“You stopped at the bakery, too?” Paper rustled as she took a fragrant burger from a sack and straddled a bar stool. “I’m starting to feel left out.”
Dan shot her a wink. “Brought you a surprise.”
Dan’s bakery surprise was always the same. “If it’s a chocolate éclair, you’ll be forgiven, although I may change my mind when I go shopping for an Easter dress.”
“You look good to me.”
Mouth full of burger and heart full of pleasure, Carrie was laughing with her lips closed when the telephone rang. Lexi exploded off the bar. “I got it.”
In seconds she was back, holding the cordless receiver toward her mother. “For you.”
At Carrie’s questioning look, she shrugged and mouthed, “I don’t know,” then poked another ketchup-laden French fry into her mouth.
Carrie quickly swallowed and put her sandwich down. “Hello?”
“Mrs. Martin?”
“Yes, who’s this?”
“Officer Shane Wallace with the Riverbend police department.”
Carrie’s nerves tensed. The bar’s granite felt cold against her elbow. “Hello, Shane. Is something wrong?”
Shane’s family attended her church. One of the perks of small town living was being acquainted with at least one person in every sector of business and government.
“Yes, ma’am, I’m afraid there is. I’m here with Mrs. Adler, your mother. I thought I should call you first.”
Carrie blinked. First? Before what?
Her hand tightened on the receiver. She looked at Dan, who had lowered his hamburger and now watched her with curiosity.
“Has she had an accident?”
“No, ma’am.” My, he was formal today. “At least, none that we can ascertain. You see, I found her sitting in her car on the shoulder of Highway 56. When I stopped to assist she didn’t recognize me.”
“Oh, well, that’s understandable. You look so grown-up in your uniform.”
“You don’t understand. Mrs. Adler seems confused. She didn’t know where she was, how she got here or where she was going.”
Carrie brushed a stray hair out of her eyes. Her shoulders relaxed the tiniest bit. “Are you sure Mother isn’t teasing you, Shane? You know how she loves to joke around.”
“I don’t think so, Mrs. Martin. Your mom seems pretty scared.”
Mother? Scared? Impossible. Mother was fearless. Nothing scared her. She’d raised two children single-handedly on a pauper’s wages. Two years ago she’d trekked the jungles of Honduras to take supplies and Bibles to a group of native churches. Mother had never expressed fear about anything. Ever.
“But she was here only a while ago and everything was fine. I just don’t understand…”
“Mrs. Martin,” the young officer’s voice intruded, this time with a respectful firmness. “I really think you should come.”
“Oh.” Suddenly, the call was too real. Something was wrong. “Okay. Yes. Of course I will. Tell me what to do.”
Carrie took note of Shane’s instructions and then replaced the receiver. She felt numb. Not scared. Numb.
“Carrie?” Dan had appeared from somewhere to touch her arm. “Who was that, honey? You’re as pale as paper.”
“We have to go. Let me get my purse. Something’s happened to Mother.” Her fingers clawed into Dan’s forearm. “Oh, Dan, I’m afraid Mother’s had a stroke.”
“It’s probably one of those mini strokes,” Carrie said for the tenth time. She sat in the waiting room outside the Emergency Room, shivering from nerves and the overhead air-conditioning vent. Her fingers twisted the handle of her purse into a knot. “I’ve heard of those. A person has a tiny lapse in memory. It’s not all that uncommon or even serious. Mother will be fine. I’m sure.”
Dan, his wide shoulders uncomfortably crammed onto a too-small swoop of green plastic the hospital considered seating, patted her knee. From the time they’d arrived, she’d prattled on like a magpie. He was probably sick of listening, but she couldn’t help it. Nothing could be wrong with Mother. She was invincible.
Carrie pulled air into her lungs, the clean, antiseptic smell reassuring in some bizarre way. Cleanliness was next to godliness. If she was clean, she was godly and nothing bad could happen.
Tempted to laugh aloud at the race of silly thoughts, Carrie wondered if she was getting hysterical. Heaven forbid.
“The doctor will write her one of those new prescriptions for cholesterol or blood thinners or whatever they are,” she went on, unable to stop the flow of words. “You see them advertised on TV all the time. A prescription and she’ll be fine.”
“We don’t even know if it is a stroke yet, Carrie.” Dan reminded her, his tone gentle. Maybe too gentle. It made her even more nervous. Her throat went as dry as a saltine.
“Of course it’s a stroke. What else could cause her to forget where she was?”
Shane, the police officer who’d called, had stayed around only long enough to be respectful and then he’d left. Business at the small town E.R. was surprisingly fast paced. Carrie couldn’t remember the last time she’d been here. Maybe when Lexi wrecked her bike and needed stitches, but that had been five years ago.
Times changed.
The thought frightened her. If times changed, people changed. They got sick. They died. She closed her eyes momentarily against the inevitable decline of human beings. Morbid thoughts. An overreaction, surely, to being in an emergency room. She hated hospitals.
Two nurses swished by in a rush, stethoscopes swaying. Croc shoes instead of white orthopedics squished softly on white tile that had been polished to a mirror finish. The intercom beeped for some doctor she’d never heard of. When had Riverbend grown large enough for strange doctors?
She angled toward her husband, deeply relieved that he’d come with her. “Do you think we should call Lexi?”
Dan swiveled his head in her direction, his eyes as calm and gray-blue as Lake Placid. “And tell her what?”
That was Dan. Solid. Quiet. Irritatingly calm. He hadn’t even gotten excited the day a tornado ripped the roof off their storage building.
“I don’t know. She must be worried.”
Though fifteen and well able to remain home alone, as the only grandchild living in the same state, Lexi was very close to her beloved “Grannie Frannie” and would be waiting by the telephone.
Without further comment, Dan took their shared cell phone from her purse and punched in numbers. They’d never seen any reason to own two. It seemed extravagant, as did the notion of using a cell phone to take camera photos or for text messaging. She’d learned from Frannie the importance of frugality, though as a teenager she had been humiliated by their tiny family’s poverty.
The three of them, including her younger brother, Robby, had struggled by on the minimum wages paid to a widow without a high school diploma. A few times, when things had gotten particularly difficult, Carrie suspected Mother had taken public assistance in order to provide for them, though she’d never admitted as much to her children. Carrie was humiliated just thinking about it, and had vowed never to let that happen to her.
The tightness in Carrie’s chest increased. Mother’s life had not been easy.
Dear