“Hang on,” I mutter, swiping my finger across the screen. “This is so weird. It’s my mom’s friend.”
I pull up the text messages and almost drop my phone in the hot tub when I read Mrs. Tokushige’s text.
Your mom was rushed to the hospital. Please call me as soon as you can.
A shriek lodges in my throat. Callum clasps my hand. When I look at him, the inky, enlarged pupils of his eyes read sheer panic. “What’s wrong? What is it?”
But I can’t talk. I can only cry and scramble clumsily out of the tub, grabbing at my clothes. I drop the phone in his hand and watch all the color drain from him when he reads the text. And then I feel his steady touch on my arm. He speaks. But all I can do is cry and hope to God he’s telling the truth, that it’s not just empty words to make me feel better, like I suspect.
“It’s going to be okay.”
Chapter 16
Callum leads me through a long white corridor with his massive hand pressed on my back. I’ve lost count already of how many of these sterile tunnels we’ve walked through since arriving at Maui Memorial Medical Center minutes ago. The same ball of despair and nerves that hit when I would visit my dad as a patient here takes hold. We pass the corner where he lost consciousness while being wheeled to a nearby exam room for an MRI. That was a month before he passed, when he was so weak that walking was almost too much for him most days.
My heart thuds, my head spins, my palms sweat. Just the thought of Mom being here makes me want to puke. This cannot be happening.
We make it to a random waiting room with green chairs, and I spot Mrs. Tokushige sitting in the corner. She stands as soon as she sees me.
“Oh, my dear,” she croons while pulling me into a hug.
I fought the lump in my throat the entire drive here, and I don’t have the strength anymore. When I speak, my voice finally breaks. “What happened?”
She wipes a tear from my face with the folded-up tissue in her hand. “I’m not sure, dear. We were all cleaning up in the kitchen, and all of a sudden your mom fainted. We couldn’t wake her up, so we called 911. She thankfully came to before the paramedics arrived, but then she had trouble breathing.”
“Is she all right? Can I see her?” My head spins with a million more questions, but I swallow the rest of them back.
Mrs. Tokushige nods, her topknot shaking with the movement of her head. “She’s in room 547 at the end of the hall.”
Her gaze floats to Callum, who stands behind my shoulder, but she says nothing.
Callum turns to me. “You go ahead,” he says. “I’ll wait here for you.”
He moves to stand next to Mrs. Tokushige, who nods at me. “The doctor should be in there with her still,” she says.
When I walk in the room, I have to cling onto the doorframe to keep from collapsing. She rests on the bed, eyes closed, her chest rising and falling with each labored breath. Under the harsh fluorescent lights her tawny skin appears sallow. I swallow back a sob and walk over to her bed. Other than a few minor ailments detected at her annual doctor checkups, she’s never once had a health scare. The last time she checked into a hospital was nearly thirty years ago when she gave birth to me. By all accounts she’s an active and healthy sixty-something woman.
Through blurry eyes, I try to focus, but tears rush my waterlines. What she was before today doesn’t matter. Because right now she’s barely conscious, lying in a hospital bed, looking like the most helpless creature I’ve ever seen. And I need to accept it.
A young woman in green scrubs and a white coat stands next to her, reading over a chart before looking at her IV. She glances up. “You must be Mrs. DiMarco’s daughter.”
I wipe my face with my hand, nod, then walk over to her bedside. I scoop her hand in mine.
“I’m Dr. Alma, the physician on call.”
I shake her hand with my free hand and introduce myself.
“Your mom is a little woozy from her fall, so she’s resting right now. Do you want to step outside and we can talk while she gets some rest?”