“What are you doing here?” Dad yells.
But then they’re hugging the breath out of me.
“I had to come,” I say. “There’s no way Margot was going to go through this without me being here.”
They hold me for a really long time before finally letting me go. We sit down, Mom’s hand clutching mine while Dad’s arm rests on the back of my chair.
“So tell me the latest,” I say.
Mom starts. “They’re giving her the transfusion now. Brad is in there with her. It’s a really simple thing, actually, and she should almost be done. They have to get all the blood in within a four-hour period or the blood in the bag goes bad or something like that.”
“They said she’ll be at full speed within twenty-four hours,” Dad adds.
“And Anna?”
Mom smiles. “She’s doing better. They just checked her levels, and everything’s looking good.”
“Did you drive down by yourself?” Dad asks.
“Griffin drove me,” I say. Their eyebrows shoot up.
Mom looks around the room. “Well, where is he?”
“I guess he’s on the way back home. We decided on the way down that it’s really over between us.” I feel an unexpected sense of relief saying the words out loud.
Dad pats me on the shoulder. “You okay with that?”
I nod. “I am.”
Mom’s about to ask me something else when we hear a loud noise coming from around the corner.
“I said take a left at that last turn.”
“Wedidtake a left at that last turn.”
“So now we need to take a right!”
Seconds later, my extended family has taken over the waiting room. Nonna and my aunts and uncles take turns hugging Mom and Dad. Olivia, Charlie, Jake, and Graham are here, too.
Olivia almost knocks me over when she hugs me. Then Charlie is hugging us both. She pulls away just slightly but clutches both of my hands. Charlie has an arm slung around each of us.
“We talked about it the entire way down, and I never looked at it from your perspective. I didn’t realize how hard it was for you. We’ve missed you so much. I should have made sure you knew that,” she says.
“Yeah, it’s not the same without you,” Charlie says. “And no matter what, you’re not going to school in Massachusetts.”
“I should have told you I was feeling left out. I’ve missed y’all, too.” I look around the waiting room. “How did this happen?”
“Well,” Charlie says, “as soon as everyone heard where you were going and why, we started making plans to come down, too.”
“Not everyone could come. Some had to stay behind and watch the littles,” Olivia says.
Dad, who usually looks stunned when surrounded by the family, seems relieved that there’s someone else willing to sit and talk insurance with Brad’s dad. Mom and Aunt Lisa are sitting down, their heads are bent close together, and Mom seems to be catching her up.
The three of us move to the chairs across from them. Aunt Lisa gets up and gives me a hug.
“I can’t believe y’all came,” I say to her.
She gives me a confused look. “Why? As much as you want to be here with your sister, we all want to be here withoursister.” She sits back down next to Mom, their hands linking together.
