Quinn understood that. She’d known Ian’s time would be up soon because of the cancer. This wasn’t something she’d prepared for. Quinn wasn’t naïve enough to think she hadn’t been prepared for the chance of her husband taking a bullet at some point, but nobody had really thought it would happen now.
“I don’t think there’s such a thing as being ready.”
She nodded and started to sob, holding onto her composure as well as she could, it seemed.
“Hey, remember what you told me when I was a kid?” Quinn glanced at her as he pulled his hand away to change the gear.
She sniffled into a handkerchief she’d dug out of her purse. “What’s that?”
“Whenever something would happen and we’d end up hurt and crying,” Quinn started, barely managing to not say Jimmy’s name when trying to comfort his mother in this situation Jimmy might be guilty for. “You’d come to us and clean us up and then tell us we had ten minutes, you remember that?”
She chuckled wetly. “Y-yeah, I do. Ten minutes to be miserable about the hurt, but then after that, you need to stop crying and be strong again,” she quoted herself.
“Yeah, so Aunt Karen, consider this your ten minutes. Then we’re going to stop somewhere on the way so I can have something to eat because I didn’t have time for breakfast. You need to be strong for Uncle Ian, so use your ten minutes carefully.” He squeezed her hand again, then turned up the music just a bit.
She laughed, but then it was clear she really let herself feel the pain. She began to cry uncontrollably, her whole body shaking as she wailed.
He could hear the change of tone when she got pissed off towards the end of her allocated ten minutes. He kept an eye on her, and when she shrieked in anger and her hand shot forward, he quickly grabbed her arm.
“Donotpunch my piece-of-shit car,” he said firmly. “It’s not much, but it’s my only vehicle and this is not the time to have a broken hand.”
She tensed, then relaxed gradually and snorted. “Fine. I just…”
“I know. Trust me, I know.” He let go, and she began to make herself presentable again.
* * * *
They stopped on the way once to grab what Karen called brunch in one of the small towns. They were still sitting at the café when she got a call that Ian was in a Vegas hospital, headed into surgery.
She got back to the car just fine, and steeled her shoulders. Then she dug out prayer beads from her purse and began to pray silently.
Quinn could remember those beads. They were her mother’s. Karen was from an Italian family, and her parents had been good, hardworking, very religious immigrants. She’d lost them both relatively young. In a crisis, the beads came out and they seemed to have a calming effect on her, even though she wasn’t particularly religious herself.
Once they got closer to Las Vegas, Karen put the hospital into her phone’s map app and Quinn navigated there with ease, even in the lunch time traffic.
It took them maybe half an hour to get from the parking structure to the waiting room, and all the while, Karen bit her lip and kept her composure, the beads wrapped around her hand.
There was no news, other than Ian had gotten to the hospital in time. He was alive, they were doing their best, and…then, then they waited.
People came and went around them. Nurses, family members of patients, doctors. Some got good news, others were in for the long haul. There was one set of bad news delivered to someone else, and Karen burrowed herself under Quinn’s arm and he held her like he would’ve his own mother.
He quietly thought that Jimmy not making an appearance was telling as fuck. He didn’t need to voice the words, Karen knew it already, and she wasn’t happy.
Quinn wasn’t sure how long it took for a doctor to step through the doors and ask for the MacGregor family.
“We were able to fix most of the damage the bullets did to his body, but we discovered his cancer has spread aggressively,” the doctor said, her expression kind, too kind. “I’m not going to lie to you, Mrs. MacGregor, it doesn’t look good.”
Karen’s knees gave out, and Quinn grabbed her.
“Can we see him?” he asked as Karen sobbed.
“Yes, I’ll have a nurse come get you once he’s settled in a room at the ICU. If there’s anyone you need to call, I would definitely do that now. I’m so sorry,” she said, and left the waiting room.
Quinn maneuvered Karen into one of the seats and let her cry. She’d known this could happen. Of course she’d known.
He took out his phone, then glanced at the no cell phones sign on the wall. “Karen? I’m going to go call Arthur and my mom. Is there anyone else you want me to call?” He kept his tone pointed, needing to know if she wanted Jimmy to come.
She shook her head. “A-Arthur will take care of spreading the news to those who need to know.”
