11. Clark
ELEVEN
CLARK
I saw out of the corner of my eye as I was on one of these stupid tiny one-way streets near the waterfront that Olly had gone from full panic to almost utterly still and quiet in no time at all.
Her eyelids were fluttering, her breathing laboured, but it was too late for her to use the inhaler I saw in her lap because she was completely unresponsive.
At least, she didn’t react when I reached over and shook her shoulder, trying to rouse her to wakefulness.
And she was still wheezing. I didn’t need a medical degree to know this was bad.
“Olly?” I asked, then shouted, “Olly!” What in the name of all things holy was happening?
She’d gone limp, the seat belt the only thing holding her up.
I was almost to an advertised parking lot when her body started shaking violently.
I slammed on my four-way flashers and the brakes right in the middle of the road, lucky the guy behind me hadn’t rammed us and merely started honking repeatedly.
Olly’s face looked red. She was sweating as she practically vibrated, and all I could see for a moment was a ten-year-old girl with dark hair, having cold sweats as she shook in her bed.
No! I couldn’t lose sight of what was actually happening, in front of me right now, to another person under my protection.
I just knew that I wasn’t letting this end the same way it had in Kenya, with someone going into the ground.
I could feel panic building within me, and I knew that was the last thing on earth that would help us, so I took two deep breaths, and I put on my blinker and parked in a disability spot.
I knew that was a huge breach of decency, but needs must and all that.
I immediately fished my cell from my pocket and dialed 911 while trying to feel for a pulse.
I found it on her wrist, but her heart beat practically a million miles a second.
The next few minutes before I could hear the wail of sirens was a blur.
I didn’t interfere with her otherwise while she was seizing.
I bit down on my lower lip as hard as I could without drawing blood, grounding myself in the here and now, and not allowing myself to relive traumas from the past that might make me miss something that was happening to Olly here in the present.
Moments before the ambulance pulled up, she suddenly stopped moving, but she was, thank gods, breathing.
Her breath was coming in pants and sounded shallow, but as long as she was breathing and her heart was beating, I had hope.
Sweat poured off her forehead, and I grabbed a handkerchief from my pocket, something an Evans never goes anywhere without.
I wiped the sweat from her brow and just tried to make sure she was comfortable until the professionals arrived.
The EHS paramedics eased Olly out of the car and onto a stretcher, and I had never been so scared, not even when it was my own life hanging on the line when I was a kid with cancer.
I kept blurting details as I knew them, but how could I explain that the woman who was my boss that I was friends with, but kind of maybe sort of dating, was also a woman who I knew very little about when it came to her most private life?
“She’s twenty-nine years old, she doesn’t have any allergies that I’m aware of.
I don’t know about any history of seizures or epilepsy, anything like that,” I explained as they put a blanket over her and buckled her into the stretcher.
“She’s pregnant! Fuck, I’m sorry, that should have been the first thing I—”
“Sir, it’s okay, just tell us, how far along is she?” the female paramedic urged as they loaded her into the ambulance with this fancy hydraulic lift.
“Um, she just hit four months this week, I think. Oh damn, the person I should be calling is the baby’s father. I can do that. I can get him, I can… he’s known her forever. I just—”
“Sir, you need to breathe. It sounds like you are having an anxiety attack, and we can only handle one patient right now, and that has to be her,” the male paramedic now said, while his partner jumped into the back of the rig and started running an IV line into Olly’s hand.
The same one I had been holding, in what seemed just like minutes ago.
“Put your head down and take a few deep breaths, okay?” I nodded and felt myself beginning to calm.
In that professional but urgent tone, he said, “Before we take her to the ER, is there anything else you can tell us about her medical situation? Even anything small can possibly help her.”
I could barely stop myself. It felt like too much of a betrayal to Olly to mention the snowstorm, and her loose explanation of just “knowing” things about people.
But what if one of those details was essential to diagnose and treat her?
What if she had a brain tumour of some kind or undiagnosed epilepsy?
Fuck. I would do just about anything for her, I knew that, but I couldn’t disclose everything I knew.
I just couldn’t because how could I ever face her again if I did?
That was, if she ever woke up again. Dammit, this was about way more than how Olly would perceive me in the aftermath of this.
This was about her, possibly her life, and I had to give EHS something to work with.
“Look, she’s an incredible person with a very rich imagination.
Sometimes maybe she finds it difficult to separate that imagination from reality.
But I don’t think she has any kind of mental illness beyond anxiety.
She was about to explain something to me about all of that, I think, but then she just started screaming.
I think something scared her. She went unconscious, then the seizure or whatever the hell that was.
She also had a traumatic brain injury when she was a child, I think around eight?
So twenty-one years ago. She was thrown from a vehicle.
That’s all I know. Let me call the baby’s father, and he can meet you at the, damn, what’s the name of the hospital again? ”
He filled me in, and said, “Both of you can be with her at the hospital as support persons as long as you don’t get in our way.
And she may have an emergency contact on file that is neither of you.
She can only have two people with her right now, so just be prepared for that.
Look, man, I can see you care. Calm yourself down, then follow the road here, take the second left, and there will be green signs with a white ‘H’ on them to guide you.
Park your car, and go to the information desk on the main floor.
Give them her name, and ask for a porter to get you to her.
The hospital is undergoing renovations, and it can be confusing to navigate, especially for people who come from away.
” With that, he slammed the back doors of the rig shut and jogged to the driver’s side, climbing in and taking Olly away from me.
I made it to the hospital without getting lost, just a bit turned around, cursing as I got into the wrong lane and missed my turnoff.
I had to go around and come back up a busy street to get to the parkade entrance, but as soon as I’d secured a parking spot, I remembered Shepard.
I whipped out my phone, and it rang so many times I was sure he wasn’t going to pick up.
Just as I was about to abandon hope, I heard his middle English accent on the line.
“Hello, Clark? Did she hate the pictures? Love them?” he asked in a drowsy tone, so I probably had awoken him from sleep. I mean, it was past noon even if it was Sunday, so I didn’t feel bad about rousing him from his nest.
“Shepard, has she ever had a history of seizures? Epilepsy, anything like that?”
A suddenly very awake-sounding Shepard said, “No. What the hell happened?” There was a trace of panic in his voice, and for good reason, but I wanted to help keep him calm. Amongst the two of us, we couldn’t both fall apart, and I had dibs on the anxiety front.
“We were fine. Everything was fine, I swear, and when I showed her the pictures you drew, she just flipped the fuck out. I mean, she went unresponsive. She had what I think was a seizure, and her breathing wasn’t right. The paramedics took her away to the hospital, the QE2. Do you know it?”
“Yes, of course. Is that where you are?” I could hear sounds in the background, like Shepard was getting dressed while trying to keep our conversation going.
“I’m in the parking garage. I’ll be with her as fast as I fucking can, I swear. They said she could have us both there as support persons and—”
“I have another call coming in. It’s the hospital. I’m her emergency contact. I’ll meet you there, okay?”