“Grace, please come. I’m so sorry, but please come. They won’t let me leave and it’s too . . .” She takes a deep breath before going on. “I can’t be here alone. I can’t breathe. They’re about to call Emmy, but I had to call you first—?”
“Okay. It’s okay, I’m coming, but tell me what happened. Did you get hurt at work?”
“I left work early.”
“Why?”
Another pause. Another attempted deep breath. “I was . . . I was with Maggie.”
The floor feels like it falls out from under me. My knees sort of buckle, but I grab the front door’s knob, keeping myself upright. “What?”
“She called me and she was really upset and I was worried, so I went with her.”
“Where?”
“To that place, Ruby’s? She just wanted to dance, I guess. After a while, I convinced her it was time to go and she said she was fine to drive, but—?”
“You got in a car accident?”
“Yeah. I didn’t know she was that drunk or I wouldn’t have—?”
“Is she okay?” My voice is quiet. A pinprick. A wish.
“She . . . I think she hurt her arm. Maybe it’s just a sprain. They won’t tell me anything, but she was conscious when the ambulance came. She wasn’t going super fast, and the airbags came out when she ran into a tree.”
I can’t even respond. I don’t have any words and I feel myself crumpling, folding in on myself, disintegrating, right there in Luca’s entryway. A million emotions war for dominance, and I can’t see straight. My vision is blurring, and I can’t tell if the world is going wonky or if I’m about to cry. I can’t feel my face, my hands, my heart.
I want my father.
That’s all I can think. I don’t even know where the thought comes from, but something in me, something small and scared and exhausted, rises up and grasps onto that single need.
I want my father.
I’m about to scream or cry or something when I feel the phone slip from my hands. I expect a crash to the floor, but instead I hear Emmy’s calm voice. She’s talking to Eva on my phone, getting details, telling her to breathe, telling her we’ll be right there. Luca comes up behind me and wraps both arms around my shoulders, pulling my back to his chest.
Emmy ends the call and hands me my phone. Her keys are already out and her jaw is clenched tight, tears gathering in her eyes. But they don’t fall. She holds them in and opens the front door, gesturing us outside.
I should say I’m sorry, I think vaguely. I should’ve been there. I should never have left Maggie alone. I should’ve told Eva about everything sooner. I should’ve taken Mom’s keys, her phone so she couldn’t call Eva, should never have started that first piano lesson with Mr. Wheeler all those years ago, because maybe that’s it. Piano is pulling me away from her. Eva is pulling me away. Luca. New York. The world.
Fantasie.
In the car, Luca buckles me into the back seat. I should probably apologize for that. For the dot of pizza sauce still on his chin. Near the hospital in Sugar Lake, we seem to hit every red light. I’m sorry for that, too.
I’m about to say it all, an apologetic vomit, but then Luca reaches behind him from the front seat and grabs my hand. He doesn’t say anything. Doesn’t say it’s okay. We both know it’s not. He just squeezes my fingers and I squeeze back, and I keep squeezing until the car comes to a stop at the emergency room entrance.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
AT THE HOSPITAL, EMMY IS A FORCE. SHE BLASTS INTO the waiting room, ponytail flying, purse slapping against her hip, Luca and me trying to keep up. I let her talk to the nurse behind the counter, a young guy in bright orange scrubs that make me think of inmates in a prison. She talks calmly, evenly, with that tone she used to use whenever Luca and I jumped on his bed when we were kids, catapulting ourselves off and crashing to the floor over and over again.
Mom’s name comes out of Emmy’s mouth, and she gestures toward me. Should I wave? Raise my hand? I feel totally numb, like I got pumped full of some prescription painkiller on the way here.
“This way,” she says after talking a bit more with the nurse, whose name tag reads Bryce.
“Gray?”
I snap my eyes to Luca, who’s starting toward the double doors that lead into the patient rooms with Emmy. I blink at him, trying to make this whole scene make sense. When I don’t move, he frowns and starts walking back toward me.
“You okay?”
