Ryan’s voice, urgent in my ear, cuts me off. “Quinn, it’s Dad. You need to get to the hospital now.”
The ER doors whoosh open. Along with a pungent, antiseptic smell, a flash of the last time I was here in this hospital—over a year ago—hits me with a force I’m not prepared for. I was a wreck in my running clothes, still holding Trent’s shoe, my dad at the nurses’ desk asking questions, Trent’s parents’ faces when they saw me. He’d already been moved from the ER. Decisions had been made. Papers signed. The chaplain had been sent. Good-byes said without me.
I stop, try to breathe, but the floor feels unsteady beneath me.
“Whoa,” Colton says, grabbing my elbow. “You all right?”
I open my mouth to answer, but the sight of my family stops me. They sit in the same beige chairs I sat in with my dad, waiting to see Trent. Waiting to say good-bye.
Now it’s Gran, Mom, and Ryan who sit tense, without talking. Mom stares into the middle distance, a stricken look on her face, like she’s failed—as if she’s running through her mind all the things she could’ve done differently. Ryan, who’s dressed in her painting clothes and looking like she’s on the edge of tears, focuses on some unseen spot on the ground, like if she concentrates on it hard enough, no tears will fall. And Gran. She sits very straight, and very still, purse in her lap, hands folded over it, calm in a silent storm.
Colton’s hand moves gently to my back. “Is that your family?”
I nod, bracing myself for the word stroke. And then I cross the ER to where the bank of chairs is. When I get to it, Ryan is the first to look up, and her eyes widen when she sees us. It’s only then that I realize what I must look like, with my hair tangled and wavy around my face, mascara smeared, Colton’s still-damp sweatshirt hanging on me.
“What happened—is Dad okay?” I feel the tears readying themselves for whatever the answers to those questions may be. “Did he have a stroke?”
Mom stands up and pulls me into a hug so tight, I wonder if it’s worse than I imagined. After a long moment she loosens her grip but doesn’t let go. “We don’t know for sure yet. They’re evaluating him now, and we’ll know more soon.”
“What happened? How did this . . . I thought he was . . .”
I don’t finish, because I realize I haven’t thought anything about it for the last few weeks: his medications, or his checkups. Symptoms. I just assumed he was okay. Safe.
I let myself forget there’s no such thing.
“He was helping me with one of my canvases,” Ryan says from her seat without looking up from the floor. “And he just—he just sounded funny all of a sudden, and I thought he was joking, so I laughed.” She looks at me now, tears in her eyes. “I laughed, and then his eyes rolled back into his head, and he just fell down. He just fell. . . .” She wrings her hands in her lap.
Gran puts her hand on top of Ryan’s, firmly enough to still them. “And then you acted, and you called 911, and that’s all you could’ve done.”
Now Ryan sits up. “No, I should’ve seen it right away, I should’ve called sooner—”
Mom steps in now, won’t let Ryan blame herself. “You did all any of us could’ve done, sweetheart. The rest was beyond what any of us could control.”
I don’t think my mom believes her own words. I can see it again—her going over all the preventive measures she should’ve forced on my dad—and it makes me want to reach out and tell her that she couldn’t have. That sometimes, no matter how much we regret or wish things were different, there is nothing we can do to make it so.
Colton clears his throat and shifts on his feet next to me. Gran is the only one other than me who notices.
“Quinn, you haven’t yet introduced us to your friend.” She nods in my direction, and worry spreads all through me.
Colton steps forward, hand extended to Gran. “I’m Colton.”
Gran takes his hand in both of hers. “So pleased to meet you, Colton. You must be the reason Quinn has become so enthralled with the ocean. I can see why,” she says with a wink. “This is my daughter, Susan, and Quinn’s sister, Ryan.”
“Nice to meet you both,” Colton says.
My mom nods and smiles politely. Ryan stands and shakes his hand, then looks from him to me and back again. “I’ve heard a lot about you,” she says. I give her a look she doesn’t see, because she seems to be studying Colton.
She glances at me, and I silently plead with her not to say anything more.
“Good things,” she says, getting it. “Thank you for coming with her.”
“Of course,” Colton answers.
We stand there for a long moment, silent, until a tired-looking doctor in scrubs approaches, clipboard in hand.
“Mrs. Sullivan?”
“Yes?” Mom says, standing up.
We hold our collective breath as the doctor takes in the group of us standing there. “May I speak freely? About your husband?”
Mom nods.
“Okay,” he says. “The good news is that your husband is stable, he did not suffer a stroke, and there is no permanent damage.”
We all nod like we understand; then we wait for the bad news.
“The bad news is that this is his second TIA, and that his scans show a small clot forming in his carotid artery, which leads to the brain. If left untreated, it’s likely that he will suffer a stroke—or worse—in the near future. We have a few options, but time is of the essence, and I’d like to get him into surgery as soon as possible.”
Mom nods, taking it in, as we all are. “Can I see him?”
“Of course,” the doctor says. “Come with me.”