Chapter Seventeen

The map at the bus station shows the fastest route is an EmX bus to the Springfield station and then to RiverBend. Meg and I walk to the right stop and stand in the warmth of morning sun, waiting until an extralong green bus pulls up and we can get on.

The EmX speeds along, pulling in and out of designated stops. My eyes take in the buildings, trees, traffic, and people around me, but the images flow into a blur of color and don’t register with my brain. Instead, I sit in my seat, rigid with both hope and anguish, while my thoughts whirl.

One minute, I imagine Meg and me running into the hospital, finding Mom, and throwing our arms around her. The three of us will laugh and squeal and disrupt the whole building. Even if Mom is too hurt to be awake, Meg and I will hurry to her side, hold her hand, and snuggle close. Life will be whole and good again.

Then fear wins the war in my brain, and I am overcome with dread. What if Mom dies before we get to the hospital? What if Meg and I have to identify her body instead of run into her arms? My stomach contracts and threatens to throw up its contents, even though there’s nothing there but acid. I pull tiny bits of air into my lungs until the pain eases enough for me to breathe again.

We stop at the Springfield station, but I am too fearful to focus on anything but losing Mom. To stay sane, I pull out my phone and force myself to concentrate. I scroll through the icons, clicking on the one for our service provider and seeing that the calls to the hospital cost me twenty-eight minutes. Bile rises into my throat. Can I add time without Mom’s credit card? There is no way to know unless I go through the process.

Every tap on the screen feels like bags of cement are taped to my arms. Will Mom be alive? Will she recognize us? I read the prompts, but it feels like centuries for the words to travel from my eyes along jumbled nerve endings and finally connect to my brain.

At no time does the program ask me to pull the last few cents out of my pocket or give them the number of Mom’s credit card to pay for the minutes. I click on twenty dollars of time to be added to our account and nearly cry. Mom has to work that much longer and harder to get us an apartment.

My phone lies in my hand while I stare at the number of minutes left on my cell, but the number doesn’t automatically change. How long does it take before my twenty dollars’ worth of time is added? Fifteen minutes? An hour? Three days? I force myself to look away.

The EmX bus pulls to a stop in front of RiverBend Hospital. The building is beautiful; made of red brick, it stands several stories tall and stretches out for what looks like a couple of city blocks. The hospital is set in front of a backdrop of dark-green trees and the landscaping out front is designed with shrubs and grasses that look good even in November.

Meg and I step off the bus and walk toward a large covered entrance. Mom has driven us by RiverBend several times, but we have never been inside. The reception area is so spacious and elegantly furnished we both stop to stare.

“Wow,” says Meg. “This place is really pretty.”

Wood railings and paneling, comfy chairs and tables, and lots of natural light give the entrance the look of a first-class hotel. Long hallways stretch out on both sides of the main doors, and a gift shop sits off to the side, though the glass doors are closed for business this early on a Sunday morning. In front of us stands a desk in warm wood tones with a sign saying “Information.” Meg and I hold hands and walk over to the receptionist.

The woman behind the desk looks up and says, “Hi, how may I help you?” She is an older person, with silver hair dropping to her shoulders and a spray of tiny lines fanning out from the corners of her eyes.

“I called earlier and was told there was an unidentified woman as a patient in the emergency room?” I push back the fear piling in my throat. “We came to identify her.”

The receptionist points down the hallway to our right. “Head down to ER. They’ll tell you what to do.” The woman’s forehead scrunches up, making the lines around her eyes deeper. “But isn’t there an adult with you? Someone else who can identify the woman?”

I blurt out my story as rapidly as I can. “Our dad’s parking the car. He’ll be here in a minute.” I don’t give her a chance to ask us any more questions. “Thanks.”

When we get far enough away from the information desk so the receptionist can’t hear, I lean over and whisper, “I’m sorry, Meg. I hate all these stories as much as you do, but I don’t know what else to do.”

Meg looks at me, her face tight with worry. “I know, Mattie. You said we’ve got to make up stuff.”

At the emergency room, three people stand in line at the check-in desk. A man dressed in dirty jeans and an even dirtier t-shirt clutches a bloody rag over a gash on his hand, and a young woman cradles a crying infant in her arms. The third person is an old man pushing a woman in a wheelchair. The woman sags in the seat, her stringy white hair draping over her face. The ER isn’t crowded, and the two women behind the desk are quick and efficient, but it still seems like an eternity before it’s our turn.

“We’re here to identify the woman that came in earlier and didn’t have a name.” I point down the hallway toward the main entrance. “The receptionist down there said you had a patient that hadn’t been identified and we could come and see if she is Rita Rollins.”

The young woman looks around. “You have an adult with you? A parent?”

“Dad is at work and will lose his job if he leaves. We’re here to see if your patient is our mom.”

I pull Meg a little closer and point out what is so obvious to me. “We’re sisters, and Dad will come as soon as he can.”

The woman studies us, then picks up a phone. “I don’t know the exact status of that patient, but give me your name, and I’ll send a nurse out to talk to you.”

“Mattie and Meg Rollins.”

The woman points to the chairs in the waiting room. “Have a seat. The nurse will call you.”

Meg and I drift over to a pair of chairs sitting close to the front desk. Meg scoots into the seat and shifts her backpack onto her lap. I do the same. Our bodies are stiff with worry. Is Mom lying in a hospital bed just beyond those closed doors? Are we close enough to yell and she would hear us? Or is she hurt so bad that she won’t even know we found her?

Names are called for other patients, but we wait. More people enter the ER through the wide glass doors and are checked in by the women at the desk. Finally, a male nurse in blue scrubs steps out and calls, “Mattie and Meg Rollins?” We jump to our feet and hurry across the room.

The nurse is Darren’s size with short brown hair and serious brown eyes. His body holds a tension that doesn’t ease when we step up to him.

“The patient you asked about has already been identified and is on the way to surgery.” His words come at us in such a rapid stream they don’t sink into my head before he turns to leave.

I grab at his bare arm. “Wait. Wait a minute. What do you mean the woman was identified?”

The nurse looks annoyed and pulls his arm away. “The woman’s parents came in an hour ago, gave us her name, and signed all the papers for surgery.” He turns and walks back through the doors to the ER before we can waste any more of his time.

Meg and I stand rooted to the floor, our hopes crushed. My grand plans for a happy reunion—the visions of finding Mom and taking care of her—vanish and leave my mind dark and empty. Meg squeezes my hand and whispers, “If Mommy isn’t here, then where is she?”

“I don’t know, Meg.” My words taste sour. “I don’t know.”

We walk back to the main lobby, but I have no more sense of direction than if I were walking in a dense fog or a blinding snowstorm. My actions are automatic, my muscles having walked this way only a short time before. Meg turns us toward the front entrance, but something holds me back.

“Wait, Meg,” I say. “Let me think a minute.” I pull her over to a couch and sink into it.

Meg stands in front of me. “We need to get on that big green bus and go back to the library because that’s where Mommy will look for us, and we need to go right now.”

“We’ll go, Meg,” I say. “Let me have a couple of minutes, okay?”

Meg sighs, raising her shoulders up and down in a dramatic gesture. She drops onto the couch beside me and perches on the front edge. I stare at the lobby with blank eyes and try to think.

Mom isn’t lying here in a coma, so where is she? If she wasn’t admitted to the hospital for treatment from a car accident or for any other horrid reason, does that mean she was dead at the scene? Thinking about where police take bodies revs my heart rate so high my brain locks up, refusing to function.

Meg squirms beside me, sighs again, and finally says, “Please, Mattie? Can’t we go? Please?”

I pat her on the back, but the rest of my body stays still and rigid. Should I call the police and ask them if there was a bad accident last night? Or can I call directly to the city morgue? Could the receptionist at the information desk make the calls for me? She would know who to call and probably get more answers than if I tried to call on my own. Plus, using her phone would save precious airtime on mine.

“I’ve got an idea, Meg.” I stand, and Meg pops up beside me.

“We’re going back to the library?”

“Not yet,” I say. “First, I’ve got to ask the lady at the desk more questions, and maybe she can make some phone calls for us.”

I turn toward the desk, but freeze. The receptionist is watching us. There are several other people in the area, but the woman is zeroed in on Meg and me. I told the woman our dad was parking the car, so if I go back to her now, she’ll be suspicious of me.

I put my arm around Meg’s shoulders and steer her back down the hallway to the ER. Meg pulls away and crosses her arms. “Where are we going?”

Her face is set in a deep frown, and her voice is so loud it rattles through the hallway. “Why aren’t we getting on the bus?”

I lean down and whisper. “Shhh. Don’t look, but the lady at the desk is watching us, so we can’t go back and talk to her.”

Meg spins her head around so she can see the receptionist, even though I just told her not to. I sigh and glance over to see the woman still intent on every move we make.

“See?” I rest my hand on her shoulder and give it a gentle squeeze. “We need to go back to the emergency room for just a little while.” My squeeze turns into a pat. “I know the waiting is hard, Meg, but hang on a little longer, okay?”

Meg lets her arms drop to her sides, but her face doesn’t let go of its pouty frown. We walk back to the ER and get in line. There are more people ahead of us this time, so it takes longer to get to the receptionist.

When we finally step in front of her, the woman gives us a questioning look. “Hi again. Was the woman your mother?”

“No,” I say. “That person was already identified by somebody else, but now we’re really scared Mom died in a car accident and was taken directly to the city morgue.” I don’t have to fake the terror eating away at my self-control. “How do we check?”

Meg hears me say the word “died” and tightens her grip on my hand so much my fingers hurt from the pressure.

The woman leans across the desk. “The city morgue is housed in this building, but you girls need to call an adult. If your mom was killed last night, you need to have a family member or an adult friend with you.”

“Meg and I just need to know if there is a possibility that Mom is there, and if there is, Dad will leave work.”

The receptionist studies us for a long time before she reaches for her phone. She taps in a number and says, “Hi. This is ER. Do you have an unidentified woman that has expired in the last twenty-four hours?”

I say, “Ask for a Rita Rollins too, just in case she had her name with her, but no contact information.”

The woman adds, “And can you check for a young woman by the name of Rita Rollins as well?”

The receptionist listens to the answer and hangs up her phone. “No Rita Rollins and no unidentified woman.” The woman’s face is kind, but lined with worry. “Why don’t you girls stay here until your dad comes? His boss will understand this is an emergency.”

I nod, as relief rushes through me. Mom isn’t dead, lying on a cold slab in the bowels of the building. “Thanks for your help. I’ll call Dad right now.” I pull my phone out of my pack, tap the screen, and put it to my ear.

I turn to go, pretending I’m talking to my dad on the phone, instead of wondering where to go and what to do next.