Page 80 of Leave It to Us
“It’s mine,” she said, and pulled the device out of the back pocket of her shorts. “I’ll be right back.”
Chapter 28
YVONNE
“What the hell is going on?” Yvonne asked moments after she’d stalked through the front door of the summerhouse, heading straight to the kitchen. “Is Mercury in retrograde or something?” she asked no one in particular.
“Wait, you said Mama fell and that she’s in the hospital. But I thought Ms.Rosalee was staying with Mama to help her. How did she fall?” Lana asked, following behind her.
She recognized that this wasn’t the time to stress Lana, and these past weeks had definitely been stressful. But she couldn’tnottell them what was going on. Dealing with one big-ass secret at a time was enough. Besides, Yvonne had been more than ready to get the hell out of Cab Henderson’s house and away from the way everything about Sallie seemed to remind her more and more of their father. She was trying her best not to be pissed at the father she’d loved and respected, not to rush to judgment about a decision she could never imagine making herself.
“Ms.Rosalee walked Mama into the bathroom to get her shower. She said she left the new soap Mama had ordered online in the livingroom. So she told Mama to sit on the toilet seat and that she’d be right back to help her into the shower. But Mama didn’t wait,” Yvonne said.
“When did she get so bad that she couldn’t step into the shower on her own?” Lana asked.
Yvonne resisted the urge to sigh in frustration. “In the last few months, she’s been losing function of her hand, arm, and leg on the right side. It happens on and off, but that was another reason the doctors thought it would be better if she had everything she needed on one level and why I wanted to get the work done on the house. It needs to be handicap accessible. With a new shower, she could just walk in; she wouldn’t have to lift her leg to get inside the tub.” Yvonne went to the refrigerator, thinking that she needed something to drink. But then she walked right past it, toward the back doors that had just been repaired.
She stared out into the afternoon sunlight, her heart slamming in her chest. How was she supposed to handle all this? Pain radiated from the back of her neck, across the line of her shoulders, as the weight of everything that had been going on these past few weeks—hell, the past few years—seemed to bear down heavier than ever before.
“Is she going to be okay?” Tami asked in a low voice from somewhere behind her.
Yvonne nodded, even though she wasn’t sure exactly whatokayfor Freda would look like after this. “Ms.Rosalee said she’s alert. She said she didn’t think she hit her head but that when she found her, the way she was lying on the floor, with her side crumpled against the edge of the tub, she couldn’t tell what might’ve been hurt. But then, when the paramedics arrived, Mama told them it was her arm and ankle. The ankle is broken, and they may need to operate to fix the break.”
“So she’s gonna be even more immobile,” Lana said, and Yvonne turned to them before nodding.
“I’m gonna go up and pack, see if I can make the next ferry,” she said.
“What? You’re leaving?” Tami asked. “What about the rest of the renovations?”
Yvonne paused and stared at her. “I’m not staying here while Mama may be going into surgery.”
“But you said she was going to be okay,” Tami countered.
“And I believe that to be true, but that doesn’t mean I want to be hundreds of miles away while she’s in the hospital.”
“But Ms.Rosalee’s there, so she’s not alone. And we’re almost done. Don’t you want to see this through to the end and then—”
“No, Tami. I want to go home and make sure Mama is all right.”
Tami blinked. “What about Sallie?”
“What about her?” Yvonne asked. “It’s nothermother in the hospital.”
The room fell silent.
“I think what she’s asking is, aren’t we going to try and get to know Sallie? After today’s meeting with her and Cab, it just seems like we should. But how would we do that if you’re not here?” Lana asked.
The storm of emotions that had been steadily brewing inside her burst free with a searing gaze Yvonne aimed at Lana. “You’re kidding, right? I mean, I know it’s her norm to be ridiculous about anything regarding responsibility—but you too, Lana?”
“Hold up,” Tami started, but Lana put up a hand to halt her words.
“Stop. Take a breath and just listen, Yvonne. There’s a lot going on; we all realize that. But I think we should just focus on the things that we can control at the moment. Like, we can decide how to move forward with Sallie and finish up these renovations. Ms.Rosalee is with Mama, and she can keep us posted. If things become more serious with Mama—”
“No, you stop right there,” Yvonne said, crossing her arms over her chest. “You two really want me to stay here and ignore what just happened so that I can have a conversation with a woman who’s spentthe last few weeks staring daggers at us instead of just telling us what she knew the moment we got here?”
“Maybe that’s not as easy as you make it seem, Yvonne,” Tami said. “Lord knows, everybody doesn’t always have the right answers, like you seem to think you do.”
“I’m not gonna do this with you right now, Tami. I’m just not.” Because Yvonne couldn’t explain the conflicting emotions surrounding this particular part of her newly drama-filled life. She clenched her fingers and recalled how she’d been running on fumes that morning after tossing and turning in bed most of the night. She had no idea how she felt about her father having this other child or the fact that her grandmother had kept this secret all these years. That, on top of the incessant pull toward this island and the people she’d met here that she hadn’t been able to quash. She’d awakened that morning with a headache, and she was certain the saltiness of that ham on the biscuit they’d had for breakfast hadn’t helped. That biscuit was a problem too, adding to the carbs she didn’t need. There were just so many things rolling through her mind at the moment, so much that she felt dizzy with it all, like at any moment she was either going to scream or collapse beneath the pressure. She couldn’t take another thing. Not one more damn thing.
