When she woke up, there was none of that cliché, quiet hospital-machine beeping that usually accompanies the scenes where someone wakes up from being passed out. None of that peace and quiet. Summer first noticed her lungs breathing for her just as they had on the roller coaster platform. In, out. In, out. Her eyes blinked involuntarily. Close-open. Close-open.
All of this was happening in an unbearably loud place. When her eyes were open, her eyeballs roved from one side to the other as she tried to figure out where she was. An ambulance. She noticed the silver bedrails on either side of her, and the oxygen mask tight against the bridge of her nose and down around her chin. She could hear the roar of the engine and the sound of the road whizzing by beneath them.
Shit. They found me on the living room floor and called the freakin’ ambulance.
Someone was talking loudly, prodding at her at the same time. Someone else spoke quietly.
She felt the prick of an IV going into her arm, and the quiet talker leaned toward her. Derek. Of course. Why hadn’t she recognized his voice?
“You’re awake. Thank goodness.”
Hearing him soothed her, but only momentarily.
Panic took hold again immediately. “Wait. Who’s with Luke?”
Derek sighed. Even now, she could see frustration walking across his features before he put on a mask of calm. “Josie.”
Now Summer sighed, but with relief. It lasted only a second before panic seized her in its wicked grip.
“The kids?” she said, the way her voice sounded muffled through the oxygen mask giving her a sense of otherworldliness.
“They’re fine. They got back from the park and found you on the living room floor. You’ve got a nasty gash on your head. A big bump, too. You look like Hannah.”
Summer smiled at this. Hannah walked around with a perpetual bump on one side of her forehead. She felt the smile fade as horror set in. That dark, overwhelming fear when she couldn’t find the kids. She passed out. And her kids, whom she was trying so hard to protect, found their mother on the floor. Bleeding and unconscious.
She groaned.
“Are you okay? What’s wrong? Does something hurt?”
“The kids. I can’t believe they found me like this.”
Now hysteria washed over her, bringing with it the urge to weep. She wished she could rewind and remain calm, stop the tide of panic that had swallowed her up so completely.
“So what happened?” Derek asked. He reached down and held her hand.
“I—I don’t know. After the hospital, I stopped to get a coffee, like you said to, and I came home and no one was there. You know how strange it is to come home to an empty house. I expected Willow to have the kids back by then. You know she’s not very responsible. So all I could think about was Hannah wandering off or running into the parking lot and getting run over or Sarah or Nate getting molested by that creepy ice cream truck guy.”
The words came tumbling out fast, and the loud talker said in an intense voice that made Summer cringe, “Classic panic attack, man.”
Summer had a half-second’s warning before she passed out again.
***
This time, she woke up in the quiet hospital. Talking to Derek and finding out the kids were safe must have given her subconscious a little break from worrying, because she felt calm. Strangely calm. A kind of calm she hadn’t felt in months.
She must be on drugs.
And she liked it.
She felt like she was drifting, maybe laying on a raft in a swimming pool, the sun sparkling off the water next to her.
“You’re awake,” Derek said.
Summer turned her head and saw he was sitting in a chair right next to her bed. She giggled. “Well, hello, Captain Obvious.”
He smiled, but it didn’t erase the worry from his face.
“You’re really dehydrated.”
Even in her floaty state, she could hear the accusatory tone in his voice.
“How do you know?” she asked.
“They drew blood and took urine.”
“Why do you sound grumpy?”
He inhaled through his nose and exhaled through his teeth. This wasn’t good. He only did that when he was really angry, like the time she had backed their first car, brand new, into a light pole in the grocery store parking lot. They’d just run out to get some ice cream. It should have been a fun trip. And it was, until she backed up without looking, and clunked the car into the pole. Derek inhaled through his nose and exhaled through his teeth, exactly as he’d done now. They returned home with a quart of ice cream, a broken taillight, a completely mutilated bumper and Derek’s grudge looming, ominous between them.
It wouldn’t have been that big of a deal, except they’d just bought the car. It was their first purchase as a couple, and Derek was so proud of it. They had lived on a tight budget for an entire year just to save up enough cash for a down payment.
Although it had been kind of adventurous and romantic to eat ramen noodles several times each week and forego date nights and cable TV, Derek was looking forward to living it up in the months following the car purchase. He wanted his wife to be able to drive around in a nice-looking car, not a jalopy. He wanted to be able to provide his wife with the finer things, like a steak dinner once in a while.
But it would cost a thousand dollars to fix the car.
“Why are you angry?” she asked now. The drugs that were giving her that glorious floating feeling made her sound flippant. She noticed, but couldn’t quite adjust to serious.
“This isn’t the time to discuss it. You’re on drugs.”
“I do feel super relaxed.” She could hear the slight slur in her voice, and it made her giggle.
“What’s funny?”
His phone chirped and saved her from having to answer.
“Josie’s coming over.”
Although Summer immediately thought, Ooh, Happy Hour with drugs, she somehow managed to refrain from saying it out loud. That probably wouldn’t sit well with Derek.
Speaking of Derek, where was he? Without saying good-bye, he was gone. Had she fallen asleep?
After just a beat of empty silence, Summer could hear Josie’s heels in the hallway outside her room. Click, clack, click, clack.
“I hear you coming,” she said loudly.
When Josie did walk into the room, her eyes were smiling. Her mouth was set, though.
“Hey,” she said.
“Why so serious?” Summer said.
Josie sighed. “Luke’s doing great. They’re going to release him soon. Maybe tonight, probably tomorrow.”
“That’s good news, right?”
“If his mama’s there to take care of him, it is.”
“Why wouldn’t she be?” Summer asked.
Josie looked around, exaggerating the movements as she focused first on the monitor, then on the IV bag, then on the hospital bed. She grabbed the sleeve of Summer’s hospital gown between her thumb and forefinger. Summer wondered, vaguely, where her clothes were, but before she had a chance to try to form a memory of where they’d gone, Josie began speaking.
“Um, I don’t know, Summer. Maybe because … She’s. In. The. Hospital.”
Right.
“I’m fine. They’re going to discharge me today, too. Just a misunderstanding.”
“A misunderstanding?”
Summer nodded. Surely it was.
“A misunderstanding?” Josie said again. Summer swallowed. Josie kept talking. “You’re dangerously dehydrated. Your blood sugar is really low. I mean, really low. You’re losing weight and not just baby weight. You’re really, really sick.”
I am?
Summer knew she’d been stressed out. She knew she’d skipped a few meals and forgotten her water bottle several times. Well, okay. Maybe lots of times. She knew these were all big no-nos, especially because she was breastfeeding. But she’d made enough milk so she thought she was fine. Not that she’d been feeling well. She’d been weak and tired and a
t least a little dizzy, pretty much nonstop.
“I’m sorry,” Summer said to Josie, but then realized she didn’t know why she was apologizing.
“Don’t apologize to me, amiga,” Josie said. “Apologize to Derek. Poor guy looks like he’s been wrung out.”
“Why does he get all the sympathy?”
Josie sat on Summer’s bed next to her, stretching her legs out alongside Summer’s. She took Summer’s hand in hers and leaned her head on Summer’s shoulder.
“He doesn’t. I feel bad for you both. I think you’re just plain exhausted. And having Willow here doesn’t help one bit. You lost it when she was late getting home from the park, didn’t you?”
Summer swallowed the lump that formed in her throat and nodded. Josie squeezed her hand.
“I’m sorry,” Josie said. “Delaney and I, and Derek, too. We all thought she’d be a big help for you. But she seems to be more of a stressor.”
Summer laughed, and it sounded harsh, even to her. “Yeah, right. She’s never been a big help to me.”
“No?”
“No.”
“Are you okay?” Josie asked.
“I don’t know,” Summer said. “It’s just … it’s just so much. It’s always something, you know? As if giving birth to our fifth child just as my estranged mother showed up on our doorstep wasn’t enough, then Luke had to get the heart surgery. And as if those three things weren’t enough, my estranged mother tells me I have a long-lost brother, and—”
Josie put a hand up to stop her. “You have a brother?”
“Half-brother. Yeah. Somewhere in Juniper, I think.”
“Wow. It’s almost too much to take in,” Josie said.
“You’re telling me, sister,” Summer said.
“Are you going to meet him?”
Summer shook her head. “I don’t know. I mean, I’d kind of like to, but I just don’t know. I guess I’ll have to think about it. I’ll probably secretly hate him since he grew up with the dad I never met, and a nicer mom than I did.”
“You don’t know she was nicer than Willow.”
“Ha. How could she not be.”
Josie laughed. “None of this sounds like the Summer I know.”
“I haven’t been feeling like myself lately.”
“No kidding,” Josie said. “So tell me how it came to this.”
She gestured at their surroundings.
“Well, you kind of already know,” Summer said.
“Tell me anyway.”
***
Reliving those moments sounded about as fun as getting her fingernails pulled out with pliers, Summer thought. She spoke quietly, in the hopes of preventing anyone other than Josie from hearing how crazy she felt this morning. “I came here to visit with Luke, and when I was leaving Derek suggested I stop for a coffee. So I did.” She left out the parts about fantasizing that she was able to start a whole new life, possibly with a boyfriend but most likely without. “When I got home, I expected Willow to be back from the park already.”
Josie nodded. “It was after lunchtime and you thought Hannah would need a nap.”
“Yes. You totally get me.”
“I do. But Willow probably doesn’t even realize Hannah takes a nap.”
“Right. But I wasn’t thinking logically.”
“Right.”
Summer described the rest of the experience in detail, from the tingling hands and feet to the racing heart and the frantic search for her children in the empty house.
“Silence is probably very unnerving to you,” Josie said.
Summer laughed. “It is!”
“Sounds like a good, old-fashioned panic attack,” Josie said.
“Now that I’m talking about it from a new state of mind” (she motioned at the IV through which someone had administered anti-anxiety medication) “I can see that.”
“And it was probably compounded by the fact that you haven’t been taking care of yourself. Dehydrated? Low blood sugar? That’s not like you.”
Summer had been waiting for this. Actually, this was the reason she had been dreading this conversation. A tiny seed of self-loathing had been planted in her mind hours ago, the moment she realized she was in an ambulance. She never let herself get sick. She always took care of herself, even while she took care of everyone else. She chided mothers who said they didn’t have time for eating snacks or going to yoga class. And now here she was, completely depleted. Worse than that, she was completely depleted and now couldn’t take care of anyone.
“I’m a hypocrite,” she said.
Josie squeezed her hand. “Kind of.”
***
The doctors decided to keep Summer overnight. She told Derek and the girls she didn’t need company, and spent the entire afternoon and evening enjoying the feeling a brain saturated in chemicals gave her.
At nine the following morning, someone said, “Knock, knock,” and pulled the curtain open. The woman was obviously some kind of counselor or social worker. Instead of a white coat and stethoscope, she wore khaki pants and a light blue blouse with a name tag pinned to the front pocket. Trendy glasses made her hazel eyes look owlish on her tiny face.
Summer couldn’t help it: she said, “Oh, great. Now I get a psych evaluation from someone half my age.”
Not really your style, Winter said. Summer knew it wasn’t her style, but she didn’t care. She almost always worked so hard to make everyone comfortable. Typically, she would have greeted this new interruption with a bright smile. Not today. Yes, she was still on some kind of drugs. But also, she already knew she’d messed up. She didn’t need a professional to tell her she’d broken.
“I’m Cassie,” the woman said, “the hospital’s social worker.”
“Great,” Summer said.
Cassie laughed, and undeterred, pulled a chair up alongside the hospital bed. “You’re Summer,” she said.
“Look, Cassie,” Summer said. “I’m fine. I don’t need a social worker. I had a breakdown, but I’m okay. I’ve had a lot going on.”
“It’s standard practice for the doctors to order a quick evaluation with a social worker for patients who have had a panic attack,” Cassie said. “So if you’re okay, it should just take a few minutes. Let’s just get it over with.”
Summer knew this Cassie woman, who was obviously too young to have children of her own, wouldn’t empathize with the stress and pressure she had been under for the past several months. But Summer could play this game.
“Fine,” she said. “Let’s get it over with.”
“Great.” Cassie smiled, and Summer thought that smile was just a little too bright. “Why don’t you tell me what happened. How you ended up here.”
“I don’t know if you know this, but I have no idea how I ended up here. I was home, and then I was here.”
Cassie took off her glasses and leaned forward. Summer expected her to hoot, but her eyes did look a bit more proportionate now that they weren’t behind those thick lenses.
“Look,” Cassie said. “I’ve seen this more times than you may realize. I know that you know exactly what happened. It’s your job to be a mother to your children and a wife to your husband. Right now, I’m guessing you feel inadequate. You want to jump back on the horse and forget this ever happened. But I’ll tell you something. This happened because you’re overstressed, overtired, and overwhelmed. It’s my job to help you cope. And I take my job very seriously. So if we could just cut the crap, I’d really like that.”
Hmm, Winter said. Pretty respectable.
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
Cassie spent an hour with Summer, and once she left, Summer laid back against her pillow and closed her eyes. She wanted to relax, to give herself over to the drugs. She wondered if they’d send her home with an IV drip of these miraculous substances. If not, she could probably steal some.
Yes, the silence was foreign to her. But right now, she wanted to bathe in it.
Although she hadn’t wanted to admit it, Cassi
e had some good insights and suggestions. Summer had gone ahead and told her pretty much everything, starting with Derek’s job loss when she was first pregnant with Olivia, filling in the middle with Luke’s heart surgery and the subsequent infection, and ending with Willow getting home late from the park. She alluded to her childhood, being raised by a drunk single mother, and to the recent discovery of a previously unknown half-brother. She frosted the entire story with the chastising she’d receive from Josie, and the deep feelings of guilt she was experiencing now. When she was finished pouring her guts out, Cassie sat back in her chair, tapping her glasses against her lips.
“You’ve got a lot going on, Summer Gray,” she said.
Summer simply stared at her, and she smiled. “I probably would have had a breakdown, too.”
“Thanks.”
“It sounds like the issue with your mother is really compounding all the other, normal stressors.” She put finger quotes on the “normal.” “And even those normal stressors are a lot. I mean, pregnancy and childbirth are stressful on their own. A spouse’s job loss? Stressful. A child’s serious illness? Stressful. Throw in an unexpected appearance by your estranged mother and it’s a recipe for a breakdown. You have nothing to be ashamed of.”
“I feel like I do,” Summer said. “I feel like I should be able to handle all of this. This is what I signed up for.”
If she wasn’t on drugs, she probably would have cried then.
“It’s Life, with a capital L, right?” Cassie said. “But it’s throwing a bunch of curveballs at you, all at once. Nobody should be expected to hit all of them.”
“Well, when you put it that way.”
They spent some time exploring ways Summer could decrease her stress level, and Cassie recommended Summer seek longer-term counseling once she got out of the hospital.
Now, Summer imagined the silence as a sparkling, golden liquid, swirling all around the room, caressing her body and soothing her frazzled brain. Yes, she wanted to get better. She knew she needed to get back to her family, and to Life with a capital L. But it felt so good to just relax, to just be. Summer wondered how long she could remain in this state, laying quietly in a bed, absorbing the calm that surrounded her.
The Motherhood Intervention: Book 3 in the Intervention Series Page 21