Ramona gave me a flat look before taking a fortifying breath as she turned into the room. “Madison’s here.”
I entered the room, steeling myself for the view. Mom was sprawled on the floor, pillows supporting her, keeping her still and as comfortable as possible until the ambulance arrived.
“Goddamn late as always.” Mom’s words were tiny paper cuts over old scars. “Dammit! Don’t move my leg! Fucking hurts.”
“Cheryl,” Ramona said calmly, “the paramedics are on their way, but please don’t swear.”
Mom hissed in pain. She aimed her glare at me. “Why are you here?”
I was her daughter. Wasn’t that reason enough? “I can go to the hospital with you.”
“And do what? You’re not a damn nurse, are you?”
Shame burned up my face, but anger sparked behind it. I’d been around the Baileys so much that Mom’s insults weren’t hard to shrug off.
“Do you want me to pack a bag?” I asked before Ramona could make a retort that would further anger Mom. “At least one night’s clothing?” The hospital in town couldn’t handle a hip break. She might get transported to Bozeman.
Why couldn’t she have fallen after the house and land had sold? The ambulance bills wouldn’t have devastated us then. And if she had broken her hip or another bone, then the rehabilitative care would wipe out the rest.
Guilt ate its way up my throat. I was counting pennies while she was helpless on the floor.
“Might as well make yourself useful for once.” Mom made a shooing motion.
Jerking into action, I went to her little dresser and withdrew her underwear and a shirt.
The paramedics arrived, wheeling the stretcher behind them. I hurried to finish grabbing a few things.
“About goddamn time,” Mom snapped. “Did you walk here?”
To give them room to work on Mom, I filed out with the others.
Ramona looked me up and down, a twinge of sympathy in her expression. “You clocked out?” When I nodded, she gave me a rare sympathetic smile. “You can meet her at the hospital. It’ll give you some time to... prepare.”
To prepare for Mom’s berating in the single ER room at the tiny hospital. Me, the staff, it wouldn’t matter. “Thank you.”
Ramona gave me a thin-lipped smile. That flash of sympathy wouldn’t save me from the next round of bills and threats to toss Mom out.
The house needed to sell. Quickly. At this rate, if Mom lived twenty more years, she could go through four more nursing homes.
I rushed to my car, texting Teller as I went that I was going to the hospital with Mom. I liked knowing that he’d care. He’d also worry about me, and wasn’t that thought like being wrapped in a warm, cozy blanket. I drove to the clinic before the ambulance arrived and waited in the parking lot.
When the rig pulled up and unloaded a complaining Mom, I walked in behind them. The next hour was a flurry of questions she hated to answer, an X-ray that she yelled through. The poor radiologist had been near tears when she’d wheeled Mom’s bed back. Then the bad news came. Broken hip. Surgery. Hospital stay.
Then I was alone with her as the ambulance crew prepped to transport her to a bigger facility.
“I can bring you some more things tomorrow,” I said.
“Why not tonight?”
I crossed one leg over the other and ran my fingers along the seam of my gray scrubs. It was going to be a long night. “I need to sleep and you’ll probably be in a hospital gown.”
“You need sleep?” She snorted. Her sharp eyes bore into me. “You need to quit being a Bailey whore.”
I jolted, my leg sliding off my knee. My foot hit the floor with a thud. “What did you call me?”
“You know what you are.”
Shock clogged my brain. The small-town gossip line had gotten to her, and I wouldn’t be able to slough her off. People had seen me and Teller together. Plenty had passed me driving in the direction of the Bailey ranch. Riley had probably painted me in a poor light to everyone who’d listen. “It’s not like that.”
