Gimme Some Sugar

by Kimberly Kincaid

  “Yeah. She couldn’t remember why she was there or what day it was. One of the ladies with her got really concerned and called my brother, who told her to call 911. Once she got to the hospital, they started treating her for a stroke. That’s pretty much all I know.”

  It was the same story she’d told him on the way to the bungalow, in almost the same words.

  “What did Dominic’s last text say?”

  Carly steadied her gaze on the passing roadside. “They’re doing a CAT scan and a bunch of other tests . . . an ECG, I think? They want to monitor her heart and look at her arteries. One of my brothers will call if anything changes, but for now, we just have to wait, I guess,” she said before lapsing back into silence.

  “It sounds like she’s in good hands,” Jackson offered, hoping it wasn’t lame, but Carly only nodded. Christ, he felt helpless.

  They drove the rest of the way in basic quiet, interrupted by two updates from her brother, which yielded little information other than what they already knew. Once they got close to the Holland Tunnel, Jackson pulled over at Carly’s suggestion so they could switch places. Her knowledge of the city was definitely better, and although he’d have done it, city driving made him twitchy as hell. She maneuvered the clogged streets with ease, and after twenty minutes, she pulled into a three-story parking garage to fit the Civic into a spot that his truck would’ve eaten for breakfast.

  “The ICU is on the third floor.” Carly sat in the driver’s seat on a ten-second delay, as if she wanted the words to settle in before she moved. Jackson’s stomach ached, low in his gut, and he reached for her hand to give it a squeeze.

  “Okay. Do you want to go find your brothers?”

  Despite the dark circles smudged beneath her tired eyes and the worry etched on her face, she was still beautiful. “There’s a waiting room up there. I remember from when my dad . . .” Carly trailed off, the silence in the car swallowing her words. “Anyway. That’s where my brothers are.”

  She clutched his hand, unmoving, and Jackson held it tight, staying just as still.

  “You just let me know when you’re ready.”

  Carly’s eyes flashed over his, frightened and bright with tears.

  “Thank you.”

  Guilt flooded through every part of Carly’s body, taking special care to stop for an extended stay in her chest as Jackson ushered her through the whispered hiss of the automatic doors leading into Memorial Hospital Center. She’d been here a handful of times—once to get the stitches in her finger, then again five years ago when her father died—and it looked and smelled exactly as she remembered it.

  Like a pleasant cover-up for very bad things.

  “Looks like the elevators are down here.” Jackson pointed toward a long, gleamingly tiled hallway with his right hand, his left still firmly twined around hers. For some strange reason, an image of his brother-in-law’s boat popped into her head. She and Jackson had never used the anchor the day they went fishing, but it had been comforting to know it had been there, in all its gunmetal glory, waiting.

  She needed it now.

  Wordlessly, they got on the elevator, and the ride to the third floor took both forever and not long enough. The doors trundled open, and Carly forced her feet to move to the nurse’s station in front of her.

  “Excuse me, I’m looking for Francesca di Matisse,” she told the scrubs-clad nurse behind the desk. The woman gave one efficient nod, but her eyes softened as they fell on Carly’s.

  “She just went for her MRI. Are you related?”

  “I’m her daughter.”

  Her only daughter. The one who picked a fight with her just this morning. The one whose last words to her were full of anger.

  Please, God, don’t let that be the last thing I ever say to her, Carly begged silently.

  “Dr. Moreland can give you an update when your mother’s MRI is done, but it shouldn’t be too long. There’s a waiting room at the end of the hall. I’m sure you’ll see some familiar faces in there.” The nurse paused to offer up a smile, and Carly’s heart lurched in her chest at the thought of seeing her brothers.

  “Thank you.”

  Mercifully, her feet had the one-in-front-of-the-other thing down pat. She auto-piloted over the industrially clean linoleum, and Jackson kept time with every step as they followed the corridor and rounded the corner to the waiting room.

  The space hadn’t changed in five years, right down to the outdated magazines on the tastefully simple end tables, and Carly fought the wave of nausea that washed over her at the sight of the faded green carpet and nondescript watercolors on the walls. Her brothers all sat in various states of discomfort, eyes fixed on the muted TV mounted to the wall, until they saw her standing in the doorway.

  “Carly!” Her oldest brother, Vince, was closest, and he had her in a bear hug before she’d even crossed the threshold. “It’s good to see you, cucciola.” Nine years her senior, Vince’s dark hair was shot through with threads of silver, making him look like an Italian version of George Clooney. Carly held him tight, sending her muffled greeting into his shoulder.

  “Hey, Vin.” She squeezed him, letting him kiss both her cheeks before repeating the greeting with her middle brother, Frankie. “I got here as fast as I could.”

  Dominic rose from his seat, folding her into an embrace, and Carly had to fight the urge not to cry extra hard. Of all her brothers, she was closest to Dominic, who currently looked as grave as she’d ever seen him.

  And that was when their father had died.

  “Hey, you. You just missed Daniela by ten minutes. The baby was getting cranky, and she had to run to pick up the boys from the neighbor’s anyway. But I’m glad you’re here.”

  Something unspoken hung in Dominic’s words, and he hugged her too hard, too long. The mention of her sister-in-law and nephews made Carly’s heart lift with fondness, only to tighten and ache harder as she thought of the matriarch who held them all together. She unwound her arms to look her brother in the eye, just in time to see him catch sight of Jackson standing in the doorway. Dominic’s brows sailed upward in surprise, but he said nothing.

  “Dom, this is Jackson Carter. Jackson, these are my brothers. Dominic, Frankie, and Vince. Jackson’s a friend of mine from Pine Mountain. He drove me back.”

  Dom’s brow popped even higher, and he extended his hand. “Nice to meet you. Thanks for getting her home safely.”

  “No problem at all.” Jackson went the requisite rounds with handshakes and how-do-you-dos for all three of her brothers, taking their hard, assessing stares in stride.

  “Why don’t I head out to find the cafeteria while you guys talk?” Jackson moved toward the hallway, but his eyes were on her. “I’ll bring you back a sandwich, okay?”

  Carly’s heart stuttered against her ribs. “No, don’t go. Not yet,” she amended, startling everyone in the room, including herself. She grabbed his hand and cut her gaze to Dominic, steeling her resolve. “How is she?”

  Dom’s chocolate-brown eyes settled on hers, hesitant. “We only got to see her for a couple of minutes.”

  “Talk to me, Dominic. I’m not a baby.” She worked up her best I-mean-business stare. “I want to know,” she said, her voice betraying her with its waver. Frankie shot Dominic a look she couldn’t decipher, but he shook his head and answered her.

  “There’s not much to tell. She was pretty out of it, both when she got here and when we saw her, but the doctor said her symptoms have been improving, which is a good sign.” Dominic steered her toward a chair in the waiting room, and she sank into it even though her back still ached from being cramped in the car for four hours.

  “So she definitely . . . she definitely had a stroke, then?” Carly’s throat closed around the words. She should’ve been more patient this morning on the phone. Damn it!

  Dominic paused, but he gave it to her straight. “It looks that way. But the tests will give us a better idea of what we’re looking at, okay?”

  A wo
man wearing a crisp white coat over her pale blue scrubs poked her head into the room as if conjured by Carly’s need for answers. “Hello, di Matisse family. I’ve got an update on your mother.” The woman’s kind expression ratcheted Carly’s anxiety down a notch. A small notch, anyway.

  “Carly, this is Dr. Moreland. She gave us the first update when Mama was admitted a couple hours ago.” Vince nodded at the woman, who offered Carly a handshake that conveyed both warmth and efficiency.

  “I’m glad you’re all here. I’ve had a chance to take a look at the CAT scan and the ECG and I have some good news. The CAT scan doesn’t show any bleeds in your mother’s brain, and we’ve ruled out atrial fibrillation. Her confusion has lessened significantly since she’s been admitted, as has the weakness in her left arm. I think what we’re looking at here is a TIA.”

  Carly blinked hard, but Vince stole the words from her brain and gave them a voice. “Okay, so what does that mean?”

  Dr. Moreland smiled. “A TIA is a neurologic abnormality similar to a stroke, but it resolves a lot faster. It’s a good thing, in that it’s not as damaging as a stroke. However—” She paused to level a serious look at all of them, lowering her voice. “The next seventy-two hours are going to be critical for her. Ten percent of people who experience a TIA will go on to have a full-blown stroke.”

  “Jesus,” Dominic breathed. “So what can we do to prevent that from happening?”

  “About half of those strokes happen in the first day or so after the TIA, so we’ll keep her here to monitor her condition. After that, we’ll take a look at the best medications to keep her risk as low as possible. It’s likely she’ll need to alter her lifestyle a bit to ensure she’s doing all she can to stay healthy, but there shouldn’t be any long-term damage as a result of the TIA.”

  “As long as she doesn’t have an actual stroke, you mean.” Frankie’s quiet assertion flattened the air in Carly’s lungs like a sucker punch.

  Dr. Moreland nodded. “Yes. She’s not out of the woods yet, although the prognosis is promising. I’m on until eight, and I’ll keep you posted with any new test results. We’ve sedated her so she can rest, but you’re welcome to go in one or two at a time to sit with her for a while.”

  Carly’s brain scrambled as she tried to process, then reprocess the doctor’s words, so she almost missed the last thing the doctor said before she turned to head down the hallway.

  “As a matter of fact, Ms. di Matisse, your mother has been particularly adamant about wanting to see you.”

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Carly stood, completely still and terrified, on the threshold outside of ICU Room 5. The walls facing the hallway were all glass, but someone had drawn a set of pale curtains with a smudgy gray pattern over the length of the windows, blocking the view inside. Presumably so her mother could rest.

  Her mother, who might still have a stroke.

  Oh, God. How much of this had she brought on with that ridiculous argument?

  “Ms. di Matisse?” Dr. Moreland stopped short as she rounded the corner and caught sight of Carly on the threshold, hand frozen to the door handle. “Is everything alright?”

  “Oh, yeah. Well . . . no.” Carly’s gut churned like sweet cream butter. “I, um. I had a fight with her this morning. I don’t . . . I don’t want to make things worse, you know?” She twisted the hem of her T-shirt in one clammy fist.

  “A lot has happened between this morning and now,” Dr. Moreland replied, her expression softening a notch. “It wouldn’t surprise me if she had other things on her mind when she asked to see you.”

  Carly shifted her weight, uncertain. “The fight was kind of a doozy. Do you think . . . I mean, if I go in there and she gets upset, could she have another one of those, what are they called? TIA’s?” God, hadn’t all of this crap with Travis caused enough pain already?

  “A TIA is a neurological disorder, Ms. di Matisse. The one your mother had this morning would’ve happened no matter what. The argument didn’t cause it.”

  “But it probably didn’t make it better,” Carly argued.

  Dr. Moreland smiled and shook her head, her short gray-blonde ponytail swishing from side to side. “I’ve found that arguing rarely makes anything better.” She paused, eyeing the curtain drawn over the wall of glass. “Listen, your mother does need to rest, and no, she shouldn’t be stressed right now. But she has been asking for you. Why don’t I take you in, and you can sit by the bed for a few minutes. We’ll take it from there.”

  Carly’s eyes burned, dry and tired. She reached out automatically for Jackson’s hand, her face prickling when she came up with empty air.

  Right. Dr. Moreland would have to do. “Are you ready?”

  She nodded. “Yeah.”

  Carly let go of the door and let Dr. Moreland gently glide past her, the same professional-grade rubber clogs that Carly wore in the kitchen making a familiar whisper against the floor. Hundreds of miles away, Adrian was in the middle of running a dinner service in a restaurant that had her name listed on the menu as the head chef.

  It all seemed so far away.

  “Knock, knock.” Dr. Moreland paused for a split second before brushing past the curtain, and Carly could now see that the smudges were in fact hummingbirds. “I brought you a visitor.”

  Carly lifted her chin to look at her mother, and fought the urge to shrink back in shock. Her mother, who was a petite woman to begin with, looked downright child-like in the hospital bed, surrounded by scary-looking machines and equipment. Her face was drawn and tired, her dry lips cracked. The hospital gown framing her too-thin shoulders gaped at one side, showing her collarbone in stark relief against skin as pale as the bed sheets. Carly stumbled forward, grasping for some semblance of strength along the way.

  She missed by about ten city blocks.

  “Hey, Mama,” she croaked, lurching to an awkward stop next to the bed.

  “Carlotta,” her mother whispered, a wan smile flitting over her lips. “You look like hell.”

  Carly’s laugh was more of a strangled mew. “Thanks.”

  “So Dominic . . . called you,” her mother rasped, laying her head back on the pillow. Carly’s eyes skimmed over the hummingbirds on the curtain by her mother’s bedside, trying to focus on something other than the ominous-looking jagged lines on the monitor by her head and the tubes snaking from her stick-thin arm.

  “Of course. He’s in the waiting room with Vin and Frankie and . . . yeah,” Carly fumbled. “We’re all here.” She propped her hip against the bed, afraid to put all her weight on it even though her mother barely took up half the space. Dr. Moreland caught Carly’s eye and gave her a tiny nod of approval before slipping past the curtain, shutting the door with a barely-there click.

  “Well. I suppose I put a crimp in everyone’s day.” The words, which normally would’ve been delivered with trademark di Matisse zing, sounded suspiciously vulnerable.

  “Don’t worry about that. Just concentrate on getting better, okay.” Carly scooped up her mother’s hand—God, when did she get so frail—and gave her a tiny squeeze.

  “I have . . . things I want to say to you,” her mother said, but her voice trailed off in exhaustion.

  “Shh, Mama.” Carly steeled herself. Screw what Dr. Moreland had said about the TIA happening no matter what. Carly wasn’t about to bring her mother one step closer to a stroke by rehashing their argument. Why hadn’t she kept her big mouth shut in the first place? “We can talk later, okay? I’m not going anywhere. For now, you need to rest.”

  “Mmm.” It was as close to a concession as Carly had ever heard from her mother. Whatever was in the IV dangling above the bed must be the good stuff. “Later, then.”

  Her mama drifted off, and Carly buckled down on the overwhelming urge to curl up next to her in the bed and cry herself to sleep.

  Jackson glanced down at the untouched bowl of chicken noodle soup and crinkly package of Saltines in front of Carly. After spending the last three hours doi
ng the emotional merry-go-round of switching off with her brothers while their mother slept, Carly looked absolutely wrecked.

  “I know it sounds trite, but you really should eat.” Out of everything in the cafeteria, the soup had seemed the most comforting. And since he’d had two bowls himself, he knew for a fact it wasn’t half-bad.

  “Isn’t that my line?” Carly asked without cracking a smile. She sighed in a slow, steady breath. “Sorry. I’m just tired. And not very hungry.”

  “Do you think you could do me a favor and just take a bite or two? I promised your brothers I’d get you to eat something. And to be honest, being on their bad side isn’t a concept I’d like to explore.” He teased her gently, and she finally lifted the edge of her lips in the tiniest of smiles.

  “My brothers know better than to think you can get me to eat if I’m not hungry.” But still, she dipped her spoon into the broth, giving it a half-hearted swirl.

  “Well then maybe you could humor me just this once.”

  Jackson watched with relief as Carly took a couple tentative bites of soup. She peeled back the cellophane on the crackers, and Jackson found himself thinking he’d get her a thousand more packages just like it if it would erase the look on her face right now.

  “I’m glad your mom is resting. The doctor sounded really hopeful,” Jackson said, hoping the reinforcement of good news would boost her mood a little.

  Carly nodded and gave a soft demi-shrug. “Yeah. She’s pretty out of it from the sedatives. I really only talked to her for a few minutes.” She put her spoon down and leveled him with a serious stare. Christ, seeing those pretty brown eyes so full of deep sadness was killing him.

  “We can come back first thing in the morning. I checked, and ICU visiting hours start at ten.”

  “Okay, yeah.” She sat stoically for a minute, as if the four bites of soup she’d taken had sapped her strength rather than replaced some of it. Not knowing what else to do, Jackson reached out to wrap his fingers around hers, resting their entwined hands on the timeworn Formica table next to her tray.