Page 112 of About that Fling
“I don’t know. They whisked Mia away before I could ask anything. I’m not even sure if he’s alive or?—”
“Don’t say that,” Gertie said, dropping into a chair beside her. “We have to think positive. I’m certain the doctors have everything under control.”
Jenna blinked at her aunt. A horrible wave of sickening memory flooded her senses.
The day her mom died, they’d found her crumpled on the floor of her writing room. The space she’d carved out to work on the children’s book she’d desperately wanted to finish.
She was barely conscious, but stirred as the medics loaded her into the ambulance. “I’ll be okay,” she told Jenna, her voice barely more than a whisper. “Everything’s under control.” Up until then, she’d been telling them all that it wasn’t that serious. That the cancer had already gone into remission. “Don’t worry about anything, sweetheart.”
Those were the last words her mother ever spoke.
Gert touched her hand, pulling her back to the present. To this hospital waiting room in the Belmont ER. “Do we know where the bullet hit?”
Jenna shook her head as Adam dropped silently into the chair to her left. “I don’t know anything. Just that the gun was in Ellen’s purse when it went off. They think it was an accident, but no one knows at this point.”
“Thank God Katie wasn’t there,” Gertie said. “That’s the first thing Mia said when the police called. I guess the roof repair was taking longer than expected, so Ellen let Katie have one last sleepover at a friend’s house before school starts. She didn’t see her daddy get shot.”
Jenna nodded, grateful at least for that. She looked at Adam. He still hadn’t said a word, and his face was stony and pale. She started to reach out and touch his hand, then stopped herself. She kept her hands in her lap, fingers clenched in a sweaty knot.
“Adam? You okay?”
“Yeah.” He raked his fingers through his hair, making it stand up on end. “I just can’t imagine what she’s feeling right now.”
He stopped, and Jenna nodded. “I know. I keep seeing the look on her face.”
All three of them fell silent, waiting. In the background, machinery beeped and medical staff called out to each other about detox and defibrillators and dinner breaks. The smell of disinfectant floated around them like an angry cloud, mixing with the scent of spilled coffee near a grimy coffee pot on a table beside Adam. In the corner, a woman sat with red-rimmed eyes, knitting something that looked like a scarf.
Gertie reached out and touched Jenna’s knee. “It isn’t your fault.”
Jenna looked up. “What?”
“I know you,” Gert said. “And I know you’re sitting there thinking about how you could have done something different to change this. Maybe if you’d called Mark and told him how upset Mia was about the class, or maybe if you’d taken a right turn instead of a left one on the way to the restaurant. There’s nothing you could have done differently, Jenna.”
She felt her eyes filling with tears, and she blinked them back. “I could have done a lot of things differently. I could have avoided lying to my best friend. Betraying her. Hurting her on what’s turning out to be one of the worst days of her life.”
Gertie shook her head. “We all make mistakes, sweetie. You, me, Mark, Mia, Adam. We’re all just bumping around together on this planet, trying to do the best we can for ourselves and each other. But there’s only so much we can control.”
She felt Adam stir beside her, and turned to look at him. His face was creased in shadows, and he looked ten years older than he had on their car ride to Seattle. Jesus, that trip felt like a lifetime ago.
Adam looked up, seeming to feel her eyes on him. He stared at her for a moment, then reached over and took her hand. She thought about pulling back. About telling him this was the last thing in the world they should be doing right now.
But his palm felt warm and solid, so she let her lungs expand, then contract and expand again. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d taken a deep breath, so she kept her hand in his, savoring the connection and the oxygen. What was it about him that made her breathe easier, feel safe and secure and calm even while everything around them spun out of control.
A nurse stepped through a set of double doors from the ER and looked around. Her eyes landed on Jenna, and she walked toward them with purpose, her expression unreadable.
“Ms. McArthur?”
“Yes,” Jenna said, letting go of Adam’s hand as she stood up.
“Mia Dawson asked me to come find you.”
“How’s Mark? Can I see him? Can I see Mia or?—”
“I’m sorry, Ms. McArthur. You’re not allowed back there. Family only.”
“But what’s Mark’s condition?”
“As you know, HIPAA allows us to give a one-word condition report.”
