“We left the kids with our neighbor,” Elodie whispered, her eyes wide with fear. “What happened?”
Braden explained as I stood silently by, my mind racing over all the worst outcomes. Being in the hospital was freaking me out, and I just wanted Ellie to come out and tell us everything was okay. I didn’t think I could handle anything else.
“Ellie Carmichael’s family?” a nurse called and we all stampeded her. She stared at us wide-eyed. “Are you all immediate family?”
“Yes,” Braden answered before Adam or I could respond.
“Come with me.”
Ellie was waiting for us, sitting up with her legs dangling off the side of a bed in the ER. She gave us a typical little girl Ellie wave and my heart lurched in my chest.
“What’s going on?” Elodie rushed to her side and Ellie grabbed at her mother’s hand reassuringly.
“Ellie’s family?”
We turned to find a forty-something bookish-looking doctor hovering over us. “Yes,” we all said in unison and Ellie cracked an exhausted smile.
“I’m Dr. Ferguson. We’re sending Ellie up for an MRI as soon as it becomes available.”
“An MRI?” Braden’s features grew taut as he glanced back at his sister. “What’s going on, Els?”
Her eyes were wide as she took us all in, our worry blasting out at her. “I haven’t felt right for a while.”
“What do you mean felt right?” Adam asked impatiently, crowding her, his bristling, angry intimidation making Ellie flinch.
“Adam.” I pulled on his shoulder to get him to ease up but he just shrugged me off.
“I think the doctor was wrong about me needing glasses,” Ellie admitted quietly.
Dr. Ferguson cleared his throat, obviously feeling he should come to his patient’s rescue. “Ellie has told us she’s been dealing with headaches, numbness and tingling in her right arm, a lack of energy, some lack of coordination, and today she had her first seizure. We’re just sending her up for an MRI to check everything’s okay.”
“Numbness?” I muttered, glancing at her arm, images of her squeezing it, shaking it, flooding over me. The amount of times she’d told me she had a headache. Fuck.
“I’m sorry, Joss. I just didn’t want to admit I was feeling so rubbish.”
“I can’t believe this,” Elodie sagged against Clark. “You should have told us.”
Ellie’s lip trembled. “I know.”
“When will the MRI be ready?” Braden asked, his voice low and demanding.
Dr. Ferguson didn’t seem to be intimidated. “I’ll take Ellie up as soon as it’s free, but there are a few patients booked in before her.”
And so the waiting began.
21
After hours and hours of waiting, Ellie was sent home after the MRI. We were told because of the screw up her doctor had made not sending her for an MRI earlier that they’d request that the results be given as soon as possible. This still meant up to a two week wait. In the end we waited ten days, and those ten days were awful. A kind of blank numbness fell over us all as all the worst outcomes raced through our heads. I went to see Dr. Pritchard but I couldn’t even bring myself to talk about what was going on with me. It was a quiet session.
The whole ten days were a quiet session—the three of us sitting in the apartment, taking calls from Adam and Elodie, but not really saying anything. There was lots of tea and coffee-making, takeout, and television. But no discussion. It was like the fear had put a lock down on any meaningful conversations. And for the first time since we’d started seeing each other, Braden and I shared a bed without having sex. I didn’t know what to do for him, so I let him take the lead—when we did have sex it was slow and gentle. When we didn’t, Braden would roll me onto my side and wrap an arm around me, pulling me back into him, his head resting next to mine. I wrapped my own arm over his, hooked my foot around his leg and let him fall asleep against me like this.
***
Dr. Ferguson called and asked Ellie to come in to speak with him.
That was bad. That sounded bad. I stared at Ellie after she got off the phone and everything I’d been holding under, controlling, just burst apart at the seams. I saw the fear in Ellie’s eyes and I was so consumed by my own I couldn’t say anything to her that would help, so I didn’t say anything at all. Braden accompanied her to her appointment and I waited in the apartment—the big, cold, silent apartment—staring at the Christmas tree, disbelieving that Christmas was only ten days away.