of them could explain, they broke beer bottles and tried it.
When the glass hit their skin, they woke up from their madness.
“You will see my mother NOW!”
Mrs. Collins stood next to Brady and her mother at the admission desk. Mrs. Keizer was passed out in a wheelchair. Mrs. Collins looked deathly ill herself. Her forehead glistened with sweat, but she refused to take off her fur coat or jewelry. She scratched her neck under her necklace as she continued to berate Nurse Tammy.
“Look up there,” Mrs. Collins hissed. “You see what that sign above the door says? It says COLLINS EMERGENCY CARE WING. I’m Collins. So, if you don’t get my mother a bed right now, guess what that sign will read tomorrow? LEASE AVAILABLE.”
Christopher’s mother didn’t think Mrs. Collins understood what was happening around her. Her mind wandered to Marie Antoinette right after her “cake diet” failed to poll well. A couple of bigger guys stood up. They walked toward Mrs. Collins. Some of the older people quickly took their chairs.
“Why don’t you wait your turn, lady?” one of the men said to Mrs. Collins.
Mrs. Collins turned her head and glared at the men fearlessly.
“Why don’t you build your own fucking hospital?” she said.
A murmur shot through the room. No one knew what would happen next.
Christopher’s mother saw their anger spread like an echo. For a moment, she wondered if echoes ever really died out, or if they just became impossible to hear. Like a dog whistle. Always there. Always around us. Forever.
“Bitches like you make me sick—” the man said.
Mrs. Collins’ son Brady walked right up to the men. He was a third of their size, but he was fearless in his rage.
“Leave my mother alone!” he said.
Brady’s presence quieted the room down enough for the security guards to get the Collins family away from the angry mob and into a nice, clean hospital room. With no Collins family to focus on, the group turned their anger back on each other. The angry men returned to their seats and ordered the old people out of them. Including the women. The old women found space on the floor and stared at the young women with their sick children. Openly judging them. Saying how they should have taken better care of their kids. The young women shot back.
“Don’t tell me how to raise my kids.”
“Don’t talk to my wife that way.”
“You better sit down, or I’ll make you sit down.”
“Turn that TV up.”
“No, turn it down. I’m tired of that shit about the Middle East.”
“Watch your mouth in front of the children.”
“Make me, old man.”
The whole room was becoming as angry as Jerry.
The ambulance pulled up and the EMTs raced in with a man whose wife had stabbed him through the throat with a kitchen knife. She had dressed his wounds with the curtains from their kitchen and waited to call the authorities. His legs kicked wildly. Christopher’s mother backed away as she shielded her son from the horrific image. He was still feverish, muttering to himself.
“She’s here. What? Okay.”
“Hold on, Christopher,” she whispered. “I’ll get you to a doctor. I promise.”
She stood in the corner, so she could see if anyone came at them. She held her son in her arms, waiting for a chair. She refused to feel sorry for herself.
Sorry doesn’t survive. People do.
So, instead, she counted her blessings because right now, blessings were all she had. She looked up at the TV and was grateful that she was not in a refugee camp in the Middle East. Those people would have given everything they had just to be stuck in this emergency room for ten hours with vending machines full of food.
To them, it must have seemed like the world was coming to an end.
Chapter 58
Daddy.
When the phone rang, the sheriff didn’t know when he had fallen asleep again. That had been happening ever since he left the Mission Street Woods. He had passed the Collins Construction site, then driven back to the station. He traded in his black-and-white cruiser for his Ford pickup the way Mr. Rogers would trade loafers for tennis shoes when he got home.
But the sheriff didn’t go home.
He could barely keep his eyes open, but the sheriff forced himself to bring the old tools they found in the Mission Street Woods to his friend Carl downtown. The sheriff knew that he could have left the job to a deputy, but something told him that he needed to deliver those tools immediately.