afternoon,” he called.
Mother made an impatient gesture and then caught sight of Julia. “Oh, thank goodness. Here, my daughter is a nurse. Tell her what’s going on.” She shoved the phone at Julia, who grabbed it.
“Who’s sick?” she hissed.
“Your great aunt Elva and uncle Paul.”
Julia winced. Aunt Elva and Uncle Paul were her favorite relatives. “Hello?” Unfortunately, she was speaking to a hospital social worker. Her aunt and uncle had been driving along minding their own business when a truck plowed into their sedate sedan. Aunt Elva had bruised ribs and a broken arm, needing pins put in to stabilize the fracture. Uncle Paul had a broken leg but wouldn’t require surgery as long as he kept off his feet. “No head injuries or broken hips, pelvises, nothing like that?”
The social worker assured her that wasn’t the case and Julia quickly explained to her mom and dad. Broken hips and pelvises were almost a death sentence for the elderly, few recovering well from that injury.
Julia made a few notes on the paper that her mother shoved at her. They were in a hospital in the Boston suburbs, one with a good reputation for patching people up. She told the social worker someone would be there in a couple days when they were released and got the direct number for their hospital rooms to call later. She hung up. “So when are we going?”
Dad looked up from the laptop, peering over his half-moon reading glasses. “We can get a flight out tomorrow morning and be in Boston in under five hours.” Thanks to the large Azorean community in Boston, direct flights were pretty frequent, by Azorean standards.
Her mother twisted her hands together. “But what will we do about Julia?”
“What do you mean? You don’t need to do anything about me. I’m coming with you. Aunt Elva and Uncle Paul won’t stay in the hospital for very long. When they go home, they’ll need nursing care, and I am a nurse. A nurse practitioner, even.”
Her dad shook his head. “They need somebody who can help them up and down to the bathroom, move them around in bed. Basic nursing assistant skills. Brute strength that you don’t have. You fall over if you stand up too fast.”
“Dad!” He had all the tact of a bull from one of the local ranches.
As usual, her mother stepped in to smooth Dad’s bluntness. “I know you would do anything to help, but Julia, honey, you’re not strong enough right now.”
Great. Her parents thought she was as much an invalid as her poor aunt and uncle. At least she could make it to the bathroom on her own.
“We want you to come back with us,” her mother continued. “You can sleep on the pullout couch at their apartment.”
Julia winced. Aunt Elva and Uncle Paul had a modest two-bedroom apartment, big enough for them, but a tight squeeze for five adults plus whatever nursing staff they needed.
Her dad raised his eyebrows. “Come on, Evelyn, you know we’re going to be packed in like sardines, anyway. And what is Julia going to do all day with us old folks? Watch game shows and soap operas?”
No need to watch soap operas, her life had been one for quite a while.
“We can get you set up at your condo, and then you can come spend the day with us!” her mother exclaimed with a sudden bright idea.
Julia caught Dad’s sympathetic gaze. He knew she would be climbing the walls within a few days. At least it was spring in Boston, although mid-April was a toss-up with the real possibility of snow. “No,” she said impulsively, “I’ll stay here.”
“What? No, you can’t,” Mother protested. “By yourself?”
It sounded better the longer she thought about it. Go back to gray, cloudy Boston, bundle up in her down parka and stagger around in the slush or stay here in the sunny green Azores and eat fresh oranges from the trees? “I’m doing much better.” Julia ticked off the points on her fingers. “I haven’t had a bad headache in the past week, I’m not dizzy very often, and Senhor de Sousa can help with anything I may need. He would do that anyway.”
“Oh…” Mother fretted. “I would worry so, with you so far away.”
Dad unexpectedly came to her rescue. “Evelyn, we’d be only four hours away by plane. The girl is getting stronger and we can’t be hovering over her like a helicopter. She’d be more likely to have a nervous breakdown than a relapse