Maybe there was no way to fix it. Maybe it was too late. She was thirty-three. Frannie had resented her all that time. That bad blood had set.
She and Reese went to sleep quietly that night, without sex. He pulled her close and held her tight, and she lay on him and waited until her brain spun to a stop.
They were in the same position when Reese shook her, and she came awake to a strident, persistent racket. “It’s yours, Mac.”
“Huh?”
“Your phone.”
As she kicked her brain into gear, she took the phone from Reese’s hand. The number was the landline of the trailer. Her mother was calling, and the time on the screen read 2:47am.
She swiped the call open. “Mom?”
“Oh, Georgia. I need you.”
Fully awake now, Gigi shoved up from Reese’s chest and sat straight. “What happened? Are you hurt?”
“It’s Francine.” Her mother was crying. Elaine Mackenzie never cried. “She—she was trying to come home—oh, Georgia!”
Cold horror filled Gigi’s blood. She knew exactly what had happened, and the terrible, vivid, déjà vu turned her stomach to ice and acid. But it wasn’t déjà vu, was it? Déjà vu was a fantasy, an illusion. What Gigi felt was memory. Because it had been real.
“Is she dead?”
Reese sat beside her, his hands on her back and her leg, and when she asked that question, he tried to pull her into an embrace, but she shook it off. She took no comfort from his touch.
“They want me to go to the hospital.”
“Mama! Is she dead?”
“I don’t know. They just said she was in a wreck, and they need me there. They wanted to send the sheriff for me. Baby, I can’t do it! I can’t!”
Just like before. She would do what her mother could not. “I’ll go. Do you have the number of who called you? Was it the sheriff? Which one?”
“I don’t know,” her mother said through a waterfall of tears.
There were four or five counties between here and the Sun Dance. How far had she gotten? Who should Gigi call? “Which hospital?”
“I don’t remember!”
What she felt most keenly was cold. Bitter, brittle cold, in her blood, her bones, her sinews. This was the lot of her life, to bury her family, one by one, as they fell to the lots of their lives.
“Okay, Mama,” she said. “I’ll figure it out. I’ll call you.” Without waiting for a response, she ended the call and let the phone drop to her lap.
“Mac.”
“My sister wrecked on her way home. Somewhere between here and Fort Hall. My mom doesn’t know anything. She doesn’t know where it happened, or if Frannie’s alive, or even who called her. She’s broken down.”
“Okay. Hey.” He took her chin and made her look his way. “Let me carry this with you.”
“How can you?”
“Because I love you. Your baggage is mine, and vice versa.”
That wasn’t what she meant; she meant how could he carry a loss he couldn’t possibly comprehend? What was wrong with her family was more than alcoholism, or poverty, or depression, or developmental delays. All of those things were symptoms, not causes. How could he carry the baggage of an entire tribe, an entire race, of lost people? Displaced. Misplaced. Vanishing.
But that thought was bigger than she could think, much less say, so she nodded. She had him here, and she needed him to hold her up while she carried her own baggage.
“Let’s first figure out where we need to go,” he said and turned the covers back. “I’m gonna wake Frank up. Maybe he can hit up some of his government folk and figure out where she is. You sit tight, okay? I’ll be back in two minutes.”
“Okay,” she said, and she sat where she was while he pulled his jeans on and hurried from the room.
The room was still dark. Her phone had gone dark. She sat and stared at nothing.
She felt nothing. Only cold.
Chapter Twenty
Just as they reached the hospital entrance, Reese grabbed Gigi’s arm and pulled her to the side—gently, but with insistent strength. With the same force, he pushed her to the wall. Gigi tried to push him away or wriggle from his hold, but he was immovable. When she stopped resisting and glared up at him, he bent close and touched his forehead to hers.
Just that. Not a word, barely more expression than the worry that had been flashing through his eyes for hours now. He held her in place and set his head to hers, as if he could transfer his calm to her through that point.
Gigi found herself taking a deeper breath than she had since she’d answered her mother’s call in the dark. It was morning now, it had taken an hour to find Frannie and another three to reach the hospital, and they still didn’t know details about her condition.
But she was alive. That much, they knew. She’d run her Honda off the road, crashed down into a ravine. Luckily, an over-the-road trucker had seen her single working headlight veer off the road and disappear, and even luckier, he’d taken the time from his route to stop and check. He’d thought a biker had gone over.
That much, the Bonneville County deputy they’d finally reached had shared. She’d also made a point to inform Gigi that Frannie had a blood alcohol level of .24, and should she survive, they intended to file charges against her for Excessive DUI.
Because that was the most important thing right now. Sure.
The doctor at the Bonneville Medical Hospital had told her only that Frannie was comatose and in critical condition, and she should get to the hospital as quickly as she could.
In that hour of searching, most of the adults on the ranch had woken and put their shoulders to the effort. Gigi had had the least to do, except for the talking once they found people she should talk to. They’d all spun around her in a whirlwind of purpose, tracking down the location and the accident report, identifying the responding deputy, then the hospital, then the attending doctor.
Heath had sat with her, holding her hand, silent and grim but steady. She’d been away when his wife and daughter had been killed, but she knew it was a similar event—Sybil driving drunk, wrecking her car, killing herself and their child.
When they’d known where to go, Heath and Victor had offered to come along, but Gigi didn’t want that, a circle of spectators around her while she learned of Frannie’s fate. So it was just her and Reese, their phones filled with every conceivable number they could call and ask for help, should they need it.
She needed to get into the hospital and find Frannie, but Reese held her in place until each breath she took filled her lungs.
Then he stood straight and set his hands along her jaw. “You’re pullin’ in, Mac. Pullin’ away. You don’t have to carry this on your own. Before we go in there, I need you to tell me you know that.”
“I do have to carry it alone. I can’t give it to anybody. Nobody can understand. You can’t understand.”
“I don’t have to understand, baby. I just have to be here. My back is strong. Lean on me. Maybe I can’t carry this trouble, but I can carry you while you carry it.”
She’d thought the same thing, sitting in the bedroom on the Twisted C. In the flurry of fear and activity, she’d forgotten. But that flurry—all those people caring for her, taking things in pieces to lighten her load, that was what he meant. Reese could, and their friends could, make it easier for her to carry the things only she could.
As understanding dawned, full and bright as morning sun, Gigi sagged forward, let Reese wrap her close and hold her up. They stood by the door like that until she took her weight back into her own legs and could stand tall again.
“Okay. Let’s go in.”
He set a soft kiss at the corner of her mouth. “Right here with you.”
*****
Reese set a gentle hand on the back of her neck, under her hair. “Do you want me to go in with you, or wait out here?”
Gigi looked through the window, to the bed where her sister lay. Comatose, on a ventilator because broken ribs ha
d punctured both lungs. Four ribs broken. Both legs. Her nose, her left eye socket, her clavicle. Severe concussion. Bleeding in her brain.
The doctor had listed all those injuries like he was reading off a bulleted list, and then he’d said, basically, she’d either wake up within the next few hours or she wouldn’t. If she woke soon, she had a chance for a full recovery, or she could have permanent physical and/or cognitive disabilities. If she didn’t wake in the next few hours, she could either live out the rest of her life in a coma or die within the next few days.
She hadn’t called her mother yet; she didn’t know, from that vast, unhelpful range of potential outcomes, what to say, or if her mother was strong enough to be here, when apparently literally anything could happen. Who knew doctors knew so little?
She took Reese’s hand from her neck and laced her fingers with his. “Come in with me. Stay with me.”
“Always, Mac. Anywhere.”
*****
They spent the day sitting together in Frannie’s tiny ICU room. Nurses came and went a few times every hour, and the doctor came in twice, but there was no change to her condition all day. Each hour that was true, her chance of waking diminished.
Reese went out a few times and came back with food and drink. He led her from the room a couple times to find the bathroom, because the ICU rooms didn’t have them. He handled all the phone calls from their friends. Gigi had called her mother, who’d refused to come to the hospital, insisting she needed to stay with Tyson, despite the offer from the Twisted C to take care of him there.
Mostly, they were quiet. When they talked, it was about the latest vitals readings or update from the doctor. A few times, Gigi felt compelled to tell a story about her sister, and Reese held her and listened.
He hardly spoke all day, except to ask what she needed and tell her he loved her. He was simply there, where she needed him.
He’d just taken the leavings of their dinner out to the trash can in the corridor. When he came back, he stopped in the doorway and said, “Hey. I got Frank here. Can he come in and talk to you?”
Gigi sat up straight and cleared her throat, trying to pull her senses into conversational shape. “Okay, yeah.”
Reese stepped back, and Frank stepped in. Gigi was sorry to see Reese turn from the door and head toward the waiting room. Frank Thomas was a good man, but she’d been leaning on Reese all day, and now she felt like she was missing a leg.
“How are you, young lady?” Frank sat in the chair Reese had vacated and patted her knee.
“I’m tired. There’s no change in Frannie.”
He turned and let his regard settle on the bed for a moment. “I’ve got your mother in the waiting room. Tyson’s at the ranch, getting loved on by Naomi and the other women.”
“She’s here? How—I asked—how’d you get her to come?”
“Sometimes it takes the voice of an old friend to make harsh truths heard.” White teeth showed between his lips as he grinned a little. “I didn’t give her much of a choice.” His hand tightened on her knee. “But she won’t come closer than the waiting room. I think she’ll need you to hold her hand the rest of the way.”
“There’s no change. I can’t tell her Frannie’s going to be okay. It gets grimmer every hour.”
“All the more reason she needs to be with her now, don’t you think?”
“Yes.” That was why she’d been sitting in this room all day. Whether Frannie woke or not, she wasn’t alone. Gigi knew somewhere deep inside, Frannie could feel her here. No matter their conflicts, the link between them, rich of spirit and forged in blood, was unbreakable. They were sisters. Family. Tribe.
Frank was part of her tribe, too. He stood and offered his hand. Gigi took it and let him lead her out of the room, to her mother.
*****
Frank and her mom weren’t the only of her people in the waiting room. Logan and Honor, and Heath and Victor, were there as well, sitting with Reese in deep talk. They stood when she and Frank came in, and she accepted hugs and soft words from them all.
Her mother was the last, holding back, looking tiny and frail, and scared out of her wits. She held herself together with her arms around her own waist. Gigi went to her and hugged her. She smelled of cheap beer, but Gigi ignored that painful reality.
“Hi, Mama.”
“Is it bad?” she asked when Gigi set her back.
“It’s bad. But she’s still here, and there’s a chance she’ll be okay. She needs us more than ever right now. Will you come to her room with me?”
“I don’t know, Georgia. I don’t think I can. I can’t see her like that. I can’t have that in my mind.”
“Yes, you can. I’ll be right with you. I’m here, Mom. I won’t leave you. Please. She needs you.” Their mom was the only one who hadn’t placed Gigi above Frannie in her affection when they were growing up.
With a sharp huff and a nervous nod, her mom acquiesced. “Okay. Okay.”
Gigi took her hand, and her mother clamped her fingers around hers so hard they tingled.
As she turned to take her to Frannie’s room, Reese reached out and grabbed her other hand. “I’m right here. Whatever you need.”
“I know. I love you.”
*****
Her mother walked with a steady step, all the way to the door. Then she pulled back. Her cheeks had gone nearly grey, and the lines in her face were carved deep.
“You want to see her through the window first?” It had helped Gigi to do so, to limit the first shock to the single sense of sight. When her mother nodded, she eased her sideways.
“Oh, Francine!” she gasped. “Oh no!”
“The ventilator is helping her breathe. Her vitals have been stable for a few hours. They’re not strong, but they’re holding. Do you want to know her injuries?”
“No. No. I can see.” She swallowed. “Nobody else was hurt?”
“No. She was alone.” Her family had a bitter kind of good luck in that—of the five terrible drunken wrecks she knew of among them, four of which, so far, had resulted in their own deaths, her family drunks hadn’t killed or hurt anyone else. The Mackenzies were lonely drunks. “A truck driver saw her go off the road, so she got help fast.”
They stood in silence for a few minutes more, until Gigi understood that her mom wouldn’t move on her own. She pulled on her hand. “Let’s go in, Mom. She needs to know we’re with her.”
“Will she? Can she?”
“Yes.” Gigi believed it was true. When her mother relented to her unwavering pull, Gigi opened the door and ushered her in.
Inside was another shock. The mechanical noises, the smell of an ill body—blood and breath and lymph—and of the hospital itself. And of booze. It still seeped from Frannie’s pores like a vapor.
.24. Three times the legal limit.
Their father’s had been .31. The coroner had actually marveled aloud to Gigi, while she stood over her father’s broken body, that he must have had the constitution of a horse, to have had the consciousness and motor control even to walk, much less balance a motorcycle and get himself halfway home. Before he’d ridden his Street Bob into a cliff wall.
With Gigi leading her, their mother walked on stick-stiff legs to the bed. They stood together at the side with the fewest machines, only the IV stand and its bags of medicine. Earlier, bags of blood had hung as well.
Frannie’s long, thick hair had been unbraided, and it lay in sticky hanks on the pillow. Her face was black and swollen, her eyes like balls beneath misshapen lids, her nose sutured and splinted. Under the mouthpiece of the ventilator, her lips were split. Most of her body was wrapped in strange inflatable casts. She had several surgeries in her future, if she woke, to set her broken bones. At this point, she wasn’t strong enough for more than the the surgery to repair and drain her lungs.
Her sister was short but substantial, with a thick body on a small frame. She had a big, confrontational personality. Never had she walked into any room without being noti
ced. But this sterile white bed seemed to swallow her whole.
“My God,” their mother muttered. “My God.”
Gigi lifted their joined hands and set them on the small space of bare skin of Frannie’s forearm, just above the IV tubes, and just below the clavicle splint. Her skin was cool, but not cold. Life ran through the veins beneath.
A sound in the room changed, and Gigi looked over the bed, to the heart monitor. She’d been studying that thing for hours, and she knew that now the rate was stronger and slower. Just now, with Gigi and their mother with her, touching her, Frannie’s heart had gained strength.
“She feels us here, Mom. She knows she’s not alone.”
*****
That afternoon, Gigi spent a couple hours out in the waiting room, curled on a sofa, her head on Reese’s thigh, snatching what rest she could. She woke to a room still full of friends: Frank and Victor, Logan and Honor, and Chief Black Eagle, too. They were all talking, quietly but intently, and even Reese was surprised when she sat up.
“Where’s my mom? Who’s with her?”
“She’s in Frannie’s room. Emmaline is with her,” the chief said. His wife.
“Oh. Okay.” She picked up Reese’s arm and checked his watch. She’d slept almost three hours. “Any change?”
He shook his head. “Nothing yet. But no worse, either.”
“Okay.” She hadn’t expected anything else. She didn’t know what she expected.
There was an odd weight in the air, that feeling that came when a conversation had been interrupted and couldn’t restart. “Something else is going on?”
The chief answered. “Not about your sister. Not directly. There was trouble at the powwow. It might be why she was coming home when she was. Like she was.”
“What happened?”
Reese took her hand. “When Hall found out there were Feds at the reservation border, he ... I don’t know. Went nuts?” He looked at the rest of the group for support, but nobody here had been at the powwow, either, since Hall had shown up.
Anywhere (Sawtooth Mountains Stories, #3) Page 25