"Any chance of getting together before you go back to New York?"
"Sorry, no, I'm taking the train back tonight."
"It was so good to see you here." Val returned the hug, thinking how well New York suited her old friend. Laurel had been a thin, dark, rather angular girl whose wit and talent were hidden behind shyness. Since then, she had learned how to transform her slim frame and aquiline features into a striking stylishness that turned heads anywhere. "We don't see enough of each other. E-mail and phone calls aren't the same."
Laurel grinned. "You know where the train station is."
"Okay, when both our current projects are done, I'll be up for a weekend. Think about what show we should see." After asking Laurel for the Kendra pictures, Val became busy with other good-byes. The last guest, except for Rachel, was gone by 8:30.
As Val collapsed in a chair, Kendra said, "Why don't you take Rachel back to your house? I can supervise the cleaning and lock up."
Tempted, Val scanned the clutter and the caterers who were busily dealing with it. "You don't mind? You must be as tired as I am."
"Not hardly. I didn't have to play hostess all night like you did. Looking effortlessly successful is hard work." With a cheerful smile, Kendra sent Val and Rachel on their way with a large bag of leftovers.
As soon as Val got home, she kicked off her high heels and headed to the bedroom to change. By the time Rachel rang the bell two minutes later, she was in a long knit skirt and cotton tunic. "I'm glad that's over. Want any of this food?"
"Please. I never did get around to lunch today." Rachel took a small plate and began choosing some of the healthier tidbits. "When we finish laying plans for Kate's shower, have you got time to kick something around with me? I'm considering whether to accept a job offer here in Baltimore."
"There's always time to discuss the pros and cons of a job change." Val popped Rachel's food in the microwave, then poured two glasses of chardonnay. "As to Kate's shower—shall we make our guests play corny party games that make people roll their eyes, but they enjoy them anyhow?"
Rachel laughed, and they settled down to serious party planning. They were about to start discussing Rachel's job offer when Val's cell phone rang from where she had set it on the kitchen counter. She groaned. "Do I have to answer that?"
"No." Rachel chose a miniature éclair from the dessert selection. "But how many people have your cell phone number?"
"Not many." Maybe it was Rob and he wanted to get together tonight, or at least ask her how the open house had gone. That was worth crossing the room for. She removed Damocles from her lap and picked up the call. "Hello?"
"V... Val...?" The caller was sobbing uncontrollably. "It's me."
"Lyssie?" Val's fatigue vanished. "What's wrong?"
"Gramma. She... she...."
"Take it easy, honey. Breathe slowly, and tell me what's happening."
Lyssie gulped. "Gramma fell in the kitchen and I can't get her to wake up. Her breathing is horrible and loud."
"Your grandmother has collapsed and is breathing strangely." Val repeated the words so Rachel could hear. "We need to call 911." She glanced at Rachel, who nodded. "Can you do that, or should I?'
"I already did." Lyssie sounded steadier.
"Then they'll be there any minute. They'll take her to Sinai since that's the hospital nearest you. I'm not sure they'll let you ride in the ambulance. If they're concerned about leaving you in the house alone, tell them that your big sister is on the way. I'll leave as soon as you and I hang up, and we'll go to the hospital."
"Okay." A brief pause, then Lyssie said, "The ambulance is stopping outside."
Rachel said, "I'll go directly to the Sinai ER so I'll know what's going on when you and Lyssie arrive."
Val nodded gratefully. "God bless 911. I'll see you in about fifteen minutes, Lyssie. If the EMTs take you in the ambulance, call and let me know so I can meet you there. I'll have the cell phone with me in the car."
"Okay," Lyssie said again.
"G'bye, honey. Hang on—I'll be with you soon." Val ended the call. "You're okay with going to the hospital, Rachel?"
"I didn't have anything planned for tomorrow except sleeping late." Rachel set the last of her meal aside and stood. "Besides, hospitals to me are like water to a fish."
"Thanks. For what it's worth, I've thought Louise looked unwell and might be a candidate for diabetes."
Rachel frowned. "If she's an undiagnosed diabetic, that could mean heart damage. From what Lyssie said, she might be in congestive heart failure. A good thing Lyssie was right there and thinking clearly. See you at Sinai."
As Rachel left, Val grabbed a tote bag and tossed in a couple of paperback books that might suit her and Lyssie, a water bottle, and some high-energy health bars in case someone needed a boost later in the night. Then she took off, flirting with a speeding ticket as she zoomed across Northern Parkway and sent urgent prayers toward Louise.
As soon as she parked, Lyssie bolted out the front door. They met mid-sidewalk when the girl hurled herself into Val's arms, weeping. Val hugged her, saying, "Don't worry, honey, I'm here and everything will be all right." The words of comfort were pure instinct.
"It was awful, Val," Lyssie gasped. "I didn't know what to do. She... she looked like she was dying."
"You knew exactly what to do, honey. You called 911 so she's getting the treatment she needs. You may have saved her life. Now let's go inside and get you a sweater. Hospitals can be chilly."
Lyssie took her glasses off and wiped them with the hem of her T-shirt as they returned to the row house. "Thanks... thanks for coming, Val."
"I promised I'd be here if you needed me, Lyssie." As they entered the house, Val asked, "Anything hot on the stove? Any food to go in the fridge? Has the cat been fed? Also, do you know anything about your grandmother's insurance?"
"Gramma's been to Sinai before so she should be in the computer. I'll check that everything else is safe." As Lyssie went to work, Val realized that this is what mothers did. Keep track of the details. Anticipate what might happen and try to prepare. Take care of everyone and everything. She could do this. In fact, it seemed to come naturally.
When Lyssie was done, Val added the girl's sweater to the tote and they drove the short distance to the hospital. When they entered the ER, Rachel met them just inside the door. After Val made the introductions, Lyssie gravely offered her hand. "Is my grandmother going to die?"
Not blinking at the girl's bluntness, Rachel shook hands. "I don't know because I'm not her doctor, but calling 911 got her to the hospital quickly, which is a big plus. She arrived in respiratory failure, which means breathing problems. The preliminary diagnosis is a pulmonary embolism with maybe some complications."
"I want to see her."
"This way." Rachel led them through swinging doors into the working area. The evening seemed to be quiet, though Val guessed there might be a Friday night rush later.
Louise Armstrong was in a curtained area connected to an intimidating array of tubes and monitors. A small, dark-haired physician standing beside the bed glanced up. Her ID badge had flipped so the name couldn't be read, but Kumar was embroidered above her pocket. "Is this the family, Dr. Hamilton?" she asked with a faint Asian accent.
After Rachel made the introductions, Lyssie asked again, "Is my grandmother going to die, Dr. Kumar?" Despite her size and the wild curls pulled into a girlish scrunchy, her small face showed adult seriousness.
"I'm waiting for the test results," Dr. Kumar said. "We'll know more then."
"I told the EMTs about her diabetes. Is that why she collapsed?"
"That might be part of it—the blood tests will tell us more." The doctor frowned. "I pulled up Mrs. Armstrong's records. Apparently she hasn't been taking her medications. Since she has high blood pressure as well as diabetes, that's dangerous. Do you know anything about that?"
Lyssie looked ready to hiss. "Medicaid will only pay for her medicines some of the time. Gramma is
on disability, so we're too rich for full coverage." The irony in her voice could have curdled cream.
Val tried to imagine what it was like for a woman in poor health to raise an orphaned grandchild on disability. Appalled, she said, "Maryland Medicaid leaves people in need without their medicine half the time?"
Lyssie nodded. "She has to wait until her medical bills get high enough before they start helping. Every six months she has to go through the same thing, so about half the time she can't afford her pills."
Val wished she had known. Maybe if she had been filling Louise's prescriptions, she wouldn't be fighting for life in the hospital.
"You've been very helpful, Lyssie." Dr. Kumar glanced at Val. "A hospital waiting room isn't much fun. Maybe your sister can take you home?"
A nurse entered the curtained area, which was getting crowded. Val said, "Time for us to get out of the way, I think."
Not ready to be dismissed, Lyssie approached the bed on the side opposite the doctor. "Gramma?" Tears were bright in her eyes as she took the wrinkled hand between her own. "Gramma, it's me, Lyssie."
Louise made an agitated movement. Even if she wanted to speak, she couldn't with an oxygen tube down her throat. Val stepped closer. "It's Val, Louise. I'm here, too. I'll look out for Lyssie, so there's no need to worry."
"She... she squeezed my hand." Lyssie's voice broke. "I love you, Gramma."
As Val, Lyssie, and Rachel moved away. Dr. Kumar said, "I'll come out and talk with you when the test results are back."
As they returned to the waiting room, Val watched Lyssie with concern. Now that she had seen her grandmother and asked her questions, she looked ready to drop in her tracks. Illness in a family member was hard for anyone. How much worse for Lyssie, who had seen both her parents die violently?
Hoping Lyssie wouldn't insist on staying, Val said, "How about if I call my mother, Lyssie? She can pick you up here and take you to her house for the night." When Lyssie looked doubtful, Val said, "Since we're sisters, she's your mother, too, though she'll want you to call her Callie. She hates being called Mom. I'll stay here until your grandmother is stabilized, and they're sure what's going on."
Lyssie exhaled, exhaustion in every line of her small body. "If I go, will you call me if... if Gramma dies?"
"If that happens, of course," Val said, knowing that false reassurances wouldn't work with Lyssie. "But more likely they'll say she's doing fine, at which point I'll go home and get some sleep, too."
"If you think your mother won't mind..." Lyssie said.
"She won't." Callie might be a freethinking artist, but she knew how to deal with little girls after years of teaching school. And, unlike Val's father, Callie always came through in a pinch.
She did this time, too. Half an hour after Val's call, Callie breezed into the waiting room like a caftan-clad Valkyrie and carried off a drooping Lyssie with promises of an ice cream sundae for a bedtime snack. Val had come by her cravings honestly.
When Callie and Lyssie were gone, Val said, "I'm glad you came, Rachel, but you needn't stay. You've already gone above and beyond the call of friendship."
"I'll stick around a while longer." Rachel smiled mischievously. "It's a perfect time to talk to you about my career goals. No interruptions."
"Let's find us a couple of comfortable chairs then," Val said wryly. "It will be nice to talk about something I understand."
Chapter 30
The career discussion lasted through two cups of bad vending machine hot chocolate and covered Rachel's career goals and frustrations. It was nearing midnight when Rachel said, "You're right, Val. I like the idea of working in Baltimore, but this job isn't the one. Thanks for helping me figure out what the right job would look like."
Val covered a yawn. "Glad to help. Clarifying issues is one of my specialties."
"Figuring out what people aren't saying is one of mine. What's wrong, Val? Your death penalty case and Louise's illness are good reasons for stress, but I get the feeling that something else is bothering you. Have things gone south with that fellow you were dating? Rob, I think his name was."
Val smiled ruefully. "Got it in one. I swear they must teach mind reading in med school. Do you really want to hear this?"
Rachel smiled, her brown eyes warm with concern. "I really do."
Shifting her gaze to the middle distance, Val began to describe Rob and their relationship. How they had met, how well they seemed to fit together, what an extraordinary man he was. Rachel's brows went up when she learned that his brother was Jeffrey Gabriel, the Avenging Angel, but she didn't interrupt.
Val ground to a halt when it came time to speak of her break with Rob. "It was going really well, until everything fell apart."
"He sounds like a keeper, Val. Or did things fall apart because he's one of your guys who doesn't want to settle down?"
"On the contrary. He asked me to marry him last week." She swallowed. "And instead of accepting, I freaked. It was the closest I've ever had to a panic attack, and I don't know why."
"Is it Rob, or the thought of marriage?" Rachel asked shrewdly.
Val blinked. "I'm not even going to ask how you figured that out. The problem is marriage itself, I think. In the past when I dated someone long enough for marriage to become a theoretical possibility, I'd start feeling it was all wrong and back away because the guy just didn't seem right. This time the guy is right and it still feels wrong, so it has belatedly occurred to me that I'm allergic to marriage, which is odd since I always thought I was embarrassingly eager to march down the aisle."
"You want the full Dr. Rachel opinionated treatment, pop psychology and all?"
Val smiled, thinking how when they were kids, Rachel was always the one who helped the old gang sort out affairs of the heart. "Nothing less will do."
"I think a good part of your problem is your father, or rather your absence of a father. Granted, he didn't entirely vanish from your life. It might have been better if he had. Instead, you were raised able to see him only in a very limited way."
Val thought of her conversation with Lyssie. "To make it worse, I was crazy about him. I love Callie, but we're not much alike apart from our rabble-rouser tendencies. I felt I was a lot more like Brad. Smart-mouthed and analytical and not very imaginative, but at least those were traits I shared with him. It hurt that I hardly ever saw him. When I was in grade school, I wrote him every week."
"Did he ever write back?" Rachel asked quietly.
"He'd dictate a letter maybe once a month. Mostly he'd say things like keep working hard and do well in school, and then he would tell me about my half sisters. I could have hated them, except that they're basically nice girls." Even to a friend as close as Rachel, she had never spoken of the letters. The pain of that had been too sharp.
"The father who wasn't there. Callie was no help—when you were little her boyfriends were like a revolving door. Something deep down inside you interpreted all that to mean you don't deserve a full-time man. Or maybe having a man who isn't around regularly is what makes you comfortable because it's what you're used to."
Val smiled a little. "That made me think of the airline pilot I dated. Great for about two days every two weeks, then out the door. I was crazy about him. I must have gotten involved with a solid citizen like Rob by mistake."
"Well, you did think he was a carpenter. Maybe your unconscious figured that meant enough of a class difference so that you wouldn't have had to take him seriously."
"Ouch. There might be some truth to that. Luckily, Rob defies classification." Val made a face. "Why do smart women do such foolish things?"
"It could be worse. Some women who are only comfortable in limited relationships specialize in married men. They have brief periods of romance and hot sex with none of the mundane details of everyday life. They spend their holidays crying alone, and sometimes when the man actually leaves his wife, the woman ends the affair because having a full-fledged relationship goes way outside her comfort zone. At least you've
avoided that."
"Adultery doesn't appeal to me." Val had never told Rachel about her one, long ago, stupid fling with a married man, and she wasn't about to mention it now. "Your theory really resonates with me. Heck, Callie was a role model for keeping relationships with men in a nice little box. But I don't want to live like that. Can you prescribe any pills that will cure me of marriage skittishness?"
"I wish." Rachel's smile was fleeting. "Naming the beast always helps. I think you need to believe that you're worthy of a loving, day-to-day, forever relationship, but that's easier said than done."
"Should I look for a therapist?"
"That's one approach. If you decide to try that, I can give you some names. Or maybe you should start a journal where you explore all your emotional kinks privately. Or you could do both. But I would start by talking to Rob. Show that you're serious about changing. From what you say, he's a listening sort of man. If he really loves you he'll be patient, and maybe he'll have some useful insights."
All good ideas. Val rested her head against the wall behind her, wondering why hospital waiting room chairs were so blasted uncomfortable. Did they think people would stick around a place like this for fun?
Seeing Dr. Kumar approach, Val got to her feet. "Thanks, Rachel," she said quietly. "As you said, naming the beast helps. Maybe now I can tame it." Raising her voice a little, she asked, "How is Mrs. Armstrong doing?"
"She's resting comfortably," Dr. Kumar said. "The embolism damaged her lungs, and she'll need to stay in the hospital for several days, maybe longer, but we're giving her drugs to dissolve the clot. Her blood pressure was sky high and so was her blood sugar, but they're also being treated. Later she'll need some cardiac tests to see how much damage the diabetes has done, but so far, so good." The doctor looked down at her clipboard. "You're Lyssie's sister but not Mrs. Armstrong's granddaughter?"
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