In all the commotion, it seemed that no one had seen her heroic drop into the parking lot. Firefighters rushed past her with hoses aimed at the building. A cluster of office building refugees flowed the other way, into the street. Part of her was relieved no one saw her. Part of her was disappointed. But most of her was hot, in pain, and wishing for her European mattress.
“Lana! Lana!” She heard Victor’s voice before she saw him, red-faced, eyes wild, running toward her from the throng in the street. “Dios mío! Let me help you!”
Lana remembered him smiling down at her and closing the library door. A cocktail of fear and fury flooded her brain. She forgot everything she’d taught herself about interacting with men. She scowled. She may have even barked.
When Victor didn’t slow, Lana fished one of her shoes out of her tote and brandished it at him, metal spike out.
“Don’t come any closer,” she growled.
Lana started crawling as fast as she could in the other direction, right into the shins of a burly firefighter. Her eyes made it from the tips of his steel-toed boots up to the base of his suspenders before she collapsed.
“Thank you,” she whispered, and fell into unconsciousness.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Jack was in the school library, trying to craft the perfect response to an online ad for a used twenty-two-foot single-hull Catalina for sale in San Luis Obispo, when her mom called to tell her Lana was in the hospital for injuries related to a fire. Jack had about eighty-five different questions, but Beth cut her off.
“I’ll pick you up in twenty minutes,” Beth said. “Meet me in the parking lot.”
As they sped north, toward a black tornado of smoke hovering over the freeway, Beth told Jack what she knew.
“Holy shit,” Jack whispered. “Is Prima going to be okay?”
Beth clutched the steering wheel tighter. Nothing made sense right now. Ever since Lana’s brain surgery back in the fall, a part of Beth had been holding her breath, waiting for the call that confirmed the worst—that the tumors had spread, or treatment had failed. Now Beth saw those fears as pedestrian lightweights compared to the monstrous nightmare of the truth. An hour ago she’d received the call, an angry swarm of phrases like structure fire and embedded glass and bleeding unconscious that still buzzed in her head, making it difficult to drive. She prayed for the nightmare to end, to right itself, for her mother to rise like a phoenix as she always had. Someone who burned as bright as Lana couldn’t just turn to ash.
At least, that’s what Beth was hoping. “I don’t know, honey. The hospital, they didn’t tell me much. But your Prima’s a fighter. We’ll see.”
Beth had never worked at London Nelson Memorial Hospital. She signed in like a civilian, scanning the reception area in hopes she might see a former colleague, a friendly face. There was no one. Once they were finally admitted, Beth hurried through the maze of hallways, Jack jogging to keep up. They found Lana in a single room near the OR, lying still and shrunken on a bed in a pink-striped hospital gown.
Beth flagged down the attending physician, a wiry, bald man with glasses and pursed lips.
“I’m looking for information on a patient,” she said. “Lana Rubicon.”
The doctor looked Beth up and down. “Just coming on shift?”
“No. I’m her daughter.” Beth stood a little taller in her scrubs, attempting to project competence. “How is she?”
“Your mother is breathing on her own. Her heart rate is normal.”
Beth could hear what he hadn’t said. “But she hasn’t woken up?”
The doctor shook his head. “Not yet.”
“My mother has lung cancer. Do you think there’s a possibility of lung collapse or breathing impairment? If she inhaled too much smoke from the fire . . .”
“Her airway is clear, and so far, we haven’t identified any breathing issues.”
Beth was relieved. Then she remembered something. “What about bleeding? She’s on blood thinners because of a blockage in her carotid artery, and . . .”
“It’s taken care of.” He patted her arm. “Your mother will be fine. I need you to do the most difficult thing.”
Beth knew what was coming next.
“I need you to wait.”
By seven that evening, Beth had talked to Detective Ramirez, a fireman, and every nurse on the ward about her mother. But that didn’t bring Lana back to consciousness. After a soggy grilled cheese sandwich in the cafeteria, Beth turned to Jack. “We should head home for the night.”
“What if Prima wakes up?”
“She probably won’t. Not tonight.”
“But what if she does?” Jack twisted a greasy napkin between her fingers.
“You have school in the morning.”
“You have work.” They stared at each other in the fluorescent light.
“Fine. We’ll stay. C’mon.”
Beth and Jack set up makeshift bedrolls out of towels and pillows, one on each side of Lana’s narrow hospital bed. They stayed up late, Beth reading studies about the impact of fire exposure on patients with lung tumors, Jack pretending to do homework. They took turns sneaking glances at Lana whenever the other one wasn’t looking.
By midnight, Jack had finally fallen asleep. Beth rose to close the curtain over the tiny window and check on her mother one more time. No change. In her pocket, she turned over a heart-shaped rock she’d found that morning in the spindly grass. It was pumice, rough and speckled, its surface pockmarked like a tiny moon. Evidence of the life she’d chosen, the home she’d built, as far from her mother’s sleek, hard-edged world as possible. For the first time, Beth considered everything Lana had lost when she came to Elkhorn: the power she wielded, the energy that fueled her battles, the freedom to make her own path. Beth put the stone on the nightstand next to her mother and prayed Lana would keep fighting.
Beth and Jack woke up Thursday morning cramped and disappointed. Lana was still asleep. The hope they’d clung to the night before felt foolish in the sunshine, a cheap and flimsy dream. They folded their towels in silence and each gave Lana one more look, one more chance to save them from a day of clock watching, then dragged themselves out of the room.
Jack went to school. Beth went to work.
At 6 p.m., the two younger Rubicon women stumbled back into the hospital, less hopeful but more prepared, with clean pajamas for Lana, and burritos for themselves.
After an unsatisfying check-in with the doctor in the patient waiting area, Beth sent Jack to get hot chocolate and entered Lana’s room on her own. The only noticeable change was a large bouquet of wildflowers on the bedside table next to the heart-shaped rock. The card read, “I am so sorry. Please call me. I want to know everything you saw, everything that happened, so I can make it right. Wishing you every recovery. V.”
Beth didn’t understand it. But the flowers were the least of the things that didn’t make sense about the situation. Just a few days ago Lana had been strong-arming Beth to help with the investigation. And now here she was, prone on a hospital bed, a bundle of ragged breath and unanswered questions.
Lana looked even smaller than she had the day before, fragile, as if the aura of invincibility that usually surrounded her had cracked and torn. Beth had always seen Lana as one of the strongest women on the planet. That didn’t exactly qualify her as a good parent, but Beth had gotten over that a long time ago. Lana was someone impressive. Someone, she realized, she was proud to know.
The woman in the hospital bed before her had dark bruises, sunken eyes. There was a butterfly bandage over the tiny stitches on her cheekbone. Beth bent down and gently ran her hand over her mother’s patchy hair, picking a tiny black pebble from her scalp.
“What were you doing?” Beth whispered. “Come back to me.”
Chapter Twenty-Eight
On Friday morning, after a fitful sleep at home, Beth and Jack arrived at Lana’s room to find an empty bed.
Beth’s heart raced. “Ma?” She knocked on the pocket door of the tiny bathroom. “Are you in there?”