It was an hour before Dad Evers came back out into the emergency room’s waiting area. He squatted in front of them. “They’re okay. Mom and the baby both.”

Ivy’s shoulders relaxed, finally. She took a deep breath and exhaled it slowly. The best part of her day—week, month, year—bloomed in her head like it was scrawled in neon: this moment, the moment she knew Mom Evers and the baby were okay.

“Ordinary spotting, the doc said. Nothing to worry too much about, though she’s supposed to take it easy, the next while, till the baby comes.”

Prairie touched his shoulder; he pushed a lock of hair behind her ear.

Ivy wanted to reach out or say something too, but she couldn’t. She’d been struck mute ever since Mom Evers told Prairie to get Dad Evers.

“Half hour or so, we can go. I’m going to try and get the bill figured out. Prairie, you’d better call Grammy. She’ll be climbing the walls.”

Ivy picked up a National Geographic. She opened it and tried to let the trouble in the emergency room swirl around her without noticing it too much. There was a sweating girl who seemed delirious, a woman with what looked like a broken arm, and a man whose skin was as gray as floor paint. It all made Ivy feel nauseous, and that made her mad at herself.

She turned pages slowly. In the magazine, young people stood on a windswept rock in Iceland. A cowboy squatted by a campfire. The photos were interesting, but Ivy couldn’t concentrate. She was about to set the magazine down when a voice sliced into her haze.

“But how’m I going to get my house cleaned with my leg in a cast?” a woman cried. She sat in a wheelchair, staring at the receptionist. Her hair was dyed black and her lipstick was a red slash across her mouth. She’d put too light a face powder on, and her eyes were wide and peering. “How am I?”

“I don’t know, ma’am.”

The woman leaned forward. “Caroline, my daughter, she’s coming to visit in June. I have to have the house cleaned, or she won’t like it. She’ll think I can’t stay on my own any longer.”

Ivy’s heart tightened in sympathy.

“Well, you’ll have to hire some help, I guess. Do you want me to call you a taxi, or is there someone who’ll come pick you up?”

“No, there’s no one to pick me up! I told them not to bring me to a hospital so far away because there’s no one to help. That’s what I’m saying, don’t you see?”

Ivy could tell that the receptionist did not see. She wasn’t really paying attention. Ivy couldn’t exactly blame her. The emergency room was crowded; the girl who seemed delirious was now crying. The receptionist sat like her back hurt and had dark circles under her eyes. Maybe she had a new baby at home and the baby kept her up nights, or maybe it was even more interesting than that—

Ivy made herself stop. The point was that this problem had already been solved as far as the receptionist was concerned: one busted femur, set, cast, checked out, and billed, next.

But for the old lady, the problems were just starting.

Ivy slid off her seat and walked to the woman’s wheelchair. “I could help you,” she said. “If you could pay me.”