Page 67 of Suddenly Dating
Lola stared out the window for the first part of the drive, saying very little, clutching the bottle of water she’d brought, but not drinking from it. Harry didn’t like to see her worried. He preferred the buoyant, slightly irreverent Lola. He wanted to know if this was a matter of life or death so he could be prepared for what they would find in Long Island. He finally asked what was wrong with her mother.
Lola looked startled, as if she’d just remembered he was driving. “My mom?” She frowned a little. “Wow, where to begin. You know what’s funny? If we were actually dating, I would make up some sugarcoated version of the truth so I wouldn’t scare you off. But since we’re not, I’ll tell you the truth. Are you ready?”
What the hell? Did her mother have Ebola or something?
“My mother has chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. COPD. It’s a lung disease that makes it hard to breathe and, eventually, it will kill her.”
Harry didn’t get why that would necessitate any sugarcoating. “Did she smoke or something?”
Lola laughed bitterly. “Yeah, she smoked all right, all her life. Pretty much anything she could put into a pipe.”
Whoa. That was stunning, and Harry didn’t know what to say to it. He’d never known anyone with a serious drug problem. “Wow, Lola. I’m so sorry.”
“Yeah, well. It is what it is,” she said low. “I didn’t have a normal childhood, obviously. It was pretty damn hard, to tell you the truth.”
That was a lot more information than Harry thought he wanted to have. It astounded him on some level. Lola was charmingly carefree from what he’d seen, and it pained him to think of her in that kind of environment. “What about your dad?” he asked.
“He was great,” Lola said, and glanced down at her hands. “But he died when I was twelve. And when he was alive, he worked all day trying to keep a roof over our heads. Mom just couldn’t stay away from drugs, you know? And after Dad’s car accident, she really went downhill and got really sick. Now she lives in one of those care homes that take in people like her and lives off my dad’s pension.”
Harry was horrified. Lola had, what, three or four siblings? “Wow,” he said sincerely.
“Shocking, huh? But we did okay in spite of it. We had grandparents who were there for us as much as they could be. Unfortunately, they lived in North Carolina, so they never really saw how bad it was.”
“Why is she in the hospital today?” he asked.
“That’s the million-dollar question. In addition to being an addict, my mother is also a chronic complainer. There’s always something wrong, you know? Sometimes she truly is in a bad way, like her breathing is really bad. But she also has been known to complain of illnesses or pains that don’t really exist for the attention. She likes the ones that require a trip to the hospital, because she can boss those nurses around.”
Harry looked at her, confused.
Lola smiled sadly. “I wish I was kidding.”
Harry’s mother could be a royal pain, and God knew she tied one on every Sunday, but for the most part, he’d had a stable, happy, privileged childhood. He couldn’t imagine the sort of life Lola must have lived.
He turned his gaze to the road, and silently reached across the cab of his truck and took Lola’s hand. She hesitated, then curled her fingers around his.
An hour later they arrived at the hospital in a part of Long Island so dingy that Harry was more than a little nervous to leave his truck. He pulled into the parking slot, sliding in between an old Buick and a Toyota pickup truck jacked up on super tires.
Lola opened her purse, found a comb, and pulled it through her hair. “What are you going to do while I’m inside?” she asked.
“I’m coming in with you,” Harry said.
Lola stopped combing. She looked slightly panicked. “You don’t have to come in with me. My brothers and sisters are here.”
Harry frowned. “Are you ashamed of them? Or me?”
“Neither! You don’t know them, Harry. They will be all over you, asking questions.”
“I think I can handle it,” he said confidently. “But if the news is not good, you’re going to need someone, Lola.”
She gave him a dubious look. “Are you certain? Because this has the potential to make you reconsider all of our benefits and maybe try to take some back.”
Harry laughed. “I’m certain about everything I do, baby.” He winked. “Let’s go see about your mother.”
The nurse at the front station directed them to the Intensive Care Unit on the third floor. Just off the elevator was a waiting room full of people. And the moment Lola walked into the waiting room, all of them stood up. Harry was startled—apparently all of these people belonged to Lola.
“Lola!” cried one young woman. “I thought you’d never get here!”
“Is it that serious?”
