“What? Really?”
“Do you have someone to drive you?”
Jeff was likely in traffic, halfway to the court. She texted Leigh.
Gwen: Doctor says I should go to the ER. I know this is a lot to ask, but can you take me?
Leigh: Of course. Send me your address
She texted the address and told Dr. Blake she would be going to the ER. He said he would check in with the staff there in an hour.
She knew she should pack a bag for this unexpected outing, but she couldn’t think straight. When had she taken the Tylenol? Had it kicked in yet? She felt suddenly cold, her teeth chattering. She pulled the comforter off the bed and wrapped it around herself. Her only solace was that Leigh would be there soon enough.
It seemed like just a minute later when Gwen opened her eyes and saw a woman dressed in white coming toward her. The figure was blurry, ethereal—an angel? No, not an angel. But Angeni Luna.
“Angeni?” Gwen whispered.
“It’s me,” the voice said. “I’m going to help you up, okay? Nathan’s with Belle, so I’ve got June in Belle’s car seat.”
Nathan. Belle. The names were familiar. This woman wasn’t Angeni Luna. This was Leigh.
“June?” Gwen managed. Had she passed out? How long? How had she not noticed her own baby being whisked away? She looked around to confirm that, yes, her baby was not in the vicinity.
“She’s in the car already,” Leigh said. “I’ve got the passenger door open. You just gotta get to the car, okay?”
But getting to the car seemed like an outrageous trek, on par with summitting Everest.
Gwen instructed her legs to move, but they no longer felt like they were under her jurisdiction. They were just these things attached to a body that felt increasingly unlike her own. But if her body wasn’t her body, then how did she exist? Was this what it was to die?
“One step at a time,” Leigh said.
They were in the hallway, making their way toward the front door, which was halfway open, letting in daylight from the outside. Gwen was, quite literally, going toward the light.
“You’re going to be okay,” Leigh said, as if reading Gwen’s morbid thoughts.
Somehow, they got to the car, and Leigh buckled her into the passenger seat. Gwen had forgotten about June until she heard her cry in the back seat.
“Fuck,” Leigh said. “Do you have any bottles in the fridge? Freezer bags?”
Gwen wasn’t sure who Leigh was talking to. Was she talking to her?
“Gwen, is June hungry? Do you have milk?”
“What?” Gwen said.
“Never mind, we have to go. We’ll figure it out at the hospital,” Leigh said.
Gwen didn’t remember the car ride. She closed her eyes for the entirety of it, and then they were there. Someone in scrubs opened the passenger-side door and helped her into a wheelchair while Leigh spoke in the background, her voice sounding far away, underwater. Then Gwen was inside, and more people were talking in concerned voices around her. It felt eerily similar to the day she’d been sliced open. Panic descended upon her body.
“What’s happening?” she said, grabbing on to the sleeve of Leigh’s sweatshirt, pulling at it.
“You’re going to be okay,” Leigh said, taking Gwen’s sweaty hand in her own. “We’re here now.”
It was only later that Gwen was told the chain of events. She didn’t remember anything, the fever having transported her out of reality and to some holding area, an antechamber to death. They admitted her to the hospital shortly after she arrived and started IV antibiotics. Both breasts were infected with methicillin-resistantStaphylococcus aureus, which Gwen hadn’t heard of, though she had heard of its nefarious nickname—MRSA. It was one of the bacterial infections you didn’t want because it was so resistant to antibiotics. But apparently, whatever they had her hooked up to would take care of it within a couple of days.
Both breasts had abscesses, one of which was the size of a kiwi and needed to be cut open and drained. They had hoped to just aspirate it, but it was too big and required surgery. She was, apparently, someone who always required surgery, someone to cut open against her will.
On day two in the hospital, she was starting to feel okay. Her right breast was heavily bandaged, so she couldn’t see the wound left behind by the surgery. The left breast was sore, but softened from the rock-hard state it had been in. The full-body chills, the fever, those were gone. She could think clearly again, which was when it occurred to her that she hadn’t fed June since this ordeal began.
