Positively Pippa

by Sarah Hegger

  “We can’t think like that.” Pippa wrapped her arm around her mother’s shoulders. “We just can’t.”

  Her mother took a deep breath and gently pulled away. “You’re right. We need to stay positive, focus on the moment.” She sat up straighter, and glared at the nurses’ station. “Surely they can give us some information.”

  Her mother got up and stalked over to the nurses’ station, elegant and contained, but every inch of her shrieking intent. She had inherited that from Phi. Emily conferred with the nurse behind the computer and came back again. “They say we should have news soon. The nurse says she’s stable for now.”

  Pippa’s breath whooshed out of her in relief. Stable was good, right?

  Matt returned with a tray of coffee and handed them out. “Any news?”

  “She’s stable.” Her mother took her coffee. She accepted two milks and two packets of sugar and upended them into her cup.

  Pippa blinked at her. She’d never seen Emily have her coffee anything but black.

  “Mrs. Turner?” A young doctor entered the waiting area.

  Pippa started so violently, hot coffee splashed over her hand.

  Matt took the cup from her and wiped the hot liquid away with a napkin. He touched a finger to her cheek. “Easy, sweetheart.”

  “I’m Mrs. Turner.” Her mother stepped forward.

  “Your mother is stable and resting,” he said. He looked so young, too young to have to make the sort of life-and-death decisions that fell on his shoulders. “We think she had a minor stroke, but we’ll know more once we’ve run more tests.”

  Stroke! The word clattered around Pippa’s brain.

  Matt eased the coffee cup out of her shaking hand.

  “Can I see her?” her mother asked. Thank God one of them was functioning.

  The doctor nodded. “We’ve sedated her for the moment. But you can go and see her.”

  Her mother turned and held out her hand to Pippa. “Come, darling. Let’s go and see your grandmother.”

  Like she was six years old, Pippa took her mother’s hand and trailed her down the passage in the doctor’s wake. “She’s in very good shape for her age,” the doctor said. He frowned and looked down at his chart. “It says here that she’s sixty-eight but . . .”

  “She’s seventy-eight,” Pippa said.

  Her mother squeezed her hand and turned her charming smile at the doctor. “You will find, Doctor, that my mother is whatever age she says she is.”

  The doctor led them into a room three down from the nurses’ station.

  Pippa stared at the frail figure in the bed. That couldn’t be Phi, lying there under those hospital blue sheets with tubes and wires springing out of her and hooked into various machines.

  The suck and hiss of a ventilator cut the quiet of the room, combined with the muted beep from a heart monitor.

  “Is this all necessary?” Pippa asked.

  The doctor pulled an apologetic face. “Given her age, we thought it wise to monitor her closely for the next twenty-four hours.”

  The first twenty-four hours, the most critical. Pippa ran the numbers in her head. How far into that twenty-four was Phi?

  She and her mother approached the bed, their hands growing slick where they gripped.

  “Hi, Mom.” Her mother dropped Pippa’s hand and cradled Phi’s unresponsive one, careful of the drip attached to the back of it. The veins on Phi’s hand stood out blue and strident against her parchment-pale skin. “I’m here and Pippa is with me.”

  The ventilator pump sucked in more air, held it, and released. A drip hung suspended on an iron pole beside the bed. Pippa squinted at the label and then gave up. She wouldn’t know what the hell they were giving Phi anyway.

  “You gave us a horrible fright,” her mother said. “But the doctor says you’re doing much better and Pippa and I are here.”

  Pippa slipped to the other side of Phi and touched her arm lying above the covers. Phi’s makeup was smeared down her face. Someone had attempted to wipe it off and done a piss-poor job of it. Pippa dug out a pack of facial wipes from her purse. Her mother motioned for a second one, and together they carefully removed the streaks of black-and-pink glitter from Phi’s cheeks and under her eyes.

  Phi looked vulnerable, fragile, and every one of her years when they were done, but it was better than the macabre smears from before.

  “She needs one of her crazy nightgowns,” her mother said. “She will be mad as hell if she wakes up in this hospital gown.”

  Pippa choked on a half sob, half laugh. “She says blue makes her look sallow.”

  “She’s right.” Her mother smoothed back the hair from Phi’s forehead. “Stubborn old broad.”

  They stayed until the sounds of the shift changing made Pippa aware it was night outside. Her mother spoke to the doctor again.

  Matt was still waiting for her, his elbows resting on his knees, a full cup of coffee in his hands. He stood when she came in. Some of the dull dread in Pippa’s middle unraveled. “How is she?”

  Pippa told him what the doctor had said.

  Her mother came back into the waiting room. “Matt, I want you to take Pippa home.”

  Say what? Pippa rounded to argue with her mother. She wanted to be here, near to Phi.

  “I’m going to spend the night,” her mother said. “Go home, get some rest. In the morning put some things together for her and bring them back when you come.”

  “I—”

  “There’s nothing you can do.” Her mother cupped her cheek, her face soft and understanding. “I know you want to stay, but I’ll be here and I’ll call if anything changes. This could be a long wait, darling. I might need you later. You heard the doctor, she’s sedated and she’s going to need all our strength when she wakes.” She turned back to Matt. “Make sure she eats something.”

  “I’ll be back soon.” Pippa didn’t care what her mother said, she was not staying away long.

  Her mother gave her a wan smile. “I know you will. Go and see to the house. June will want to know how she is. Then come back.”

  She left the waiting room.

  “I don’t want to go.” Pippa resisted the gentle pressure Matt put on her arm.

  “Sweetheart.” Matt turned her to face him. “She needs this. Your mother needs this and she is Phi’s daughter.”

  “But they’re not close.”

  Matt’s eyes warmed. “Exactly. Your mother needs to do this, and you need to let her.”

  It made a weird sort of sense. Pippa glared at him as the battle waged inside her. She was Phi’s “special girl,” Phi was sick and she needed to be here. Then again, that was what she needed. What would Phi need?

  Her daughter. The answer rang as clear as a bell in her mind. Phi had come back to Ghost Falls on her retirement to rebuild the bridges she’d shattered over the course of her career.

  “I am coming back first thing in the morning,” she said to Matt.

  A slow, sweet smile spread over his beautiful face. “Of course you are, and I’m going to bring you.”

  “You don’t have to do that.” Pippa said the words, but her heart wasn’t in them. Having him with her was like a rock in a wild sea. Part of her wanted to cling like a barnacle.

  “Babe.” He pulled her in close. “Where the fuck else would I be?”

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Pippa ended the call, and wiped her clammy hands on her thighs. She’d either made the biggest mistake or the best decision of her life. Isn’t this where she was supposed to feel all peaceful and resolved? How did she do that when the two parts of her were tearing her in half? The job with Chris had been her dream job, everything she’d worked so hard to achieve, but her family needed her here and for the first time in her life she needed to put them first. All night long the same question had been hammering through her brain. What if next time something like this happened, she wasn’t here?

  Outside her bedroom window, horses hung out in the pasture cropping gra
ss. God, it must be nice to be like that. Someone to feed you, make decisions for you.

  Chris Germaine had listened and said very little as Pippa explained why she needed to stay here in Ghost Falls for the indeterminate future. Accepted her decision not to go forward with quiet understanding.

  Pippa needed to get some clothes on her ass. Matt would be here any minute to take her to the hospital. How much of a part had he played in her decision? Stupid to be even thinking that way, when they’d agreed to call it quits. But if she stayed, would things be different?

  Fuck, can anyone say “Pippa is Pathetic”? Don’t all yell at once, now.

  Surprisingly, it was her mother who had pushed her decision into the end zone. Seeing her mother at the hospital, so desperate to make a connection with Phi, had been the clincher. Emily had lived two minutes away from Phi for years and failed to heal the breach between them. It had taken Phi’s brush with death to make her realize time wasn’t limitless. You couldn’t live your life like you had another one tucked away in the pantry.

  Maybe the Ray thing did have a silver lining. It had forced her back to Ghost Falls long enough to see what she’d been glancing past for years. She didn’t have a relationship with her sister. She and Laura shared a fight cage, and they were getting too old to carry on like this. Pippa didn’t have any huge hopes for a Hallmark moment with Laura. She couldn’t see them falling into each other’s arms and weeping away the scar tissue. She still had to try to find something better than what they had. Build real connections with Daisy and Sam that weren’t based on glamour or expensive gifts.

  Her job had paid well and she had enough money saved to sit still for a while and plan the next step of her life. And Phi, wonderful, crazy, infuriating diva that she was. Phi was getting old, there might not be that many years left for them.

  Pippa dragged on a pair of jeans. Her clothes perfectionist kicked in and steered her away from a T-shirt and into a draped silk jersey top. She slipped her feet into a pair of heeled sandals. Then changed her mind and went with flats. She didn’t have enough experience with hospitals to know what worked best. Why did she care about her shoes, again? Because she didn’t want to dwell on the decision she’d just made.

  “Hey.” Matt stood in her doorway. “June let me in. You ready to go?”

  The pressure in her chest eased up. Matt had that effect on her. He walked into a room and her shoulders felt lighter. She nodded and grabbed her purse.

  “We’re taking June to the hospital with us,” Matt said as he followed her down the stairs.

  Pippa nodded. June must be going out of her mind right about now.

  Matt caught her arm and stopped her. He turned her to look at him. His topaz eyes stripping right past her defenses. “What’s going on?”

  She hadn’t sorted it out in her head, yet. “I’m worried about Phi.”

  “I know that.” Matt frowned and studied her. “I get the feeling it’s something else though.”

  “It’s nothing.” Telling him would make it more real. Also, she wasn’t sure how he would react to the news she was staying in Ghost Falls. With the Phi thing, she couldn’t take another blow to the gut. The idea that Matt might panic, or be freaked out by her staying, was one she couldn’t get her head around right now. Maybe later. Or maybe never.

  The ride to the hospital was largely silent. June asked a few questions, which Pippa answered. She stared out the window to avoid the way Matt kept glancing at her.

  At June’s insistence, they brought a small packed lunch for Emily, and Pippa brought her mother a change of tops.

  They found Emily sitting beside Phi in her room. The nurses didn’t want too many people in the room, so Pippa said hello to her mother, greeted Phi, and let June have her moment.

  Matt was on the phone in the waiting area. “Okay, well, keep trying,” he said, and hung up. “Still can’t find Laura. Patrick wasn’t much help. He thought she was with Phi.”

  Weird. You could set your watch by Laura. Where the hell could her sister be?

  June entered the waiting area, sobbing softly in her hands.

  “Why don’t you go and see Phi,” Emily said to Matt as she hugged June’s frail frame.

  Matt nodded and left them alone.

  “She doesn’t look like the Diva.” Out of her pocket June produced a crumpled Kleenex and blew her nose. “But she looks peaceful.”

  “I brought her stuff.” Pippa held up the bag in her hand. “As soon as she wakes up, we’ll repair her a little.”

  “I knew she was upset about the tiara.” June wiped away tears and more crept down her cheeks. “I shouldn’t have left her alone.”

  “You were only in her bathroom.” Pippa would never understand the bond between these two women. Maybe because she’d never taken the time to form those sorts of bonds for herself. When her life had collapsed, Pippa had no June to lean on. No June, just a desperate trip home to Phi. Another point on her list for staying in Ghost Falls.

  “But I knew she was upset.” June’s shoulders heaved up and down in a huge sigh.

  “She gets upset a lot,” Pippa said. “You know what she’s like. It’s hard to tell sometimes when she’s really pissed or just doing Carmen.”

  “Ain’t that the truth.” June tucked her soggy Kleenex back into her pocket. “When Matt comes back, I’ll ask him to take me back to the Folly. When she comes home, the Diva is going to expect everything to be perfect. I can do that for her.”

  Matt came back shortly after. He pulled Pippa straight into his arms. “She’s going to be fine, babe.”

  Pippa leaned into the spicy, warm heat of him and let it enfold her. For a minute, she let herself be there and be comforted. They might not be an “it,” but Matt was a good guy. The sort a girl wanted by her side in a crisis. In happy times, he wouldn’t be bad either. But you couldn’t rely on the happy times. They didn’t amount to anything when a man decided being part of a family wasn’t for him.

  “I’ll take June home,” Matt murmured against her temple. “I need to check on a couple of things, and then I’ll be back.”

  “Okay.” What the hell was the point in even making a token protest when she wanted him here for as long as he would stay? How long would that be?

  Pippa walked into Phi’s room. The shock of seeing Phi like this had lessened enough to make breathing a bit easier. She passed her mother a bottle of water and a sandwich. “If I have to eat, so do you.”

  Emily managed a wan smile. “I’m not sure I can eat.”

  “Try.” Pippa pressed the sandwich back. “Any more news?”

  Emily nodded. “They ran a brain scan, now they’re not sure it even was a stroke. They’re thinking it might have been some sort of seizure.”

  “That’s good news, right?”

  “Yes.” Her mother’s lips quivered and she pressed them tightly together and cleared her throat. “Have you spoken to Laura?”

  “Not yet.” Laura’s cell was turned off too. Another anomaly for Power Mommy. Okay, staying in Ghost Falls was not enough to mend the gap. She would actually have to put some more effort into getting over her shit with her sister if she expected this to work. “Do you have any idea where she could be?”

  Emily nibbled at her sandwich. “She does this from time to time.”

  “She does?”

  “The pressure of being a mother, and all her committees and charities, gets a bit much sometimes. I think she goes to a spa in the new casino.” Emily wrapped up the sandwich with barely a bite taken out of one corner. “Which reminds me, I need to make some calls and tell people where I am.”

  “I can do that for you.”

  “No.” Her mother stood and tweaked her jeans straight. “People will only worry if they don’t hear from me.” She put her purse on her shoulder and strode for the door. “You will stay, won’t you? I can rely on you?”

  Pippa nodded. Baby steps.

  Phi had more color in her face since Pippa had left. She looked peaceful,
as if she was only sleeping. A beam of sun streamed through the window and cast an oblong patch of warmth across the bottom of the bed.

  “Mom’s stepped out to make some phone calls.” It felt a little stupid to be talking to an inanimate Phi. This is what you were supposed to do in these circumstances, right? Keep talking, making a connection with your loved one. “Laura will be here soon.”

  Laura wouldn’t stay gone for much longer. Supermom—

  Stop it.

  Laura’s love for her children would bring her back soon.

  A nurse came in and checked the monitors. She smiled kindly at Pippa. “We’re going to take her off the ventilator now, if you’d like to step outside.”

  Pippa got up, her legs creaky underneath her, and left the room.

  Her mother was in the waiting area, speaking into the phone and making a list. Funny, she got that from her mom. Phi had never made a list in her life. Not one she’d glanced at after it was made, anyway.

  Emily ended her call and looked up.

  “They’re taking Phi off the ventilator.”

  “Ah.” Emily turned the page in her book and ticked something off. “The doctor said they would do that, as soon as they were sure she was breathing for herself. While I was waiting for you, I made notes of all the things he told me.”

  Pippa took the seat next to her mom and peered over her shoulder at the list. “I make lists too.”

  “Do you?” Emily raised her brows.

  “Oh, yes.” Pippa dug in her bag and pulled out her iPad. “Only I do them electronically.” She tapped an icon and pulled it up. “See, and it interfaces with my contacts and calendar.”

  Emily took the iPad from her and studied it. “Really?”

  Look at them, bonding over software for the terminally anal. Pippa bit back a grin. “I use the reminder feature a lot.” Pippa showed her mother.

  “Well.” Mom glanced down at her notebook. “It seems I am horribly behind the times.”

  “It’s the list that matters,” Pippa said.

  “Yes, it is.” Mom smiled at her. A soft light shone in her mother’s eyes, tender and hopeful. “Do you think you perhaps get that from me?”