“Giving you someone to fight with and someone to fight for.” The woman named Pat then leaned over her and pressed the call button. A nurse came into the room and approached the bed.
The young nurse looked at both inquiringly and approached Sierra on the bed. She gave Sierra a friendly smile. “How are you feeling this morning, Sierra?”
“I am fine, but can you call security and get Patricia escorted out?”
The nurse turned to Patricia. The elderly visitor did not flinch or appear concerned, instead declaring, “I need an orderly to help lift Sierra out of the bed and a wheelchair to push her in.”
The nurse nodded and left the room, not turning back even when Sierra yelled out. Frustrated, Sierra had turned her head and winced, glaring at the woman who simply stared back.
“I don’t know who you think you are but when I speak to my father about this, he will—”
“You will do nothing; you have no one, remember?” Patricia’s voice was not harsh or clipped, just matter-of-fact. “Everyone has turned their backs on you and rightly so. If I didn’t make that promise to your grandmother, I would have left you here too. You are a spoiled, entitled, rotten bitch and right now, death is too good for you.”
The words had pierced her heart like bullets, but Sierra didn’t shout back at the insults, just kept up her tired glare. “Then just leave me to die alone.”
“A promise is a promise, and I don’t break them.” Pat glanced at the door, moving the curtain further to the side. “Ah, here they are, time for you to get up.”
“I don’t—”
But Sierra found out that day and for the remaining time she had with Patricia that the woman was a dragon you didn’t want to cross.
Her head was spinning, and she felt dizzy, her pain was being managed by the drugs from the hospital, but she could still feel the tightness from the stiches on her leg and hip and on her face.
The movement of the wheelchair, as it was being pushed by the orderly, had almost made her vomit but Sierra managed to keep everything down. Before long, they stopped outside her daughter’s room. The blinds were open and in that private suite, she could see Kaitlyn asleep, her face pale. She looked so small in the hospital bed. In that moment, Sierra had longed to run in and take her in her arms and apologize. However, she knew she could not and never would be able to. Beside Kaitlyn was her husband, both of them with a hand under their cheeks,mirroring each other; his other hand blanketed Kaitlyn’s. Sierra smiled, but it quickly faded.
“What am I doing here?” She croaked out, her throat feeling tight; a wheeze soon followed, her breathing not well.
“To see your reason for living and to fight to get back to her.”
“No, it is too late, I promised and like you said, a promise is a promise.”
She heard a hmph behind her; Pat couldn’t argue against her own words.
“You made a promise to him, but what about your daughter?”
“I can’t. I can’t do this to her and him any longer. He is right and they both need me out of their lives. Please take me back to my room.” She tucked her casted arm against her chest and used her good one to move the wheelchair away, but she was not strong enough to move it very far.
She felt her chair swivel to face Pat. “You have a beautiful daughter in there that one day will also need her mother.”
Sierra shook her head, pain radiating down her back and her face where the stiches were tight and pulling. “She has her father and his family; she has all she needs.” She gritted through her teeth and took a deep breath, trying not to pass out and have Jacob suddenly catch her near their daughter’s room.
“You don’t know that and there will come a day where she will come looking for you. How do you think she will feel if you just gave up and withered away to death? Do you think she will want that? To grow up knowing that? You are selfish; for once, think of someone other than yourself.”
“I am and that is why this is—” She gripped the handle of her wheelchair, emotions swirling through her, frustration at the forefront as she couldn’t get rid of this woman.
She paused because Kaitlyn was awake and watching her through the glass.
Sierra sucked in a breath, waiting to see if her daughter would start crying at the sight of her. But her daughter turned her head to face her better, then gave her a tired smile before shutting her eyes and going back to sleep.
“Come on, we have work to do.” Pat had declared and Sierra didn’t argue because that smile gave her hope. Someday, she would make amends to her daughter, and she deserved to have a mother that would fight for her and that meant fighting for herself too.
The month she started her physio to work on her broken arm and leg and AA meetings was hell, and it was what she deserved in order to get herself on the road to her recovery.
Chapter 6
As the boat pitched back and forth from the heavy wind and rain, memories of the nights in the hospital rushed back. Nights when he had sat in the chair wondering if his wife was going to survive.
He’d focused on Kaitlyn first. She’d come in with lacerations, a broken pelvis and leg, and damage to her spleen. It had been touch-and-go during surgery, but the doctors were able to repair the harm done. He’d paid for a private room and round-the-clock care.
