JJ would have to wait.
If Walker had taken a somber pace en route to JJ and Amelia’s house, he drove like a man possessed toward the Key Lake Hospital. Liz would have nagged him from the back seat if she wasn’t so heartsick, so afraid of what they would find when they arrived. She counted the blocks by praying, one word over and over again: Please. Please, please, please.
Key Lake Hospital wasn’t large, and the parking lot beside the ER was all but empty. Walker pulled haphazardly into a spot and slammed on the brakes. He tossed the transmission into park and turned off the vehicle in one quick motion. Then they were all falling out of the doors, hurrying toward the entrance lit garish red by the glowing Emergency Room sign.
Nora was waiting there.
Hair tangled, cheeks bright and flushed. She had been crying but either wasn’t aware of the dusty tracks along her skin or didn’t care. Liz suspected the latter. The sight of her daughter dislodged something inside, and Liz threw her arms around those slight, rounded shoulders.
“What?” Liz snapped. “What happened?”
Nora pressed her face into her mother’s shirt and said the sweetest words they could have possibly heard: “She’s okay.”
“Lucy?”
“Everlee.” Nora pushed away. “We found her in the ditch near the corner of 338th and Goldfinch. Not far from Lorelei’s farm.” She shook her head. “The old Barnes place, I mean.”
“In the ditch?” Quinn repeated. “I don’t understand.”
“She was wrapped in a car blanket. We think . . .” Nora stammered. Stopped. “We think Tiffany threw her from the car while it was moving.”
“Oh no.” Liz gasped.
“She’s okay. We think she’s okay. The paramedics just want to make sure.”
“And Tiffany?” Liz hardly dared to ask.
“There’s been an accident,” Nora said, her mouth in a razor-thin line. She was trying to keep her lips from trembling.
Liz reached for a hand, any hand. Walker was beside her and his strong fingers engulfed her own. He had Quinn on one side, Liz on the other. He linked them all together.
“Bennet’s there now.” Nora drew a shaky breath. “He’s going to . . .”
She didn’t have to finish.
“Can we see her?” Hope made Quinn’s words tangible. Liz felt like she could have plucked them from the air and tucked them in her pocket. The truth that the opportunity existed, that Everlee could in fact be seen, was precious as gold.
“Yes, you can.” Dr. Welch came around the corner wearing a pair of blue scrubs and a half smile. He had delivered both Nora and Quinn, and he reached out in turn to take all their hands in his own warm grasp. His presence was the perfect mix of familiar and reassuring, and Liz found comfort in the arch of his pale, bushy eyebrows as he told them that Everlee was going to be just fine. “She rolled,” he said. “Just like a little sausage in that car blanket. There’s not a scratch on her.”
“How fast was the car going?” Walker asked.
“I don’t think they know that yet.” Dr. Welch shook his head and a shock of white hair flopped across his forehead.
“But the car . . .”
Dr. Welch’s eyes flashed briefly to the ambulance bay. It was quiet. Apparently they were waiting for a second ambulance. How long had it been? Liz felt a shiver tremble across her skin. If they weren’t racing to save a life . . .
“Come on, she shouldn’t be alone.” Dr. Welch motioned for them to follow, an invitation but also a distraction. The good news of Everlee’s well-being was a buffer against all the things they didn’t yet know.
“Go,” Liz said, waving them on. “She doesn’t know me.”
“I’ll stay with you,” Walker said. “Nora, Quinn, she knows you best.”
Liz nodded, encouraging them to go, and her daughters complied. They walked shoulder to shoulder behind Dr. Welch, and Liz was glad that Everlee had such strong women on her side. Aunties. They were her family.
They all were.
Liz and Walker didn’t talk as they waited. They sat next to each other in the molded plastic chairs of the waiting room, knees touching, and listened to the clock tick on the wall. It was enough for Liz. Too much, in some ways, for she felt as if she had been turned inside out. Her skin prickled at the cool whisper of the air-conditioning, at the knowledge that everything she believed to be true only hours ago was . . . what exactly? A lie? Maybe Liz just wasn’t who she always thought she was.
At one point, Walker got up and came back with a cup of coffee from the hospitality table. He handed it to her without bothering to ask if she wanted it, and Liz accepted gratefully. It was scalding and acidic, bracing.
When Quinn finally came around the corner, there was a shadow of a smile on her face. Walker put out his arms and she sank into his lap like it was the most natural thing in the world. He put his forehead against her temple and closed his eyes. “So?” he asked.
“She’s fine.” Quinn shook her head. “No, not fine. I mean, she’s physically unharmed. She’s scared. Crying for her mother.”
Liz put her hand to her throat and slipped the chain of her necklace between her fingers. Quinn’s words released something visceral in her, a longing to take charge, to make things right as only a mother can. But she wasn’t Everlee’s mother, and she had no idea if Tiffany would ever be given the opportunity to hold her baby again. The thought made her so nauseous she had to sit very still and will her stomach to obey.
“There’s a social worker with her now,” Quinn told them. “And they’ve called in a child psychologist from the mental health clinic in New Ulm.”
The reality of what Everlee had endured was sobering.
“Was she . . .” Walker stalled, tried again. “Was she happy to see you? Or Nora?”
Quinn released a shaky sigh. “She let me hold her. I think she’s in shock? I mean, she’s really upset.”
“Of course.”
Walker was rubbing circles on Quinn’s back, erasing the tension between her shoulders with the heel of his hand. “She’ll stay the night for observation,” Quinn said, leaning into his touch.
“And then what?” Liz asked.
“I don’t know. I mean, we’re her family, right? We might . . .” But Quinn trailed off, unable to finish.
“What about Tiffany?”
Quinn gave her head the slightest shake. Don’t ask.
They looked up at the sound of footsteps in the hallway and watched as Nora came to join them. “Bennet’s on his way,” she said.
“And?” Liz was sick to death of waiting and wondering. “What happened?”
“He wants to talk to us in person.”