Page 19 of Summer Affair
It was nearly midnight on Friday when Jillian’s night became a nightmare.
“I’m so sorry about this,” she said.
“Don’t be,” Darcy whispered. “That’s what friends are for.”
“If you start singingTheGolden Girls’ theme song I might start crying. I’m that tired,” she warned. She was also that worried.
Thirty minutes ago, she’d received a call from County General that Uncle Eddie had been admitted. All she knew was that he was playing cards in the back room at the senior center when he’d doubled over in pain. An ambulance had been called, which Eddie tried to refuse but peer pressure had won out. Thank goodness.
“Come on in. I already have Kylie’s trundle made up. You can put Sammy in there.”
Jillian stepped into the house holding a sleeping Sammy. He’d grown at least an inch over the spring and had gained enough weight that she felt as if she were carrying an eighty-pound koala around.
“Tell Gage I’m sorry about the hour.”
“He’s out of town on a business trip,” Darcy said as they walked down the hallway. Her friend opened the door and Jillian placed her son down on the bed, carefully tucking him in. She hated waking him up so late, but she didn’t have many options at such an hour. Or in this particular situation.
She watched Sammy for a moment and then that urgency she felt since she’d received the call came back with force. With a kiss to his forehead, she whispered, “Mommy will be back tomorrow. I love you.”
He was knocked out and didn’t hear a word, but Jillian liked to think that maybe it gave him some comfort. Or maybe it was her own comfort she was seeking.
Both moms walked back into the front room, where there was a cup of coffee, a blanket tossed haphazardly over the couch, and a book opened on the armrest.
“Thanks again. I owe you.”
“No problem. I’m treating myself and staying up late. Check in with me to let me know how he’s doing and, more importantly, how you’re holding up.”
Darcy hugged her and Jillian clung on for a brief, comforting minute.
She had been in the first year of her divorce—scared and lonely and second-guessing her decision to go it alone—when Darcy moved to town and joined Jillian’s mommy-and-me group. Sammy and Kylie clicked and so had their moms. Fast forward three years and Jillian had come to consider Darcy as a sister of sorts. That their kids were best friends only made the bond that much more special.
Their bond was impenetrable and their support unwavering. If Jillian needed to hide a body—her ex’s hypothetically—Darcy would be her first call.
Emotion expanding in her chest, Jillian said, “I gotta go. I’ll text you when I get there.”
“There’s no hurry. Sammy can stay as long as you need.”
Jillian felt a rush of gratitude fill her throat. Besides Eddie, she didn’t have any family, no one to count on besides herself. But the moment she and Darcy met it was as if she’d met her soul sister. They did everything together, even raised their kids together. Swapping off babysitting and carpool days, being there for each other, and supporting the other through the loneliness that comes with being a single mom. And even though Darcy was no longer alone in the parenting world, she’d never let Jillian down.
With one last hug, Jillian set off for the hospital. It took a quarter of the time her driving app said, and she was halfway out of her car before she threw it into Park.
“I’m looking for a patient. Eddie Acton,” she told the front desk. “He was brought in about an hour ago.”
The nurse told her what room Eddie was in and that she could visit with him for only a few minutes.
Jillian rounded the station and walked down the hallway as fast as she could without being labeled as running. When she reached the correct bay, her chest cranked tightly as she saw her uncle hooked up to tubes and an IV and heard the telltale beep of the heartbeat machine.
“What happened?” she asked her uncle. “Are you okay?”
“It was Makowski, the cheat,” he said. “I was sweeping, had a good hand too, a winner. I would have taken the whole pot. Then I had some indigestion and the putz called nine-one-one. Said I was having a heart attack.”
“Were you?” Jillian took his hands and inspected his body as if she’d find some clue as to just how bad things were. Her uncle might be crotchety and opinionated, but he washercrotchety and opinionated uncle, and she couldn’t stomach the thought of losing him.
She’d lost so many family members over the years, some passed away and some passed on being a part of her life. But Eddie had stuck around from the time Jillian moved in with her grandma until now. He wasn’t really a father figure, more of a guardian who watched over her and protected her from deadbeats and the heartbreak of death.
“No, like I said, just a little indigestion.” He took her hand in his and gave it a little pat.
His hands were thinner, and she could feel his bones. And only now that she really looked at him, the hospital bed practically swallowing him whole, did she realize just how much he’d aged in the past year.
