Chapter 15
Brilliant fuchsia Bougainvillea unfurls in cascades of color, spilling over sidewalks and fences, adorning the homes and shopping centers we pass with riotous color.
I stare at them out the window, my arms crossed.
The tense silence in the car is broken only by the sound of the turn signal as Hunter merges through traffic.
“This is not necessary,” I repeat for the tenth time, and he patiently repeats what Dr. Thorup and my mom both told him thirty minutes ago when I woke up chilled, and he brought out the thermometer.
“What I need is to be asleep right now so I can get -better—and either go back to the hospital with Farmor or reopen the bakery. This is unnecessary.” I huff a frustrated sigh.
“You’ve made your opinion abundantly clear. But everyone else seems to think it’s pretty serious.” Hunter’s knuckles are white on the steering wheel, and he keeps glancing over at me.
I know they’re right, which is why I got in Hunter’s car at all, even though I’ve done nothing except whine about it since.
But I hate walking through those same doors I have so many times before and being forced to don a bleached-out gown and be hooked up to heart monitors and an IV and have my every breath and heartbeat accounted for.
I hate knowing how easily it could all be over for me. Especially right now, when I might miss my chance to say my final goodbye to Farmor.
No. Don’t even think that. She’s going to be fine. She’s going to wake up and be okay.
But deep down, I know with every passing day she remains in a coma, the chances of that diminish.
Which is why, as Hunter pulls into one of the parking lots of the Mayo Clinic hospital in Phoenix, where my heart specialist practices, the back of my eyes burn.
I blink furiously as Hunter turns into the closest parking spot he can get to the doors and twists to face me in his seat.
“What’s wrong?” he asks. “Is something hurting?”
I shake my head.
“Then what is it?”
“I hate the hospital,” I say. “I hate coming here. Every horrible moment in my life has taken place in a hospital.”
Hunter starts to reach for my hand, hesitates, then diverts, letting his drop into his lap again.
“I hate the hospital too. Trust me, I understand.” His gaze is haunted, his eyes searching mine.
“But they’re not all bad. Good things have happened there too.
You’re alive because of the hospital, right?
Focus on that, and keep the record going strong. ”
I swallow hard, reaching deep within for the strength I need to make myself get out of the car and walk through those doors, not knowing when I’ll come back out again.
Not knowing if I’ll have lost another member of my dwindling family by then.
Not knowing what will happen to our bakery with only my mom left to run it.
Anxiety spirals through my limbs; my legs tremble. “I don’t know if I can do this.”
“Your mom is on her way, and Talia and Lou are both trying to get off work early to come too. You have an entire team cheering for you, supporting you.”
“And you?” I don’t know why I ask it. I shouldn’t. But there’s no taking it back.
“What about me?”
“Are you cheering for me?”
His eyes lock onto mine. When I shiver, it has nothing to do with my fever.
“Yes. I’m here with you for as long as you need me, Olivia,” he says at last, quietly.
Hope that is as painful as it is exquisite lurches through me. “Thank you.”
A familiar nurse, whose name tag reminds me that her name is Winny, helps Hunter take me to my usual room that they have waiting for me when we reach the cardiac unit.
She doesn’t seem fazed by Hunter’s scars one bit.
Maybe because she’s seen it all on this floor.
Winny’s brown eyes are as warm as ever as she takes me past the nurses’ station and down the hall toward my familiar view of Camelback Mountain in the distance.
She barely has time to help me climb into bed and put the blood--pressure cuff around my arm when I hear my mom’s voice.
“Which room is she in? Is she conscious? How bad is it?”
Hunter gives me an encouraging nod when I glance his way, as if he somehow knows I need to bolster my strength to deal with my mom’s panic on top of my own.
“She’s right in here, Mrs. Karlsson.”
Mom rushes through the door and then bursts into tears when she sees me sitting up in bed.
“We are getting her checked in right now,” Winny preempts my mom’s questions, “but I will let you know what her vitals are as I take them.”
The blood-pressure cuff tightens on my arm as Winny slips a pulse oximeter onto my pointer finger on my other hand and then swipes a thermometer across my forehead and down the side of my face to my jaw.
“She has a fever of 102.3.” Winny’s voice is matter-of-fact, but that number is like a rock dropping into a still lake; we can only pray the ripples don’t spread too far.
“Her O2 sats are 94, so that’s pretty good.
Pulse is 110.” The cuff releases, and she reports what we can all clearly see. “BP is 135 over 76.”
“How soon will she be hooked up to telemetry? Did you hear any arrhythmias when you listened?”
“I haven’t had a chance to listen yet,” Winny explains with far more patience than I would have been able to muster.
Mom’s panic is understandable after last year . . . and the last few days. Leave it to me to have the worst possible timing to try to fight off an infection.
“I’m about to do that right now, as soon as I enter these in for Dr. Thorup.
” She stands at the computer, quickly typing in my vitals, then does exactly as she promised, coming over to press her cool stethoscope to my chest, then my back.
“Take a deep breath and hold it. And again. And again . . .” Upper left, upper right, lower left, lower right.
My mom stands beside the bed, wringing her hands in front of her, still wearing the same clothes she’s had on for the last two days.
I don’t want to think about the bakery, the doors locked, the lights off yet again.
Or even worse, Farmor lying in the ICU alone, fighting for her life without either of us there.
“Her lungs sound clear. Heart sounds are normal,” Winny reports. “We’ll get her hooked up, though, to make sure, and Dr. Thorup will be in soon to go over what we need to do for treatment.”
Winny draws some blood, then takes swabs of my nose and throat before she leaves, making it even harder to swallow than before, but they need to check for strep throat and the flu.
Once the door shuts, I’m left alone with the beeping of my monitors, my mom still standing beside my bed, and Hunter hovering near the sink, next to the door.
Mom reaches over and swipes the hair back from my forehead, scowling when she feels how hot I am. “I knew I should have taken you in this morning.”
“I wasn’t this sick this morning. They would have sent me home.”
She shakes her head, concern and guilt on her face.
“I promise she seemed fine all morning. It wasn’t until she woke up from her nap this afternoon that she was worse.
” Hunter’s arms are crossed, his biceps protruding beneath the short sleeves of his black T-shirt.
I’m not sure if my mouth is dry because of the fever and dehydration or how good he looks in that shirt and jeans, leaning against the wall, his feet crossed at the ankles.
He seems nonchalant at first glance, but I see the tightness at the corners of his mouth, though I don’t know if it’s from worry for me or his hatred of hospitals.
“Are you sure you didn’t have a fever before now?” Mom asks.
“Yes, Mom. I’m sure.” I close my eyes and lie back against the thin, pathetic excuse of comfort the hospital calls pillows.
“Good idea. You should rest while we wait.” Mom runs her fingers through my hair again, something I loved as a child.
There’s a tightness in my lungs that isn’t only from whatever sickness I’m fighting. My all-too-familiar companion is making itself known: fear. Strangling me, drowning me.
I’m afraid of dying—of course. But I’m even more afraid of making my mom go through my death.
She’s already faced enough, losing my dad and her father-in-law in one year.
And with Farmor in the hospital, on the brink of dying now, too .
. . I can’t bear to be the cause of more pain and loss for her.
And my brothers . . . What would it do to them?
“Hunter, I can’t thank you enough for helping Livvy so much today. I really appreciate it—more than you know.”
“Of course,” he replies.
“We’ve inconvenienced you a lot,” my mom continues. “If you’d rather leave than hang out in a hospital room, I think we’d both understand.”
My eyes fly open and meet his across the room. My lungs feel as though a vise has tightened around them, squeezing the air out of me; the monitor on the screen marks the jump in my heart rate. My mom’s eyes flicker to the monitor and widen a bit before bouncing between the two of us.
“I told Liv I’d stay,” Hunter finally says, quiet but firm. “As long as it’s not a problem, I’ll wait and make sure she’s okay.”
I exhale, surprised but relieved that he didn’t leap at the chance to bail. “It’s fine if you stay,” I say before my mom can answer. I think she was trying to be polite, not attempting to get rid of him, but she does look confused.
We fall into silence, and I close my eyes again.
It takes another twenty minutes to get me changed into a gown (while Hunter and my mom wait out in the hall) and for Winny to hook me up to telemetry.
Once the leads are all attached and turned on, the screen above my bed flickers to life, sketching my heart function in a jumble of thin lines.
Mom watches the screen with the laser focus of a hawk searching for any hint of movement in a vast field.
She’s become an armchair expert on telemetry over the years; she can read my results almost as well as the telemetry techs who have been trained to do it professionally.