“What are the doctors saying?” Sam asked.
“They don’t know. They pumped her stomach. She was unresponsive when Claudia found her. Erin’s next-door neighbor’s an EMT. Thank God he’d just got home from work. Claudia got him in there right away. He started CPR. But they don’t know anything. Something about lack of oxygen to the brain. They don’t know how long she was deprived of it yet.”
“Where’s Claudia now?” I asked.
“They had to sedate her. She was out of her mind. Took a swing at one of the deputies when they showed up. Hayden’s here with her. On another floor. She’s coming back up here as soon as she gets Claudia sorted out. One of Claudia’s cousins is on the way.”
“Is there anything we can do?” Sam asked. “I’ll talk to the deputies. Don’t worry about Claudia as long as nobody was hurt. Let me go see what I can find out.”
I clutched Sam’s hand for a second as he got up. He gave an unspoken reassurance with his eyes as he headed back down the hall.
“He did this,” George said. “Jamie’s responsible for this, too. I tried to reason with them. Erin and Claudia have shut me out. That monster has jammed himself too far into her head. Erin lost her mind. I don’t know how we get past all of this. Maybe we never can. And if they let him out? God. I don’t know what to do.”
“You’re doing it,” I said. “You’re here for Erin. For your wife. And Hayden.”
As soon as I said it, the elevator doors opened. Hayden walked through. Her face fell when she saw her grandfather slumped forward as he was in his chair.
“Is she dead?” Hayden asked.
“No,” George reassured her. “She’s still alive, honey. We just don’t know how much damage she did to her brain yet.”
“How’s your grandmother?” I asked.
“They’re not admitting her. They calmed her down.”
“Did her cousin Carol get here?” George asked.
“She’s with her now,” Hayden said. “Let me text her. Let her know Mom’s stable for the time being.”
Hayden pulled out her phone and shot off her text. Then she sat in the chair Sam vacated and put her arms around her grandfather.
“You can’t leave me now, baby,” George said. “Promise me you’ll stay for a while.”
“I’m here now,” Hayden said. “We’re just gonna do this one minute at a time, okay? Grandma’s better. She actually let me hug her. She thinks this is all her fault.”
“Why?” I asked.
“She said she told my mom she was going to cook her dinner. She was running late. She thinks if she’d gotten there a half an hour earlier like she was planning, this wouldn’t have happened.”
Lord, I thought, trying to wrap my head around it all. Erin took a bottle of pills, knowing her mother would be the one to find her. The wounds of this family grew ever deeper.
“It’s not her fault,” George said. “It’s Jamie’s fault. Don’t you ever forget that.”
“I never will,” Hayden said, with an edge to her voice. Of all of them, Hayden had been the only one who’d seen her father with clear eyes the moment she understood what he’d done. George Luke had been right next to Claudia and Erin against Hayden until only recently. But to her credit, Hayden seemed to have forgiven all of them. She was here today. She was holding them all together. I hoped she made good on her plans to leave. Get a fresh start. Her best hope at surviving any of this with her mental health intact would be to set hard boundaries with each one of them.
“Mara,” she said. “There were a couple of deputies down there with my grandma. She assaulted one of them when they tried to ask her questions. I mean, she didn’t hurt him. But …”
“It’s going to be okay,” I said. “Sheriff Cruz is already taking care of it.”
“Thank you. I don’t condone what she did. It’s just … it’s all just a mess.”
“Mr. Luke?” A young doctor appeared. He held a tablet. “You’re George Luke?”
George shot to his feet. Hayden rose with him and they linked hands.
“Is she okay? Is Erin going to be okay?” George asked.
“I’m her daughter,” Hayden said. “Please. Whatever you can tell us.”
