“Where are the twins?” he asked after I’d explained where I was.
“With me.” Where did he think they would be? It was a Saturday. We never hired a babysitter, never left the twins with anyone but my mother. His mother was remarried and living in Florida. “I just wanted you to know.”
“Okay,” John said. “I’m glad you called. Try not to worry.”
Like not worrying was an option.
There was a child-size table and chairs in one corner of the room, with one of those wire maze contraptions with sliding beads. I wiped everything down with diaper wipes and Purell—this was no time to fret over the long-term effects of hand sanitizer—and for a while thatkept the twins occupied. But they were reaching their limit, poor babies. So was I.
I checked in again with the receptionist and then called Jo.
“Jesus,” my sister said, taking the name of the Lord in vain, and for once I didn’t correct her. Prayer or swear seemed equally appropriate. “Is she going to be okay?”
Looking to me for answers, for reassurance, the way we’d always looked to our mother. I felt like I was five years old again, playing dress-up, teetering around in Momma’s Sunday shoes. Off-balance.
“I think so,” I said.I don’t know.“Her blood pressure’s high, but the paramedics said that could be because of the pain.”
“What’s wrong with her?”
I tightened my grip on our mother’s purse. “That’s what they’re figuring out now. They’re running a bunch of tests.”
“What kind of tests?”
“Blood tests. An MRI.” Dr. Bangs’s nurse had told me that much, after I reminded her how long our family had been going to his practice.
“I wish I could be there. What can I do?” Jo asked.
“Nothing.” Which was true. “I just wanted to give you a heads-up.”
In case I was wrong. In case the doctors were wrong. In case Jo needed to be here suddenly.
“I’m glad you did,” Jo said. I could hear traffic rumbling in the background, the gust of a bus like a beast breathing. She must be on her way to work. “How are you doing?”
“I’m fine.” This wasn’t about me. This was about Mom.
“Fineisn’tgood,” my sister observed. “Have you told the girls?”
“Not yet. Not until I know what’s going on.”
“Smart,” Jo said approvingly. “No point in scaring Beth into coming home.”
“Or Amy.”
“Oh, Amy,” Jo said dismissively.
“Amy would come,” I said. Amy, the baby of the family, did tend toslide away from anything unpleasant. But she was more sensitive than Jo gave her credit for. “She has to work.”
“I thought she didn’t leave for Paris until after Thanksgiving.”
“She still has her job at the boutique,” I said. Amy worked retail in Raleigh, at some high-end women’s store near the NC State design school.
The sliding doors opened. A man strode into the waiting room. Not Dad. Tall and broad, with short blond hair that looked as if he’d dragged a hand through it recently.John.
A warm relief washed over me.
Daisy looked up from the wire maze. “Daddy!”
“I have to go,” I gabbled into the phone. “John’s here.”
