Page 68 of When I'm Gone
“Ha, no, I was busy ... interviewing. I couldn’t take the time.”
“You’re already working too hard, and you haven’t even started your job yet.” Luke shook his head in mock disappointment. “I don’t know if I can support this.”
Jessie forced a smile. Her lips, blanched white; the thin red cracks at the corners of her mouth; and the dark circles under her eyes made him worry.
“Uh, so ...” He didn’t want to be nosy, but she didn’t look well. “When do you start your job, Miss Fraga?” Luke used her “teacher name.” She’d used Luke as a reference when she was job hunting. About a month ago she called with good news—she’d landed a job at a local elementary school. She promised she’d still be available for the kids, but Luke knew there was no way she could keep up with that kind of schedule, not as a first-year teacher. He’d already started to make other plans. Once Terry left, Clayton would be in the preschool’s extended-day program, May in the afterschool program, and Will, well, Will was old enough to fly solo when he wasn’t going to cross-country.
“Actually, I didn’t end up taking that job,” she said, letting her purse drop to the floor like the phone-size bag was too heavy to bear. “And my last name’s not actually Fraga. That was just the name I used at school. I thought Natalie would’ve ... told you.” Jessie wavered, breaths coming faster. She was going to vomit or pass out; Luke wasn’t sure which. “Whoa, dizzy.” She covered her eyes, like that would make the room stop spinning.
“Jessie.” Luke took a half step forward. “I think you need to sit down.”
“My name ...” she continued, her words slurring, her body tilting from side to side.
Luke dropped the reports he’d been sorting through and caught her by the forearms before she fell headfirst into the banister.
“Jessie?” May called from upstairs. She must’ve heard Luke’s feet hit the floor as he jumped the six feet to catch her.
“May, get my phone!” Luke shouted. Jessie’s eyes rolled around, and she muttered under her breath. He couldn’t make it out. “Jessie.” He patted her face, not sure if this was something like low blood sugar, which Will sometimes suffered from, or if this was something more serious—something that had to do with the medical alert bracelet on her arm. “Jessie,” he called again.
“Call my dad,” Jessie mumbled, half-conscious. She held up her wrist before her eyes rolled back in her head, unresponsive. Phone in hand at the top of the stairs, May screamed.
“Jessie!” May stumbled down the stairs, sounding like a herd of elephants instead of one child.
“What is going on?” Terry shouted from the kitchen. But when she reached the foyer and took in Jessie passed out across Luke’s lap, she covered her mouth, her own scream nearly as shrill as May’s.
“May, give me the phone.” He held out his hand, anxious to get someone on the line that could tell him what to do, how to help Jessie, who was unconscious and breathing in a frighteningly labored manner. May passed him the phone, and Luke dialed the digits. As almost an afterthought, he turned over her arm and read her bracelet to be ready for the 9-1-1 operator’s questions. Her arm was limp like a sleeping baby, but nothing about Jessie was peaceful at that moment. Luke scanned her alert bracelet as the phone rang against his ear.
JESSIETOWNSEND
CHRONICKIDNEYDISEASE
ALLERGY: PENICILLIN
ICE: NEALTOWNSEND734-555-4673
Townsend? Luke read through the bracelet again. It couldn’t be ... right?
“Farmington Hills 9-1-1, what’s the emergency?” a female voice asked through the phone.
Jessie is Neal’s daughter.The thought pounded in his mind like a battering ram. He opened his mouth to talk to the operator, but no sound came out. He swallowed and tried again. Nothing. He couldn’t get his brain to focus on anything else.Jessie is Dr. Neal’s daughter.
“Dad!” May squealed, now kneeling next to Jessie’s lifeless form. “Help her. She can’t die, Daddy. She can’t.”
“Hello?” The voice called out again. “Did you have an emergency?”
Jessie’s back arched and she began to shake, the convulsions slamming her against his knee and the floor over and over. This was Jessie. He had todosomething.
“Yes, my babysitter passed out. Uh, she has some kind of kidney disease. She’s shaking; I think it’s a seizure.” Luke had to almost shout over May’s pleading and Terry’s sobs. Will stood back by the hall to the kitchen, trying to hide Clayton behind his legs, his face mute with shock. “Send an ambulance, please,” Luke begged, not caring in that moment whose daughter she was.
CHAPTER 29
Inside his car, Luke tried to figure out what had just happened. He started the car with a hard turn on the ignition. Blasting the air conditioner, Luke set his sweaty face in front of one of the vents. The air pouring out was hotter than the August air outside, somehow superheated by the engine and summer sun. When the burning air finally succumbed to the cooling process, he closed his eyes, letting the crisp mechanically chilled air clear his crowded mind.
The ambulance had just left for the hospital, and Terry had hung up with Jessie’s dad, Neal Townsend. He was going to meet Luke at the hospital. May wanted to go, but Luke knew she was too young to manage all the stress of the ER. Plus, at this point, it wasn’t clear if Jessie would even survive the trip. When the paramedics looked at Jessie’s medical bracelet, one of them asked if she was on dialysis, if she was taking any medications, what site was used for her treatments. All Luke could do was shake his head and say, “I have no idea.”
When Terry finally got Neal on the phone, she passed him over to the medic and then herded hysterical May and confused Clayton into the kitchen so they couldn’t see as the paramedics put a tube down Jessie’s throat and pumped air directly into her lungs.
The thought of losing Jessie was nearly enough to keep the fact that she was Neal’s daughter out of his mind. He pushed the gas pedal harder, not wanting Jessie to be alone in the hospital before her father got there. He’d spent enough hours in Botsford Hospital that he used to say it felt like a second home.
