Page 87 of False Start
I drive twenty over the speed limit, unsure how I don’t crash, because my head is turned, checking on Nia every five seconds. I call to her every so often, but she only answers in mumbles. By the time we get to the hospital, she’s completely unresponsive. I must look as desperate as I feel, because when I park in front of the emergency room doors, the medical assistants are scrambling out with a wheelchair.
It only takes three words to separate us.
“Are you family?”
The thought of lying doesn’t occur to me. I’m in such a haze, all I can do is shake my head, the nurse’s voice muted as she tries to explain that no one other than family can follow past the doors.
And then I watch them take her where I can’t follow.
At least fourstaff members have asked me to sit down. The woman behind the front desk is beyond irate with me, and I’m pretty sure they’ve threatened security twice. I can’t calm down, can’t sit, can’t think, can’t stop.
I don’t know how long it’s been. All I can do is pace and nibble at the bits of dry cuticle that now bleed on nearly every finger. The skin is raw, red and torn, but I continue until it’s butchered meat before moving on to the next nail.
I’m ushered back to a waiting room chair anyway, my anxiety uncontainable. Shifting my focus internally is the only way to stop. I pay attention to the thoughts now, no longer letting them serve as loud white noise playing on repeat, but instead picking each individual word out.
That’s when I tell myself it’s my fault, that I should have stopped her from leaving, that I should have seen that she was already so far fucking deep into this cycle of self-destruction from the beginning. That maybe if I had just been honest…
That I should have put my trust in her the same way Lonnie did.
I’m lost in the sea inside my head, but not too far under the surface to not recognize his voice.
“Antônia Da Silva, came in not too long ago.”
Every hair on my body stands.
I’m suddenly afraid to look up, to risk making eye contact, for him to see me here. After denying me—no, denyingherthe help she needed?
“Family?” she asks just the same as she asked me.
“Yes,” he lies, a wave of envy hitting me that I wasn’t able to do that for myself.
I just want to hold her hand.
I just want to make sure she’s okay.
“Need some sort of proof or something,” the woman says with an air of annoyance, and just as I’m considering finally looking his way, to relish in the satisfaction of him being turned down access to her…
He’s right in front of me.
“Are you coming?” His hand extends like he wants to help me up.
I don’t take it, don’t look at his face yet. I can’t. He’s the last person I want to see right now. He’s the reason she’s in there. I stand anyway.
“They’re letting you in?”
He chuckles, cocky and poorly timed, but that’s his style anyway. “Hard to deny that I’m family when I’m in possession of her government documents.” He waves a folded up piece of paper in my face, and I rip it from his hand before opening it up.
It’s her birth certificate.
I don’t have time to ask him how or why he has this, though; the nurse takes us through the double doors, and her room is the first one to our left. I still haven’t lifted my eyes from the paper, avoiding the prickly stare of my brother’s gaze.
“I’m not sure how she survived that,” the nurse says softly as she turns the knob. “We’ve never had to deliver so many doses to one patient before.” She bites her lip, fumbling with her chart once we get inside. “Your wife must have a guardian angel on her side.”
The shock of her calling my brother her husband hasme whipping my neck so hard, it’s almost impossible for me to recompose myself and remember that’s what he said to get us in here.
“Will you be calling the police?” he asks, and I’m not surprised. That’s all he cares about, probably only here to threaten her not to open her mouth about where she got it.
“No, we don’t do that here. There will be a caseworker coming in to check on her and talk to her about overdose prevention and steps to take so this doesn’t happen again, once she’s a little more alert. After that, you can take her home, and that’s when the hard part begins.” She’s ignoring me, her attention only on my brother, as if he even gives a shit about her.
