by Sarah Hegger
She couldn’t get out of here fast enough once she’d graduated high school. Why the hell was she even thinking about staying? Phi was part of it. Although Phi would kick her ass for even thinking this way. And Laura and her mom. Laura’s anger the other day had found a mark. She hadn’t been a good sister, or aunt, or even daughter. She’d stayed away, assuaging the guilt with the idea they didn’t want to see her anyway. Except, behind Laura’s titanium bitch barrier, lurked hurt. There were all hurt, flotsam in the sperm donor’s wake. With her mother and Laura, a tight two-man unit, of course she turned to Phi for comfort. Phi had always been her safe place, somewhere she fit and didn’t feel like an appendage.
The chat with Phi squatted in her brain and refused to let her go. Sure, Laura had been prom queen and sat on the Founders Day float for three years running, but Pippa had garnered her fair share of attention and wafted out of town on the fumes. This introspection thing sucked. It was easier when you got to tell other people what was wrong with their lives.
And Matt Evans. He was the kicker. He made her want things she’d never even considered before. This thing between her and Matt scared her. It came with a blaring Klaxon warning her back from danger. Somehow, Matt had snuck past light and easy and charged straight for serious.
Commitment. A serious commitment to one man. Something she’d never considered before.
The proposal for the show with Chris glared up at her from the bed. Pages and pages of wonderful ideas and thoughts. Pippa tidied them into a neat bundle, lined up the page numbers, and settled herself to read.
Downstairs the horses’ hooves churned up gravel as they were taken out to the large pasture behind the house. Framed by the expanse of the French doors off her bedroom, the horses danced into view, Wheeler Barrows opened the gate, and his charges shot through. Throwing off far more energy than their age would suggest. The ugliest collection of horseflesh in one place, but here and living out their final years under the sunshine of Phi’s huge heart.
Wheeler stopped and pressed his face against a scraggly gray mare’s. Nice kid. Rumor had it, his mother was pregnant with her tenth. Would making babies be all that bad? Depending on the man making them with you.
Right back to Matt.
She snapped the pages in front of her and locked her gaze on the first line.
Chris Germaine’s vision. Pippa forced herself to read the first line. The woman wrote as beautifully as she spoke. Her sage brand of clear-thinking wisdom leaked off the page. The series would pick three women and follow them over the course of the year. Look at their life challenges, their current situations, and their dreams. Help each participant find their truth and put them on the path toward living it. A life changer for whoever took part.
How would Mrs. Barrows feel about something like this? Did any woman really want all those children?
Pippa read on.
Chris made more and more sense. The series wasn’t aimed at making life changes for the sake of making them, but helping women find what made them happy and do that. Even if, like Mrs. Barrows, kicking out one child after another was what she aspired to. To help her be happy with her choices.
So, how happy was Pippa with her choices? Or lack of choices because she was pissing herself off with her dicking around.
“Pippa?”
What the hell? June’s voice sounded wrong, high and strained.
Pippa shot to her feet and into the hall. “June?”
“Pippa, you better come!” June’s voice came from Phi’s bedroom.
Gooseflesh crawled over Pippa’s skin as she ran across the hall. June was talking to Phi, begging her to wake up. Pippa froze as her head caught up with her. And then she sprinted into Phi’s room.
June leaned over the bed. “Wake up, Philomene, can you hear me?”
Pippa shouldered June out of the way.
Phi lay on her bed, crumpled onto her side like a tired child. “What’s wrong with her?”
June grabbed up the phone. “I’m calling nine-one-one.”
“Phi, it’s Pippa.” Phi’s skin was warm to the touch. Her chest rose and fell as she breathed. But she was pale, horribly pale and waxy. Pippa touched her face, patting her cheek lightly. “Wake up, Phi.”
June made the call behind Pippa. What she said barely registering.
“She was looking at her jewelry.” June appeared at her elbow. “You know, the special stuff she keeps in there.” June pointed to the box tipped on its side, strewing its glittering, gaudy contents all over the riot of roses across Phi’s carpet. “The tiara is missing.”
“The tiara?” Pippa shook her grandmother by the shoulders. The bones were thin and frail beneath the gold silk Phi wore today. “What tiara?”
“The one she wore to her audience with the queen.” June’s hands fluttered toward Phi and then she snatched them back again. “Her favorite one.”
Why wouldn’t Phi wake up?
Pippa shook her harder.
Phi’s body shuddered under her hands.
“Don’t hurt her,” June wailed.
Pippa’s vision went black and she dragged in her breath. Hurt her grandmother? Hurt Phi? She turned on June, ready to rip her apart for even suggesting something that stupid.
Tears tracked down June’s weathered cheeks. The older woman didn’t mean anything by it. She loved Phi.
Dear God, let Phi be all right.
A siren wailed in the distance, and Pippa’s heart leaped. They were coming. Help was on the way.
She plucked a quilt off the edge of the bed and laid it over Phi. She didn’t know what else to do. What were you supposed to do? Her middle school emergency response lessons flashed through her mind. Check for a pulse? Check nothing obstructed her airway.
Pippa bent down to press her ear to Phi’s nose and mouth.
Breathing crackled softly. Her pulse beat beneath the skin of her throat.
Phi had to be all right. She had to be.
The siren wailed closer, splitting the still afternoon with its raucous shout.
Pippa crawled onto the bed beside Phi. Body warmth. Would that help? She didn’t know, all she knew is she needed to be close to Phi. Press her life force against her grandmother and hope to reach inside that silent shell.
Phi was fragile in her arms. Old. Aged. Weak.
“Please, Phi.” Pippa pressed her lips to Phi’s ear. “Please, darling, be okay. I need you. You know how much I need you.”
Car brakes screeched and gravel clattered. June’s voice rose from downstairs.
She didn’t know when June had left the room.
Heavy steps on the stairs and then a hand, strong and big on her shoulder, covering her entire joint.
“Pippa.” The hand burned hot against her. “It’s Nate. You need to let me see her.”
Nate? Phi would have loved to know Nate Evans was in her bedroom. It would have made her year. “I don’t know why she won’t wake up.” Pippa’s voice broke on the last. Wet, sticky tears tickled her cheeks and over her jawbone.
“I know, sweetheart.” Nate pressed her to the side and away from Phi.
Pippa nearly darted right back.
His grip firmed and he ducked into her eyeline. “I’m gonna see what I can do, Pippa.”
His eyes, not quite Matt’s eyes, warm and reassuring. Pippa scrambled off the bed.
Nate bent over Phi, hiding her grandmother with his broad back.
Pippa edged to the side, keeping Phi in sight, as if that would keep Phi with her.
“The ambulance is on the way,” Nate said. “But she’s breathing and her pulse is steady. How long has she been this way?”
She didn’t know. Why didn’t she know? Pippa’s mind scrambled, she had to know, had to tell them all—
“I found her.” June stepped up beside her. “It can’t have been more than five minutes. I was in her bathroom. She made this strange groan and I heard her jewelry box fall. I came to check on her.”
“That’s good, right?”
Pippa asked Nate. Her hand crept around June’s dry, thin fingers.
June squeezed, not hard enough to hurt, but firm and telling Pippa she was not alone.
Her mother and Laura! She needed to call them.
“The tiara is gone,” June said. “She was looking for it before she collapsed.”
Nate took it all in, his topaz eyes assessing the room, but he stayed beside Phi. “Let’s get her taken care of first.”
The first responders arrived shortly after. Thumping up the stairs in their big boots, heavily laden with stuff that didn’t make any sense to Pippa.
June tugged her back so they could work. Nate stood beside Pippa, his arm an anchor around her shoulders. Pippa leaned into his quiet strength. He made calls as he held her. First talking to her mother, and then another couple of calls.
Pippa kept her eye on the paramedics. They moved smartly, efficiently, talking to Phi in quiet, confident voices.
Then Phi was loaded onto a stretcher, the clear plastic cup of an oxygen mask obscuring her face. The elastic holding it into place made grooves in Phi’s cheeks. A collar held her neck still.
“Come on,” Nate said. “I’ll drive you to the hospital.”
“June.” Pippa tightened her grip on the other woman.
“I’ll be right there, Pippa.” June cupped her face. Dry hands scratchy on her cheeks. “I’ll make sure everything is done around here. Tell Wheeler what’s happening, that sort of thing. You just go and be with her. She loves you best, you know?”
June’s words punched straight through her. Kind words that hurt even more than the bad ones. Words that reminded her Phi was everything in her world.
Chapter Twenty-Five
Nate bundled her into his car and followed the ambulance but Pippa missed most of the journey. Scenery flashed past the windows, and Pippa kept her gaze locked on the flashing lights of the ambulance—red, blank, red, blank, red, blank—all across the top.
They drove fast, Nate’s siren a steady wail ricocheting through her brain. He took a corner, fast enough to throw her against the straps of the seat belt. From the dash, the radio blipped and crackled in an intermittent stream that made her want to scream.
The hospital rose up in front of the hills behind it. Nate took her around to the front, while the ambulance thundered down the channel marked EMERGENCY. Bodies in white, green, and blue flew into action. Swarming around the stretcher. The stretcher that was Phi.
Nate took her by the elbow and walked her to the admissions desk.
Hospitals all smelled the same. A sickening waft of antiseptic and illness that clung to your skin. Fluorescent lighting bathed the admissions desk in an unearthly glow. Pippa answered the questions. Luckily, the hospital had a record of Phi because Pippa didn’t have the answers to half of the questions.
The admissions clerk looked mildly bored as she typed in all the particulars. Pushed papers at Pippa to sign. An army of troll dolls grinned maniacally from the top of the woman’s monitor.
Nate’s hand held hers in a warm clasp. It was all that stopped her from knocking those stupid grinning trolls to the floor. Would the bitch behind the keyboard pay attention then?
Her anger wasn’t reasonable. A part of her brain kept it under control. Nate’s hand was the lifeline of sane she clung to.
Finally, they were done and Nate rose and tugged her to her feet.
“Pippa.” Matt’s voice came down the stark white passage toward them.
He was in front of her. The blue and green stripes on his plaid shirt filled her vision. He looked like a lumberjack.
He was here.
Nate let go of her hand and she walked into Matt’s arms.
They folded around her in a waft of Matt and cotton, and a warm press of strength. His chest felt hard against her cheek, a button from his shirt stamping an imprint from where she leaned.
“How is she?” Matt spoke to Nate over her head.
“We don’t know,” Nate said. “They admitted her into ER, now we wait.”
“What happened?”
“According to June, she got upset over one of her pieces of jewelry being stolen,” Nate said.
“Her tiara.” Pippa raised her head. “It was a tiara. She wore it when she met Queen Elizabeth. Of England.”
“You’ll stay here.” Nate glanced at Matt then looked at her. “Matt is going to stay with you. I’ll get a description of the tiara from June. You stay here and concentrate on Phi. Okay?”
“Okay?” Pippa burrowed back into Matt. She hadn’t realized until his arms wrapped around her how much she needed to be right here.
“Hey.” Matt pressed a kiss against her temple. “You doing okay?”
“Nope.” Tears threatened again, but she blinked them away.
Matt led her to the waiting area outside ICU and they took a seat.
A young woman with a wan, weary face gave them a sad smile. Pippa smiled back, two strangers united in an intensely vulnerable moment.
Matt put his arm around her and Pippa leaned into his side. He knew what Phi meant to her, there was no need to explain or even speak. He handed her a bottle of water and Pippa thanked him and took a sip. It gave her hands something to do while they waited.
Heels clipped on the hard floor, hurrying in their direction. Her mother headed for the nurses’ station before catching sight of her and Matt. She changed direction and bore down on them.
Pippa stood to greet her.
Emily almost looked disheveled in her jeans and T-shirt. She held out both hands to Pippa. “I was in my garden when the sheriff called. Any news?”
Pippa took her mother’s soft, elegant hands and pressed lightly. “They took Phi in a few minutes ago. We’re waiting.”
“What happened?” Emily shook her head at Matt’s offer of a seat. Her gaze darted between them, a small frown crinkling the skin between her eyes.
“We’re not sure.” Matt took over the explanation for her. “June says Phi found her tiara missing.”
“The one she wore to meet the queen?”
Matt nodded. “Apparently, it upset Phi so much she collapsed.”
“Oh God.” Emily plunked into the seat beside Pippa.
“June found her,” Pippa said. “She was unresponsive.” Her voice shook on the last word and she blinked to clear the tears. Dear God, let Phi be all right. Her grandmother was seventy-eight and had lived her life well. Perhaps she should have tried to stop Phi from drinking so much, or running around like a woman half her age. You forgot when you were with her that she wasn’t a young woman anymore.
Emily covered her eyes with her hand. “Oh God.”
“Nate is looking into the tiara,” Matt said.
“Who cares about a bloody tiara?” Emily glared at him, her mouth set in a tight line.
“Phi cares,” Pippa said.
Emily’s shoulders drooped. “Yes, my mother cares about her tiara. She sent me a picture of her meeting the queen in Buckingham Palace.”
Her mother’s hand found hers and Pippa held on tight. For all their differences, Emily was her mother and she loved her. She needed her mom right now, and her mom needed her.
“I used to steal the tiara and play dress up with it,” Pippa said.
“Did you?” Emily managed a small smile. “That must have been fun.”
“It was.”
A doctor came in and they all jerked to attention. He offered them a brief glance before moving to speak with the young woman. The woman followed the doctor out of the waiting room.
“I hated that tiara,” her mother said. “When she went to meet the queen it was my sweet sixteen, and I wanted her with me.”
Phi had thrown a sweet sixteen for Pippa. The Folly had groaned under a ton of pink and silver decorations. Jammed to the hilt with teenagers from Ghost Falls and Phi’s friends from her opera days. She suddenly pictured a much younger version of her mother sitting alone while her mother did other things. How Emily must have resented that.
Pippa squeezed her mother’s hand. “Phi said something strange to me before she . . .” Pippa couldn’t find the words to describe this morning. She waved her hand around the waiting room. “She said she came home to make up for the time she spent away.”
Her mother stilled, and then shot out of her seat and paced the length of the waiting area. “I’m going to get some coffee. Would anyone like coffee?”
“I’ll get it.” Matt stood up. “You stay here in case there’s news.”
Her mother stood in the doorway, took a step to follow Matt, and then turned on her heel and paced to the window overlooking the parking lot.
The view was dismal. Probably most people sitting here didn’t give a crap what was outside, every fiber of their being focused on what was going on inside. The door to the waiting room faced onto the nurses’ station. One nurse sat behind the desk, quietly moving charts about and making entries in her computer. Others came and went, some even glanced into the waiting room. Most went about their business as if the waiting relatives didn’t exist.
“I couldn’t reach Laura,” her mother said. “I left a message on her phone and another one with Patrick.”
She came back down to sit beside Pippa and took her hand. “How are you doing?”
“Not so good.” Pippa dragged in a deep breath. Her mother’s caring gaze stripped her bare and she looked away. “I never thought of her as getting old.”
“None of us did.” Emily patted her hand. “My mother is a force of nature, wild and larger than anything else. I couldn’t believe Nate was talking about her when he called.”
“Are you okay?”
“No.” Her mother breathed the word out on a shaky breath. “There is so much . . . stuff I want to say to her. I drove here and all the way I kept thinking about how that doesn’t really matter anymore. All I wanted was to be here. Oh, Pippa . . .” A sob shook her mother’s frame. “What if she—”