Life Support

by Candace Calvert

  Fletcher returned the PA’s nod. “Any news on Darcee?”

  “I just spoke with one of the surgeons. They evacuated a clot from her brain, removed a piece of the skull to allow for swelling.” Landry’s gaze moved to Lauren. “She’ll be in a drug-induced coma for now. Numbers don’t look too bad all around. One kidney’s pretty battered—touch and go on that. Surprisingly, the spine is intact. The leg fractures will require open reduction . . . later.”

  Something in his expression said they shouldn’t bet good money on “later” ever coming. Fletcher thought of how Darcee had looked in that park only yesterday, dancing barefoot, singing, oblivious to the blistering sunburn and to the stares of people around her. He’d recognized that off-kilter mix of joy and defiance and had thought immediately of—

  “Lauren!” Jess raced toward them, hair flying. “Is it true?” She lurched to a stop, grabbing the sleeve of her sister’s scrub jacket, her expression anxious. “Did Darcee Grafton fall from the roof? Is she going to—?”

  “She’s in surgery,” Fletcher assured her in a rush, not even caring that he was the least qualified to say anything medical. He only wanted to fix that pain in her eyes. He set his coffee cup on the safety rail so he could reach out, but she moved.

  “Surgery?” Jess’s hands rose to her mouth. “Oh no, it’s true.”

  “Hold on, sweetie.” Lauren tried to put her arm around her sister’s shoulders, but she stiffened and pulled away.

  “Don’t.” Jessica’s voice choked. “Don’t try to tell me it’s okay. One of the janitors said he was there in the cafeteria when it happened. He saw it. Heard it. He said that—” Jessica’s chin began to shake. “He said her head hit like someone dropped a watermelon.”

  “Tell her about the surgery,” Fletcher said to Landry.

  “She’s still in the OR,” Landry explained. “There was a skull fracture with bleeding; they drained it and left an opening to allow for swelling. She has a kidney injury. And fractures of her right leg—” his gaze moved to Lauren for a moment—“that will be repaired later, when she’s more stable. Meanwhile, they watch and wait. Her sedatives will be backed off at intervals to check for improvements in her neurological status, and—”

  “I talked to her,” Jessica blurted, tears welling. “Last night. I went up to the second floor to ask the nurses how she was doing. But when I passed Darcee’s room, she called out to me. She wanted me to sit with her. In the dark—I could barely see her. She told me all about her baby. How much she loves her.” The tears spilled over. “Did she jump off the roof? Everyone’s saying that.” Jessica sagged in on herself. Fletcher and Lauren reached out their arms at the same instant. But—

  “Eli,” Jessica cried, stumbling forward to fling her arms around him. “I don’t understand . . . Why would she . . . ?” Her words dissolved in a sob, muffled as her face burrowed into the shoulder of his white coat. “Tell me she didn’t do that. Please.”

  “Hey . . . ,” Landry whispered, making an awkward attempt to both comfort her and disentangle himself. “We don’t know what happened. We might not ever know,” he added, causing Jessica to groan. “I didn’t mean . . . Hey . . .” He shot Lauren a help-me look.

  “Here, Jess.” Lauren moved forward and took hold of her sister’s hand. “Let’s go sit down a few minutes. Eli has patients to see. And Fletcher—”

  “I’m gone,” Fletcher said quickly, not at all proud of his envy. It was clear Landry would rather be anywhere else. While Fletcher was standing here useless. He might as well be invisible.

  “Thank you, Fletcher. For . . .” Lauren’s eyes met his. “For being here.”

  “No problem. We’ll need a statement from Jessica. For the investigation.” A too-familiar sense of disappointment filled him. “I’ll have someone else do that.”

  THE BLESSING in working twelve-hour shifts was that it meant four days a week off. The curse was that working twelve hours in the ER was insane. The only thing worse was taking Hannah Leigh to the dog park.

  “Yes, Mom,” Lauren assured, trying to both grip the cell phone and prevent the growling shih tzu from twining her leash around the park bench enough to strangle herself. “I’m doing exactly what the therapist said. Giving Hannah the opportunity to socialize, but protecting her from aggressive encounters.” She grimaced as the dog made a sound like something from The Exorcist. “I think she’s really enjoying herself.”

  “Good. I’m glad the rain stopped so that you could get outside. Of course we’re tracking the next two storms on my phone’s weather app. And—oh, here, your father wants to ask you something, dear.”

  “Lauren?”

  “Yes, Daddy.” Lauren waved her hand to warn away a child on a petting mission.

  “The . . . roof,” her father said, sounding suspiciously like he was chewing. His idea of travel was more like fork-hopping; last night he’d sent a pic of something drowning in Hatch chile sauce. “Did you have any more problems with rain leaks?”

  “Not too bad.” Lauren couldn’t count the number of homeowners’ claims her father’s company had handled over the years or how many roofs he’d had repaired after Houston-area storms. He prided himself on protecting his clients. Yet the Barclay roof was original, nearly thirty years old—at this point probably only attached to the house by the mounting screws on the five gaudy weather vanes. It had begun to leak earlier this year. “I put some of Mom’s Tupperware in the usual spots. I needed the roaster pan, too. I guess there’s a new drip in Jess’s room. I heard her pushing her bed across the floor this morning, grumbling that her comforter was wet.”

  “Jessica’s room? Hold on—I’m putting you on speakerphone. There.”

  “How is your sister?” Her mother’s voice held that pinch of worry she always tried to hide. “Is she eating?”

  “She’s fine. There’s plenty of fruit and snacks. And I’m baking those casseroles you froze. We work opposite shifts, you know. So we don’t actually sit down together much. But the food’s disappearing.” Lauren left out the fact that she’d poked through the garbage after Jess went to bed this morning. Like some pathetic food detective. There were still some damp coffee grounds in her shoe, but at least Lauren hadn’t uncovered any uneaten food tucked into empty milk cartons. It wouldn’t be the first time she’d seen that.

  “We’re so glad you’re staying at the house while we’re away,” her father said. “She’s been getting to work all right?”

  “Yep. Every day.” Late. AWOL. And now a crime suspect . . . “School, too.”

  “And there haven’t been any problems with—” her mother’s tone morphed into something very much like Hannah’s growl—“that man?”

  “None.” Lauren wished the sudden image hadn’t popped into her head: Jess flinging herself into Eli Landry’s arms. If her parents knew, they’d be on the next plane home. In their minds, Eli was far more of a threat than a hurricane.

  There was a duet of parental sighs.

  “Good,” her father said. “We need to ensure that it stays that way. At least with Jessica moving back home we have more control over the company she keeps. That apartment was a bad idea from the beginning. Her financial glitch was a blessing in disguise.”

  “You too, Lauren,” her mother chimed in. “You’ve been a blessing to your sister since the day she was born. You’re her guardian angel.”

  For some reason, Lauren thought of Fletcher. In those coat-hanger-and-Hefty-bag wings.

  “I should really let you go now,” she told them, noticing Hannah’s attempts to chew through her leash. “Take all the time you need to help Aunt Gwen. But have some fun too. Don’t worry about things here. Hannah Leigh, Jess, the house . . . I’ve got it all covered. Really.”

  “We’re grateful, Lauren,” her father said. “You can’t know how much we count on you.”

  She did. Enough to call her back from Austin.

  “Got to go now,” she told them. “Hannah and I have some mingling yet to do.”

/>   Fat chance. As Lauren disconnected, she lolled her head back against the bench. In the distance, dozens of happy dogs in all shapes and sizes played together, yipping and chasing balls within the confines of the dog park. She and Hannah weren’t going in; this was close enough. The little dog had begun growling and lunging the moment she’d spotted a German shepherd from the window of the Beetle. Lauren wasn’t about to spend a precious day off acting as a referee or exchanging rabies-immunization data with some incensed dog owner.

  She pulled her lip gloss from her purse and took a sniff before applying it, the berry scent carrying her back to those selfish, carefree months in Austin. When she had time to imagine her own future. Not only her sister’s. A reprieve from her parents’ expectations . . . But that time was gone now. Lauren had come home to Houston willingly. This really wasn’t so bad.

  She drew a slow breath of humid air and let her gaze sweep this small green slice of Buffalo Bayou. It was Lauren’s favorite park, with premiere greenbelts spanning ten miles of a historic waterway that wound through several suburban communities from South Katy to West Houston, toward downtown. Then eventually into the city’s ship channel and one of the nation’s busiest ports. She loved that the bayou provided a lush, watery escape smack in the midst of a huge cosmopolitan city. Glass and steel soothed by nature. The tangled roots of massive and stately trees sank into muddy banks, flanking sunflowers, bottlebrush, dogwoods, sea oats . . . and dozens more species that Lauren had learned on school field trips and promptly forgotten.

  There were plenty of creatures, too. Birds, like the slowly winging blue herons, high-nesting osprey, hawks, and beautiful wood ducks that always made Lauren think of God holding a paint palette. Bats, butterflies, dragonflies, turtles, snakes, the occasional bayou alligator, and—

  Lauren jumped, then laughed at herself as Hannah rested her head on her shoe with a squeaky yawn. She took a risk and bent low to scratch the dog’s soft ear, sighed, and let her gaze travel again.

  Not far away was the Galleria, the amazing mall that housed two major hotels, a twenty-thousand-square-foot glass-domed indoor ice-skating rink known as Polar Ice, financial towers, dozens of restaurants, and impressive retail shopping that included the likes of Neiman Marcus, Nordstrom, Saks Fifth Avenue, and Macy’s. Lauren didn’t know if the downturn in the economy had made a dent in the mall’s boasted twenty-six million visitors a year, but they’d certainly had Jess’s business—part of the cumulative shopping binges responsible for the “financial glitch” that moved her sister back home. And eventually led to the grumpy bed-moving racket that Lauren had to endure this morning.

  Sleeplessness, forgetting to eat, spending binges, and exercising to the point of injury. Were these highs warning of another dangerous low to come? Was it going to happen again?

  No, Lauren wasn’t going to start worrying about that. Not right now. She might have moved back to a bustling, diverse global city of six million people, but right now, right here, there wasn’t any evidence of that beyond a glimpse of the skyline. Nothing that hinted of oil, aerospace, universities, shipping, rodeo . . . or, thank heaven, rush-hour traffic jams. Buffalo Bayou was providing the peaceful, quiet oasis that Lauren needed. She’d claimed a shady spot, and before the summer heat drove her to find air-conditioning, she was going to sit here and—

  “Lauren!”

  Oh no.

  Emma Landry bounded toward her, waving. Followed by Shrek. And Eli.

  She shortened Hannah’s leash, pasted on a smile.

  “Oh!” Emma squealed, delight in her eyes as she caught sight of the black-and-white ball of fur. “Is that Hannah Leigh?”

  “Yes.” Lauren raised her hand like a traffic cop. “You shouldn’t get too close. I’m afraid her manners aren’t always—” Hannah strained the leash, a low rumbling in her throat.

  “Stay back,” Eli cautioned, giving a small tug on Shrek’s leash; the dog obediently sat. “Not all dogs are like Shrek.”

  “But Hannah Leigh knows him,” Emma insisted, lacing her hands on top of her head as she peered with obvious curiosity at the dog. She’d pulled a lavender tulle skirt on over her cutoff jeans, and its sequins glittered in the sun. “She’s Shrek’s friend. Maybe she doesn’t recognize him because her hair is in her eyes.”

  “They never met,” Lauren confessed. Embarrassment warmed her face. “I put them in separate rooms. Because—”

  “She has a problem with her manners.” Eli’s lips twitched. “I’ve been accused of that myself. More than a few times.”

  The big dog gave a weary sigh and one last wag of his tail, then lay down. Emma plunked onto the grass beside him, draping an arm over his neck. The pair looked every bit like Peter Pan’s Wendy and her nurse dog—minus its frilly cap. Lauren wondered what Eli would think if he knew Shrek had worn her mother’s pink sleep turban.

  “We’ve been at Grams and Yonner’s,” Emma explained, pointing over her shoulder. “Their house is over there. Not far.” Her eyes sparkled like the sequins. “Close enough for alligators. But I haven’t spotted any yet.”

  “Emma had camp today,” Eli explained, sitting down to become a second bookend to the already-dozing Newfoundland. He leaned forward, wrapping his arms around his legs, a tanned and athletically muscular expanse from khaki shorts to sports sandals. “Her grandmother wanted to see her. ‘Yonner’ is what the kid here calls my father.”

  Lauren caught his barely discernible frown. Then thought of the accident at the Landry home a few days ago. Alligators might be anticlimactic.

  “Yonner is short for Your Honor,” Emma explained, waggling her fingers tentatively at Hannah. “He’s a judge.”

  Eli’s frown went from subtle to obvious.

  Lauren couldn’t imagine what it might feel like to have a father threaten you with a court order. She gave a discreet tug on Hannah’s leash and was relieved when the dog finally lay back down. “Camp? What kind of camp?”

  “Vacation Bible school. And I’m also going to a summer theater workshop.” She grinned. “I’m going to audition for Annie.”

  Eli shook his head. “The reason for her interesting hairstyle.”

  “I chopped it off,” Emma explained. “With Grams’s kitchen shears. Had to. Long hair is bunchy under a wig. Itchy. And too hot.” She widened her eyes, looking like the perfect casting choice for the hopeful singing orphan. “Houston’s the hottest place on earth. I couldn’t be born somewhere like Colorado . . . or Alaska?” Something wistful flickered across her pixie face. “My mother was an actress. In Paris. She was very devoted to her career. It’s why she left us.”

  Lauren’s breath caught. The look on Eli’s face made it worse.

  “We should go,” he said abruptly, glancing at his watch. He rose to his feet. “I’ve got to be at the hospital by—”

  “But the dog park,” Emma interrupted. “We promised Shrek he could see his friends.”

  “It’s hot.” Eli dragged his hand across his forehead to prove it. “Look at that dog. He’s not built for hot.”

  “There’s a shade cover. And a splash pad. Ten minutes, that’s all. Pleeease?” Emma pressed a hand over her heart. “I think he has a sweetheart down there.”

  “Aagh.” Eli closed his eyes and let out a sigh. “Ten minutes. No more. Check the time on your phone. Or I’ll have to come down there and get you.”

  The two of them—the sprite and the patient, lumbering dog—headed across the grass to the dog park. Lauren watched, thinking ten minutes would be an interminable lifetime. She’d come here seeking peace and respite from her worries. Eli Landry offered neither.

  “She’s . . .” Lauren’s stomach did an unexpected dip as Eli’s dark eyes met hers. “Adorable. I heard you had a daughter. But . . .” Why on earth had she almost mentioned Jess? The last thing she needed was another argument. “I didn’t know much about her.”

  “I don’t share much. Even with your sister, if that’s what you’re implying.”

  “I wasn’t
,” Lauren denied. “Regardless, Emma is wonderful.”

  “Yes—and better than I deserve.” Eli’s expression showed a rare vulnerability. “Much better.”

  An awkward stretch of silence made Lauren wish she were suffering her mother’s hurricane-warning alarm instead.

  “So . . .” Eli glanced at Hannah. “Bad manners?”

  “She’s seeing a therapist,” Lauren told him for no reason that made sense. Except that she needed to fill the time. “Hannah Leigh is a shih tzu. And they’re prone to small dog syndrome. That means she has issues around the concept of ‘leader of the pack,’ confusing her role with her human owners’. Which makes her snappish and . . .”

  Eli’s expression made Lauren want to crawl into a hole. “You’re saying that this little fluff dog is running your household.”

  “My parents’ household,” Lauren corrected, feeling her hackles rise. She needed to make it clear: this wasn’t about her. “I’m house-sitting.”

  “You’re policing Jessica.”

  She stared. “That’s ridiculous.”

  “C’mon, Lauren. It’s the reason you came back from Austin.” Eli’s voice was calm, matter-of-fact. “It wasn’t because you wanted to see me again.”

  “I . . .” Lauren struggled for words, refusing to give in to the memory: the feeling of being held in this man’s arms. Lord, please . . . don’t do this to me. “My sister is nearly twenty-two years old,” she said finally, grateful for a surge of anger that boosted her to her feet. She planted her hands on her hips. Hannah’s growl began to rumble. “Jess starts nursing school in the fall. She’s doing fine. She doesn’t need me to—”

  “Keep track of what time she comes in? Who she sees? Lie for her when she’s late for work?” Eli shook his head. “I’ll bet you even keep notes on her food intake.”

  “What? You’re so off base. With all of that.” Lauren glanced away. There was no way he could see the coffee grounds in her shoe. She needed to get out of here.

  “Look,” Eli continued, the accusing tone waning. “I admire that you want to help your sister. But surely, as a professional, you can understand that your family’s enabling—”