Page 63 of The Big Easy & Other Lies
“Fine,” she said. “I need my pills. Go get them from the bathroom for me.”
She had over a dozen prescriptions. “Which ones?”
She sighed, or maybe tried to catch her breath. “The heart ones.”
I found the right bottle, but it was empty. I brought it to her. “Do you have a refill anywhere?”
She grimaced. “No, that was all.” She rubbed her chest. “I don’t feel good.”
“What can I do?” I asked. “Can I take you to the after-hours clinic? Is it bad? Should I call an ambulance?”
“Don’t call an ambulance,” she snapped, and it made me feel better somehow. “They’re expensive.”
And also likely to report you to Health and Human Services if they come in here.I nodded, knowing that was her real concern.
“Maybe we better go to the after-hours clinic,” she said.
I froze for a moment, panicked. Now Iknewit was bad; Delphine hated the doctor.
“Camille,” she said, her voice exhausted. “Let’s go. You drive.”
She struggled to push herself up, and I hurried forward to help. She let me pull her up and leaned heavily on my arm while I groped for her pocketbook and the car keys.
I started the car, stressing as I listened to the engine turn over. As much as I hated my wheel-less existence, I got so few chances to drive that it made me anxious when I did. Minutes later, we pulled into the clinic parking lot, and I eased her into a chair and filled in her paperwork. She only spoke to answer questions. When the nurse finally called her name, I watched the door close behind Delphine with a sense of doom. Something was very wrong with her, I could feel it. It was entirely possible that when the door opened again, everything would change.
Forty-five minutes later, a doctor came and asked for me by name.
“That’s me.” I half-rose and froze, not sure if I was supposed to stand or sit for this.
“You’ll need to run Delphine to Ochsner,” the doctor said, naming the closest hospital. “She’ll be admitted for observation. Try not to worry,” he said. “Their staff is excellent. They’ll figure this out.”
“Will she be okay on the car ride over?” I asked, uncomfortable with reassignment to ambulance duty.
“Yes, if you go straight there. Don’t worry, they’ll take care of her.”
I nodded, numb as I watched a nurse push an eerily quiet Delphine in a wheelchair toward the door.
What if Delphine died to spite me? Where would I go? What would happen to me, especially if I didn’t make it into the SoHo School? The tone of my thoughts sickened me, and I gripped the steering wheel hard to stop my hands from shaking. Maybe her condition was my fault because I had failed in my promise to take good care of her.
At the hospital, a no-nonsense nurse in maroon scrubs greeted me with a clipboard while another nurse rolled Delphine away. I filled out more forms, wondering why doctor’s computers couldn’t talk to hospital computers so we could skip this step, and then I handed the clipboard back after checking a thousand boxes on a dozen different pages.
The nurse glanced it over and seemed satisfied. “Your grandmother is resting. It’s best to let her sleep for the night. Go on home and get some rest.”
I nodded and drove home on autopilot. I climbed the stairs to my room on automatic pilot. I dialed Rhett’s number on automatic pilot. He answered.
And I said, “Can you come over?”
* * *
I waited for him on the porch steps. His headlights sliced through the dark twenty minutes after my call. He wore sweats and a vintage Violent Femmes T-shirt. I’d never seen him in sweats.
He beelined over to sit beside me on the steps. “Sorry,” he said after a moment.
I braced my hands on my knees and stared down at the concrete framed by my feet. “I hate this house. I have hated everything about living here since my mom died. My great aunt isn’t a nice person. The house is disgusting. She acts like I’m her servant.”
He said nothing to each of these revelations.
“And yet.” I reached down and wiggled a bit of concrete out of the crack in the step. I tossed it onto the gravel driveway. “And yet I’m scared she’ll die, and I’ll lose even this.”
