Eva huffed out a laugh. “I’m not confident how long it’ll last, but… I suppose there’s no harm in trying.”
Lily let out her breath, relief on her face, and Eva wondered, as Lily pulled into the hospital parking lot, whether things would really feel different come Monday morning.
“Thank you,” Eva said, her fingers curled around the door handle. “You didn’t have to do this, and I…I do appreciate it.”
“It wasn’t any trouble. I hope your mom’s okay. It is your mom, right?”
Eva had to force herself not to bristle at the question, her automatic response being to shut Lily down. “Yes. She had a fall. Hopefully not too serious, but I guess I’ll find out soon. I’ll come by and pick my car up when I can.”
“Don’t worry about it, my dad said we can hold it for as long as you need.”
“Thank you.” Eva slipped from the car, already lifting her phone to her ear. She didn’t watch Lily drive away. “I’m here,” she said when Angela answered. “Where are you?”
“Still in the ER,” Angela said, and Eva hurried toward the door. It wasn’t difficult to find them inside—they were tucked into a corner, Angela’s wheelchair beside her mother’s and Tom sitting on one of the plastic chairs beside them.
“Mom, are you okay?” Eva fell to her knees in front of her, taking her mother’s hands and peering at her face. She was pale, a trickle of blood on her brow from where she must have hit her head, and Eva could see from a glance her ankle had swollen to nearly twice the size.
“I’m fine.” She smiled, but it was weak, and Eva knew she was putting on a brave face. “There’s no need for all this fuss.”
“Yes, there is. What happened?”
“I was trying to get into the stair lift. Thought my legs were behaving themselves today so I stood up, but they buckled. Went over my ankle and hit my head on the wall.”
Eva groaned. “Mom, you need to be more careful. What if Angela hadn’t been there? What if you were knocked unconscious and I didn’t get back for hours?” Eva thought of her mother lying sprawled at the bottom of the stairs and felt sick.
“Don’t you go blaming yourself for this,” her mother said, voice stern. “Accidents happen.”
“But I should have been there.” Wasn’t that why she’d moved back here? To stop things like this happening? To make her mother safer?
“You can’t watch me twenty-four-seven, Eva. If you did, neither one of us would survive it.”
Eva knew it was an attempt to make her laugh, but she couldn’t smile, not with her stomach roiling.
“I’m going to be fine.” Her mother touched gentle fingers to Eva’s cheek. “It’ll take more than a wall to kill me off.”
“Don’t joke about that.” Eva’s voice was sharper than she intended, but she couldn’t bear the thought of no longer having her mother around.
“I’m not going anywhere. You, however, could go and get me a coffee if you want to make yourself useful.”
“I don’t think that’s a good idea. What if they need to operate on your ankle?”
“Please, there’s nothing wrong with it.”
“It’s doubled in size.”
“Maybe I just have a lot of water retention today.”
Eva shook her head, but at least her mother’s ability to joke about it meant it might not be as serious as Eva feared. She rose to her feet and took a seat beside Tom. “Thank you for bringing her here. You two don’t have to wait—it could be a while.”
Tom shook his head. “Nonsense. We’re not going anywhere until we know she’s going to be okay. Besides, you’ll need a ride back into town, won’t you? Or is your car all finished?”
“No. I got a ride here.”
“Then it’s settled.”
Flooded with gratitude, Eva squeezed his arm and blinked away tears. She was so used to it being her and her mother against the world—knowing they weren’t alone, that there was someone there to lend a helping hand, meant more than she could ever possibly say.
Eva thought of Lily, offering to help despite the way Eva had treated her since the night of the Christmas party, and felt something twist inside her chest. Eva wasn’t used to people treating her that way, to reaching out when she was in need. And she knew that was her own fault—what she wanted, even, from the way she acted, her attitude toward everyone around her. But not Lily.
