anyone here to see her home.”
“Good thinking,” I said to him, my heart softening a little. “Ella,” I said her name softly. “We need to get you back to your house.”
“Don’t tell Mom.” She reeked. Of course Marta needed to know, but there was no reason to tell Ella that now.
“I’m parked over here.”
As the three of us made our way toward my car, several of the girls I’d seen earlier called out Ezra’s name. “Come on,” one of them said. “We’re not drunk like your little friend. You can still have some fun tonight.” Several of them giggled.
Ezra didn’t respond but kept his arm tightly around Ella’s shoulder. When we reached my car, he opened the door and helped Ella inside. “I’ll follow behind you,” he said.
“No,” I said, annoyed. “Wait until you’re okay to drive.”
“I only had one beer,” he said. “Hours ago.”
I tilted my head. “Well, you can’t come in the house.”
He nodded. “I just want to make sure you get her safely home.”
As I left the field and bumped back onto the main road, Ella muttered that she was sorry. “I don’t know what happened.” Her words were slurred.
I didn’t answer. In a minute a single headlight was behind me as we jolted up the rutted road. By the time I reached the highway, Ella was saying she didn’t feel well. I pulled over to the side of the road and Ezra stopped behind me.
As Ella staggered to the bushes with his help, I debated taking her into the ER. I had no idea if Marta had medical insurance. Probably not, but alcohol poisoning was nothing to mess with. It was a good thing she was throwing up, but she still might need her stomach pumped.
I looked off to the houses to my left. One of them was Sean’s. He’d worked late tonight. He was still at the hospital at eleven when he’d last texted me. I pulled out my phone and flipped it open to my keyboard. Are you home? Awake?
He answered immediately. Yes & Yes. What’s up?
I explained the situation.
Bring her by, he wrote back. An OB doc and nurse-midwife should be able to figure this out, right?
Thx. Her Amish boyfriend’s coming too. I winced at my words.
For the first time since I’d met Ezra, he seemed hesitant as he and I, practically holding our noses, dragged Ella up to Sean’s porch. He had the door wide open before we arrived and guided us down the hall to the bathroom. He looked awfully alert for having worked twenty hours straight. “I’ve actually had more experience with this than I should admit,” he said. “Undergrad school. But like any good doctor, I decided not to just rely on personal experience, so I googled it. How much do you think she had to drink?” he asked Ezra.
“I’ve seen a lot worse,” he said. “It wasn’t that much, not really. But it hit her fast and hard.”
We got her to the bathroom, and she sat down on the toilet lid.
Sean took a look at her eyes and asked her if she’d rather go to the hospital. She shook her head adamantly and then began to cry. “I’m sorry,” she said again.
“Why don’t I get her cleaned up?” I said. “Do you have an old pair of sweatpants she could borrow? And a T-shirt. Then we can decide.”
Helping a drunk undress was never fun, but taking care of Ella was much more bearable than my previous experience when I volunteered at a detox center for community service hours in college. Regardless, I loved her. The emotion didn’t totally surprise me, but pulling her socks off her sweaty feet at one in the morning as I held my breath confirmed my feelings of endearment for her. I had never felt the part of the big sister—as much as I had longed to—but tonight I did.
As I helped Ella into the warm tub, there was a knock on the door and I opened it a crack. Sean passed through a small stack of clothes without speaking: a pair of sweats, a T-shirt, and sweatshirt, all neatly folded, all smelling freshly laundered with a hint of his cologne. I thanked him and then held them to my nose for just a moment.
By the time Ella was out of the bath, her long hair combed out, she was feeling better, though completely embarrassed. “I can’t face them,” she said. “Can’t we just run to your car and go home?”
I shook my head.
“Ezra