Daddy screeched up to the entrance of the emergency room. Lynn jumped out of the car, leaving the door hanging open, and ran inside.
Diana had called Lynn after she’d pulled the boat up to the dock, and five minutes later Lynn and Daddy were there to pick us up. I kept trying to tell Daddy we were sorry, but I was having trouble concentrating on anything.
I was still unable to get control over my shaking. My fingers had been bright red before, but now they were blue.
A few minutes later, Jeremy and I were inside the emergency room, both on gurneys, wrapped in layers upon layers of warm white blankets. Fast-moving people in colorful scrubs had gotten us out of our wet clothes, wrapped us up in the blankets, stuck needles in our arms, and started IVs.
“It’s saline solution,” Lynn said, patting my arm. “It will warm you up.”
I vaguely understood that Jeremy was in the cubicle next to me, a curtain drawn between us. Jeremy’s parents rushed in, and between my confusion and drowsiness, I caught bits and pieces of the conversation they had with Daddy and Lynn.
“He did not have permission to take our boat out,” his dad said. “I can’t imagine what he was thinking, on a winter day like today …”
“And we’ve taught him to always drop anchor,” said his mother. “I can’t imagine where his mind was today.”
A vague thought swam to the surface of my consciousness. I knew where Jeremy’s mind had been. He’d been trying to impress Diana, that’s where.
“Well, thank goodness they’re going to be okay,” Lynn said.
I started to feel drowsy then, and I think I fell asleep for a little while.
When I woke up, I had finally stopped shaking.
Daddy was standing by my bed. His face looked so worried. “How are you feeling, honey?”
“Okay,” I said. My voice sounded weak.
“Wow, you gave us a scare,” he said, stroking my hair back from my forehead.
I thought they would be so mad at us, but they weren’t. They just seemed shaken and tremendously relieved. Diana was sitting in a chair in the corner of my cubicle, her face pale and serious.
“Are you okay?” she said.
“I guess so.”
She nodded, biting her lip. I had never seen her like that before.
I couldn’t keep track of the people taking care of me. My clothes, warm and dry from the dryer, appeared, and Lynn helped me put them back on and then wrapped me back in a new set of warm blankets.
A stern-looking doctor came by. Apparently he had seen me earlier, but I didn’t remember. “Feeling better?” he asked.
I nodded.
“Well, I can let you go home now. But I want you to know how lucky you kids were,” he said. “Swimming in water that cold can be life-threatening. You and the young man both had hypothermia. People have died swimming less than a hundred feet in cold water.”
“Is Jeremy going to be okay?” I asked.
The doctor nodded. “His case was worse than yours, but fortunately, he’s going to be okay too.”
And then I heard a familiar voice.
“I can’t believe I’m coming downstairs to visit my granddaughter in the emergency room! Pretty soon we’ll have a family member on every floor of this hospital!”
Candace, the friendly nurse with short, dark hair we’d talked to on our first day wheeled Grammy into my cubicle in a wheelchair. “Look who’s here,” she said.
“Stephanie, what in the world were you doing, going into the ocean this time of year?” Grammy asked. She was pale and thinner than normal but seemed back to being her old self. “I know you wanted to be here for my surgery day after tomorrow, but you didn’t have to get admitted to the emergency room. You could have just come to visit like other people.”
I smiled, feeling a rush of love for her.
“Diana, what were you doing, letting her go swimming?” Grammy asked Diana.
Diana shrugged her shoulders silently and wrapped her arms around herself.
Grammy had Candace wheel her close to my bed, and she reached over and grasped my hand very tightly. “My dear granddaughter,” she said, “you better promise never to scare us like that again.”
I squeezed Grammy’s hand. “I drew a picture of a shell for you.”
And then we just stayed there, without talking, holding hands.
An hour later, Daddy helped me out of bed. On the way out to the car, we stopped by Jeremy’s cubicle.
He was terribly pale and covered with blankets up to his neck. His parents stood on either side of his bed, his mother seeming concerned and his father looking angry.
“I hope you kids have learned your lesson,” Jeremy’s father said. “Jeremy is going to be grounded until spring break for this.”
I knew Daddy and Lynn weren’t that strict, and though we probably would be grounded, it wouldn’t be for that long. I felt bad for Jeremy.
I glanced at Diana. Now the two of them wouldn’t even look at each other.
“Get better,” I said.
“Yeah,” Diana mumbled.
Jeremy nodded forlornly.
Once we got home, Lynn fixed soup, and I fell right back asleep. Diana and I didn’t talk. I knew we needed to, because there were a lot of bad feelings between us, but I was too tired.