Page 84 of Life, Love, and Other Messes

The woman behind the desk said nothing and took her sweet time, typing for a moment, staring at her computer, typing again. I was about to spell it for her when she finally gave me a room number and directions to the ICU.

My breath was catching in my throat again, and I promised myself I wouldn’t cry. Dad wouldn’t get it and Kevin wouldn’t get it and I’d feel absolutely stupid. I was tougher than that. I’d had to be throughout my life and it wasn’t fair that I was having trouble now.

On the unit, nurses were running around, muttering to one another, laughing about things. There was more garland. A fake Christmas tree stood across from the elevators, covered in little stockings with names glitter-glued on them. The door to room C132 was closed. I knocked gently, not sure what I’d be interrupting. Did I need to be quiet if Mom was unresponsive? What was the use?

My brother answered the door. “Hey, you. Is Lisa here?”

I stared at him. I hadn’t told him about our brief breakup, but even if we’d been together the whole time I didn’t know if we were there yet. We’d only been together for a couple of months. “No. May I?” I nudged past him and shut the door behind myself.

The room was small and dim; the lights were turned off and a sickly glow came through the window from the LED in the parking lot below. The monitor next to my mother’s bed glowed blue. Mom was lying propped up part of the way, eyes closed, a bandage around her head and all kinds of tubes and wires coming out of her. I tried not to wince, but I’m sure I failed miserably. I nodded at Kevin, trying to keep it together. “Thank you for getting back to me.”

Dad was sitting by the bedside, his chair cocked back, as if he’d been there for so long he was no longer shocked by the situation. “He was in jail.”

Kevin’s jaw tightened. “I was not in jail, Dad.”

“Well, he was at the jail,” Dad said evenly.

I stared between them. “What is going on?”

Kevin offered me a chair and leaned against the windowsill. “What do you know?”

“Nothing! I know nothing. I know that she fell and hit her head and here we are.”

“She left to go to church,” Dad said. “And slipped on the walk.”

“We didn’t realize anything had happened until like twenty minutes later, when I saw her car was still in the drive,” Kevin said. He sounded a lot more tense than Dad. “We found her and called an ambulance.”

“And the cops picked him up,” Dad finished.

“Dad.” Kevin closed his eyes. “Dad.”

“Well, they did.”

I couldn’t tell if he was upset or amused or what. He wasn’t looking at Kevin, but that didn’t mean anything. “Why the hell were you at the jail?”

Kevin sighed. “We got in a big fight before everything…” He made a vague gesture with his hand, sort of toward Mom, who lay there, stock-still, silent except for the beeping of machines. “Apparently the neighbors heard this, because they told the cops we were yelling at one another and they assumed I clocked her over the head.”

“Jesus Christ on a bike. So they took you into custody.”

“They did. Four hours in an interrogation room until they got video from the Lyon’s security camera and found the rock where she’d hit her head.”

“One of the rocks along the walk?” I asked.

“Yep,” Dad said. He was still not looking at us. “One of those damned rocks she made me put in.”

I was thankful that it sounded like the police inquest was over. I didn’t want to talk to anyone at all let alone the cops. “So what is going on here?”

Dad held out his hand toward Mom. “Well, this, pretty much.”

“Has she been awake at all since it happened?”

“Not since we’ve seen her, no,” Kevin said.

“Have you called anyone else?”

“Ava, Joyce, and Harriet,” Dad said, mom’s sisters. “I suppose we need to call Pastor Hardeman in the morning.”

Kevin’s eyebrows jumped. “I suppose.”