“I’m okay, but I fell,” she said. “I tumbled down a dune, and I think I sprained my ankle. I don’t think I can stand on it.”
“Are you near your cottage?”
The fact that he’d called it her cottage didn’t escape her. At least he hadn’t asked if she’d tripped over the granite slab that had caused Grandma Nancy’s “unfortunate” passing.
“Not exactly.” Maddie was mortified to tell him that, as competent as she was at some things, going on an adventure alone—not counting running—had never been one of her strong suits. So she tried to sound lighthearted when she said she’d taken the bike ferry across the harbor while armed with the parcel maps. She would have preferred, at that moment, to cry.
“So . . . ,” she continued, “I’m near Clay Pit Road. On the wrong side of the dune, which means I can’t see anyone and no one can see me. Not that anyone’s around. So how’s that for an afternoon jaunt?”
“And you sprained your ankle.”
“Well, the dune was higher than I thought. When I fell, my right foot went in the wrong direction. And now it hurts. A lot.”
“Oh, Maddie,” he said, “I’m really sorry, but I can’t be much of a lifesaver. You need the Tri-Town ambulance. Call nine-one-one. Right now. The responders can find you through your phone ping. I’d run over and join them, but I’m on the boat.”
The boat? “Oh, Brandon, I’m the one who’s sorry. Sorry to bother you. I didn’t know you have a boat. How nice that must be.”
“It would be, I suppose. But I don’t have a boat. I’m on thebigone. The ferry. Islanders just call it ‘the boat.’ I’m heading back to Boston for a few days.”
Maddie was reminded that he was her attorney, not her son, not even her friend. But other than his mother and Lisa (and CiCi, which would be a stretch), Maddie knew no one else there. Not a soul. Which reinforced her decision to get things sorted and the real estate put on the market, so she, too, could get on the bigboatand leave.
“Let me know how everything turns out,” he added.
She thanked him, disconnected, and dialed 9-1-1. A calm voice on the other end told her to keep her line open until the ambulance located her. While she waited, Maddie sat back on the sand, sipped water from the canning jar, and tried very hard to employ mindful meditation to ease the increasing pain in her foot. But she’d gone to only one free meditation class, which no doubt was why she wasn’t getting any worthwhile results.
* * *
Her foot wasn’t sprained. It was broken. In two places.
“Is there someone we can call?” a nurse asked some three hours later, after the EMTs had located Maddie, assessed the state of her foot, and driven her down-island to the hospital, where she was welcomed, scanned, and plaster-casted. She was surprised that they still used plaster in these days of technology and innovation. At least they’d cut the right leg off her jeans above her knee so she wouldn’t be naked below her panty line. And thank goodness no surgery had been required.
After rejecting the idea to phone Rafe or her father, and before she could say, “No, there’s no one you can call,” a woman’s voice came from outside the private room in the ER, where Maddie was sitting on the bed, staring at the plaster that seemed too enormous when she’d broken only her foot, not her whole leg.
“She’ll be going with me,” the woman in the hallway said.
It was Evelyn. Who would probably be a better savior than Lisa Jenkins. Or CiCi Cochran. And, unlike Rafe or her father, Evelyn wasn’t hours away, so Maddie would avoid a lengthy explanation about why she was there in the first place. Brandon must have called his mother, which was how she already knew.
“Evelyn?” Maddie asked.
The woman stepped into the room. “Brandon feels terrible that he wasn’t here to help.”
“But he did help,” Maddie said. “I didn’t know if nine-one-one would reach the EMTs. Especially out there, where it seems isolated.”
“Believe it or not, the island has made it into the twenty-first century. And now it’s my turn, not my son’s, to take over. You are my old friend’s daughter, and you have no one here.” She said it matter-of-factly. “You’ll need to sign your life away before we can spring you from this place. It’s a lovely hospital—all of us on the island are proud of it—but there’s no place like home, correct? And for the next few days, your home will be mine.”
“But . . .”
Evelyn wagged a finger. “No buts. You’ve seen our house. It’s huge. When Brandon’s not around, I often think I must be crazy to insist on staying there alone. And he’ll be bringing his friend back with him this weekend, so we’ll have a grand time. Maybe I’ll feel like the lucky summer resident I once was, a woman who spent time arranging clambakes on the beach, playing croquet on the lawn, and scheduling tennis lessons for my guests. Suffice it to say, you won’t be playing croquet or tennis, but you will stay with us for the foreseeable days. I will not take no for an answer. Your mother, God bless her, would have expected no less of me.”
Of course, there was no way Maddie could or would decline Evelyn’s offer after that monologue.
“Before you go,” a gray-haired woman in a pink smock said as she entered the room carrying a tablet, “we need to schedule your return appointment. The doctor wants to see you one week from today. I recommend the one o’clock slot, so you can get here early and take advantage of lunch at our café. Chowder, sandwiches, hot meals, you name it. It’s all great. And cheap.”
“Then one o’clock it is,” Maddie said. There was no point in saying she’d planned to be on the ferry by the weekend, since it appeared that she was stuck on the Vineyard. For now.
She started to climb down from the table just as the orthopedic doctor strode into the room and held out a pair of metal crutches.
“There will be no ambulation until you learn how to operate these,” he said. “They’ll be your constant companions for the next three to six weeks, depending on how long it takes the fractures to heal.”
