“I doubt there’s anyone who actually likes it,” he said. “I’ve spent too much time in emergency rooms myself.”
“When did you need the ER?” I’d get him talking about his own experience and skip right over mine.
“I’ve never needed one for myself, but Nathan was another matter,” he said. “Asthma attacks as a little kid, too many times to count. When he was two he ate a bunch of glass beads Stephanie was using to make a necklace. At four, he fell trying to climb over a fence. At six, he was scratched by a neighbor’s cat and the scratch got infected. When he was eight, he broke his arm playing soccer, and when he was ten he got whacked in the head by a softball.”
I watched his face as he spoke. The way his eyes lit up. The way the corners of his lips lifted into a half smile. “You sparkle when you talk about Nathan,” I said.
“I sparkle?” He laughed. His cheeks grew even pinker than usual.
“You do.” I smiled in spite of my painful ankle.
“Well, I guess that’s not surprising, since he means everything to me.” His voice was thick. I knew how much he wished he could have more time with his son. I touched his shoulder. “Such a good father,” I said quietly, and his smile turned a little sad. “Every two years,” I added.
He frowned at me. “Every two years?” he asked.
“Nathan’s been in the ER every two years.”
He stared at me. “I honestly hadn’t thought of that,” he said, then groaned. “And he’s only a few months into twelve. I guess I should expect the call any day now.”
“Hope not.” I smiled.
“So how about you?” he asked. “What’s your ER history?”
“Well,” I said slowly, remembering. “Just twice. When I was nine, I broke my arm. I fell on a neighbor’s brick steps. The neighbor took me home—I was screaming and crying. My mother was three sheets to the wind and she said, ‘Oh, she’s okay. She’ll be fine.’ And the neighbor said I should be taken to the ER and my mother said she could take me if she was so worried about me.”
“You’re kidding.”
“I wish. So the neighbor took me and they set my arm, and then they sent protective services out to my house the next day, but my mother explained the situation away, and that was that.”
Oliver shook his head. “I don’t understand parents like that,” he said.
“Neither do I.” I looked across the waiting room without really seeing anything. “That’s one of the reasons I was so hooked on Trey,” I said. “His family. I loved them. They were normal.” I shook my head at how pathetic that must sound. “They were very kind and loving. I hated losing them.”
“Do they know their son lied about driving the night of the accident?” Oliver asked.
I loved hearing those words from his mouth. I loved that he’d believed me about Trey driving. He was the only person who did.
“His parents were really … compassionate to me after the accident,” I said. His father had said, “Anyone can make a mistake,” to me as I sat numbly in their living room two days after it happened, the stitches on my forehead burning. “It’s what you do about that mistake that matters.”
“Eventually, though, I started telling the truth,” I said. “That their son had been driving. And of course, like everybody else, they thought I was lying.” I’d lost them then. Lost their sympathy. Their love. I lost my place in their hearts, which I’d believed to be so secure. “I’ll never know if they actually believed Trey over me,” I said. “They acted as though they did. I guess they had to. He was their son, and I was not their daughter, much as I wanted to be. I’d become a liability.”
Oliver’s hands rested on my shins, and he squeezed my left leg through my jeans. “I’m sorry,” he said. Then, “So I guess that was your other time in the ER? The accident?”
I hesitated. “Yes,” I said.
“You told me you weren’t injured.”
“Just a scratch.” I lifted my bangs to show him the scar. “Five stitches. I got off easy,” I said. “But I’d rather not talk about it.”
“Gotcha,” he said.
We waited another ten minutes in silence before we were finally called back to the treatment area and set up in a curtained cubicle. Oliver stayed there while I was wheeled down the hall for X-rays. When I returned to the cubicle, I was transferred to the examining table while he sat in a chair next to me. A nurse gave me a pill for the pain. We had another long wait, and I became aware of something dire happening in the cubicle next to mine. Doctors and nurses rushed back and forth. Female yelps of pain pierced the air. The sounds took me back to the accident. They took me back to Emily Maxwell’s broken body. I pictured a twisted, ruined, bloody body on the other side of the curtain next to me, and I pressed my hands over my ears.
“I think I’m going to be sick,” I said. I was shaking convulsively.
Oliver found a basin and a blanket. He spread the blanket over me and put the basin on my lap.
“You are a little green,” he said.
“I can’t stop shaking,” I said, my hands on my thighs now.
“It’s probably from the medication they gave you.”
I shook my head. I knew what was freaking me out. I wished we were in a different cubicle, and I wished they could help that poor woman who was in agony on the other side of the curtain.
“I just need to know how the girl we hurt is doing,” I blurted out, surprising myself. I looked at Oliver.
His eyes were serious behind his glasses. “There must be a way to find out,” he said.
“I’m sort of afraid to.”
“But it sounds like you can’t really rest easy until you know. You said you can’t find her online?”
I shook my head. “She’s not on social media,” I said. “Or maybe she is and keeps it all private. Or maybe she’s in such bad shape, social media is the last thing on her mind. Or maybe she has no mind. Maybe she ended up with brain damage.” I squeezed my trembling hands together. “I know she was paralyzed, but who knows what else is wrong with her?” I said. “When I Google her name, I just get the newspaper report of the accident. That’s it.”
He pressed his lips together as I rambled on, sympathy in his face. Then he reached over and wrapped his hand around both of mine where they were locked together on my lap next to the basin. “I’m so sorry, Morgan,” he said.
I looked at him. “Do you know about the ninth step in AA?” I asked.
He hesitated. “Something about forgiveness?”
“Not exactly. It’s about making amends.” I shuddered. “I think about it a lot, but I don’t think I could do it. I don’t think I could ever face her.”
Oliver let go of my hands as the doctor interrupted us, pulling open the curtain to my cubicle. She greeted us with a smile. “Good news,” she said. “No break. Just a grade one sprain. The nurse will be in with a compression bandage and walking boot for you. Ice it. Keep it elevated. Should be good as new in a week or two. I’ll write a prescription for the pain.”