, floaty voice that makes me think the drugs are kicking in again. “That’s wild, isn’t it? There’s going to be a whole ass other person in this apartment. A tiny one. Who will grow into a big one.”
“That’s the way it usually goes,” I observe dryly, but Clover doesn’t seem to get the joke.
Yep, she’s definitely feeling those meds.
When we emerge from the elevator, Beatrice is waiting in the hall by their door.
Her anxious features lift as she spots us and waves.
“There you two are! Welcome home! I just finished cleaning your room and putting fresh sheets on your bed, Clover. Your pillows smell fantastic. You’re going to be so much more comfortable than at the hospital. ”
“Bea, you shouldn’t have,” she says. “I don’t want you to wear yourself out.”
“I’m happy to clean and change sheets and anything else that needs to be done,” I add, wanting her to know I was serious about doing the chores.
Aside from a few lingering bruises, I’m all healed up—not so much as the ghost of a headache—and am certainly in better shape than either of them.
“It wasn’t that hard.” Beatrice shifts back on her crutches, making room for us to precede her inside before shutting the apartment door behind us. “I’m getting around so much better with the thicker boot. I probably won’t need crutches at all in a day or two.”
She trails after us as I head for Clover’s room down the hall, keeping up a steady stream of chatter.
“The bad news is the lasagna is going to take ninety minutes to cook, not sixty, and I put it in a little later than I meant to because I was busy digging the extra pillows out of my closet. So, we’re running behind on that, but the salad is almost ready, and I put a cheese and cracker plate on a tray by your bed in case you were already—”
“Cheese and crackers sound great, actually,” Clover cuts in. “I think I should probably shove food in my face now, just in case. I might not be awake in thirty or forty minutes. The medicine makes me so sleepy all the time.”
“Okay, sounds good. There are strawberries and pear slices by your bed, too. And water,” Bea says. “Do you want something else to drink? Sweet tea? Lemonade? Charlotte brought over some sparkling passion fruit stuff, but it’s a little tart, so—”
“Relax, mama bear,” Clover says. “Water’s fine. I’m all set. Go take a load off. You look even more pregnant than yesterday.”
Bea slows behind us with a laugh. “I do not.”
“Do, too,” Clover insists. “You look like you swallowed the moon.”
“Well, that’s probably because you’re on drugs,” Beatrice shoots back, making Clover giggle.
“That’s what they all say. Because it’s true.
” Clover yawns, then coos as I guide her through her bedroom door, “Oh, wow, Bea, the cheese tray is so pretty! Look at the strawberries. They look like roses. Or tiny angel lips. Aw, poor angels, they don’t have lips anymore. That’s sad. I can’t eat angel lips.”
“No, it’s fine,” Bea says from the door. “Angel lips grow back right away. Everybody knows that.”
“Oh, good.” Clover sighs. “I’m glad.”
I glance back at Bea. “Good save.”
“Thanks,” she murmurs. “I’ll go finish the salad. Let me know if you guys need anything else in here.”
“Will do,” I promise.
“You want a beer with dinner?” She casts an amused glance Clover’s way. “Seems like you might need one after half an hour in the car with this character.”
“I heard that,” Clover says as I stop at the edge of her bed. “And yes, he deserves a beer. I’m a lot right now. But I can’t help it. I think I’m allergic to morphine. In my brain.”
“Yes, please,” I say with a nod. “A beer sounds good.”
Beatrice flashes a smile that doesn’t quite reach her eyes. “See you at dinner then.”
I watch her leave, fighting the urge to read too much into the tightness around her eyes. She’s probably worried about Clover, that’s all. Yes, Clover’s funny on meds, but she’s also clearly not feeling so hot.
She grimaces as I lift her from her chair, and by the time I have her settled in bed, she’s white as a ghost again.
“Okay?” I ask.
She nods. “Yeah. Just need to get some food in here, I think. The nausea is pretty bad.”