by Marci Bolden
She recognized that a great deal of her low tolerance was the stress of Doreen’s increased delusions, but his demands didn’t sit well with her. Reminding herself to be calm, Carrie tore the Donnie-approved grocery list free from the notepad, unlocked the drawer where she kept the inn’s checkbook and her car keys, and dropped them into her purse.
She expected to find Doreen in the den watching the movie she’d been glued to when Donnie had come in. The den was empty, but the television was still on. Grabbing the remote, Carrie turned the cooking show off and headed toward the kitchen, checking to make sure Mama wasn’t in the half bath on her way.
Finding the kitchen abandoned as well, Carrie looked through the back window. She decided the woman wasn’t outside on the patio, nor was she on the front porch swing when Carrie checked there. Heading up the stairs, Carrie made it to the landing before she found Doreen looking out the window.
“Mama?”
When Doreen didn’t respond, Carrie put her hand on her shoulder.
“No.” Doreen shook her off.
Startled by the outburst, Carrie pulled her hand back. She hated when Doreen got agitated; that was the most difficult part of dealing with this disease. The anger came from nowhere and usually for no reason and disappeared as quickly as it had appeared.
“What are you looking at?” Carrie asked softly, hoping to ease her bad mood.
“Go away.”
“I need to go to the store. I’d like you to come with me. Mama?”
When Doreen responded by muttering under her breath as she continued to stare out the window, Carrie rolled her head back and looked at the ceiling. Not now, she silently begged. Please, not right now.
Carrie put a gentle smile on her face and tried again. “Mama, we have errands to run. Come with me, and we’ll stop for lunch on the way back. Anywhere you want.” Still receiving no response, Carrie reached for the curtain to pull it open so she could see what had the woman so intrigued.
Carrie jumped back when Doreen grabbed her wrist and jerked her hand away. “Mama,” she squealed as the woman lifted her hand, preparing to swat her if she tried to touch the curtain again. “Stop that!”
“Where’s Mike?” Mama demanded before Carrie could get a grip on what was happening.
“He’s at the store.” She watched Doreen’s eyes move back and forth as if she were processing the information. Carrie needed to get Mama to focus on something other than whatever was upsetting her. “We can stop at the fabric store and pick up some material for the new quilt you’ve been wanting to start.”
“I want my son.”
“Me too.” Carrie wished with all her might that he were there to help her with his mother.
“Where is he?”
“At the store, Mama.”
Eyes narrowed, Doreen glared at the woman she said she had always considered a daughter. “You lying little bitch. Where is my son?”
Carrie looked at her, again with her eyes wide and mouth hanging open. “That’s enough!”
“Where is he?”
“He’s out.”
Setting her jaw with determination, Doreen stepped around Carrie and headed for the stairs. She ignored Carrie’s plea to stop until the younger woman reached out and grabbed her gently by the upper arm. Turning, Doreen lifted her hand and brought her palm down across Carrie’s face.
“Where is he?” she asked in a voice that quivered with anger.
Carrie held her stinging cheek as tears started to burn her eyes. The knowledge that Mama would never slap her if she were in her right mind didn’t take away the pain of what she had done.
Doreen’s lip quivered. “You took him from me.”
“No.”
“You made him leave.”
“That is not true,” Carrie said with disbelief, forgetting that she was arguing with a disease rather than the woman she’d known for years.
“I want him.”
Carrie couldn’t stop her lip from trembling as tears dripped down her cheeks. “He’s gone, Mama.”
“No.”
“I wish he weren’t, but he is.”
“No.”
“I’m sorry,” Carrie whispered.
“No!” She put her hands on Carrie’s shoulders, pushing her with all the strength her petite body could exert.
Gasping with surprise as she stumbled back, Carrie threw her hand out, scrambling to grip the bulky solid oak banister that lined the stairs. She thought she had caught herself, but gravity proved stronger. Her weak hold pulled free with a jerk that caused pain to shoot through her arm as her upper body turned awkwardly. A scream involuntarily escaped her and echoed through the stairwell and down the hallway as she fell backward.
The air in her lungs was forced out with a gush when her back slammed into the stairs. Her body painfully flipped and twisted as she rolled. Her shoulders and knees scraped along the carpeting while her head repeatedly hit the hard edges, and her hands reached aimlessly for something to stop her fall before hitting the bottom seconds after stumbling at the top.
Pulling his bedroom door open, Will listened, only to hear silence. He’d been rehearsing his lines, trying to nail a scene before morning, when he’d heard a terrified scream. When the door across from him opened, he stared at his castmate. “Did you hear that?”
Grant nodded, wide-eyed. “What was it?”
“It didn’t sound good.”
“I think somebody got hurt.”
Will headed down the hallway with Grant right behind him. He slowed when he noticed Doreen at the top of the stairs looking down at the floor below, her hands covering her pale face. He called out to her but didn’t hear her choked response as he realized why she looked so horrified. His chest tightened at the sight of Carrie curled on her side at the bottom. The contents of her purse littered the stairs and floor around her.
“I’ll call 9-1-1,” Grant said as Will pushed past Doreen and ran down the stairs, taking them two at a time.
Kneeling next to Carrie’s unmoving body, Will pushed her hair from her face, gently calling out to her. “Can you hear me? Carrie? Carrie, wake up.”
“What happened?” Donnie demanded, entering from the back of the house. “Holy shit. Do we need an ambulance?”
“Grant’s calling.” Will stroked Carrie’s face again.
“Don’t move her.”
“I know that. I just want her to wake up.”
“Maybe it’s best if she doesn’t until the paramedics get here.”
“What the hell happened?” Will looked back up the stairs at Doreen standing at the top of the stairs and realized how far Carrie had fallen. His stomach tightened anxiously. The high ceilings demanded that the staircase be longer than normal, adding considerable distance to her tumble.
He remembered the day he’d arrived. He’d commented about how long the staircase was. What was it that Carrie had said? “Try not to fall down it. I’d hate to have to call all the king’s horses.”
“Jesus,” he breathed. “Do you think she fell all the way down?”
Will glanced at Donnie and noticed that he was looking up at Doreen, his eyes filled with suspicion.
Slowly standing, Will held his hands out reassuringly. “She’s okay, Mama. Why don’t you go to your room for a while? I’m going to call Natalie and have her come over to sit with you.”
The old woman didn’t seem to hear him. She started down the stairs, moving slowly, clinging to the banister. Will didn’t want to have to deal with however Mama would react to seeing Carrie unconscious. However, she appeared to be too shocked to do anything as she eased down the stairs.
“You don’t think Doreen pushed her, do you?” Donnie whispered so as not to be heard by the older woman.
Will barely glanced at Donnie as he knelt next to Carrie again. “Go check with Grant to see how long before the ambulance gets here.”
“They’re on the way,” Grant called down as Donnie passed Mama on the stairs. “She okay?”
&n
bsp; “She’s not dead,” Donnie said. “That’s a good sign.”
“Anybody see her cell phone?” Will asked.
When Grant bent down and snatched it off the stair in front of him, Will held out his hands for it to be tossed down to him. He scrolled through Carrie’s contacts until he found Natalie’s number.
“Hello, darling,” Natalie sang into the phone.
“Natalie. It’s Will Walker. There’s been an accident. Carrie’s hurt.”
“What? What happened?”
“She fell down the stairs. An ambulance is on the way.”
“Tell her I’ll meet her at the hospital.”
“I need you to come to the house and stay with Doreen.”
“What?”
He glanced up, noticing that Donnie and Grant were clearly debating what had happened while Mama stood three steps from the bottom, clutching her hands together as she stared at her daughter-in-law. “She’s pretty upset.”
“Bring her to the hospital.”
“I don’t think that’s a good idea. I think it’s best—”
“Bring her to the hospital.”
Will sighed when Natalie ended the call. A groan rose from beside him and the conversation with Natalie was forgotten.
“Hey,” he said soothingly. “Carrie?”
She made a soft, painful noise in response.
“Don’t move. There’s an ambulance on the way. It’ll be here any second.”
She made another noise, this time scrunching up her face a bit, letting him know that she was feeling the pain of her fall.
“What the hell happened?” came a demanding voice.
Will sighed. “She fell.”
“Is she okay?” Juliet asked, not sounding very concerned.
“Go open the front door so the paramedics can get in. Now,” he said more forcefully when she didn’t move.
The paramedics arrived several agonizing minutes later, and Will told the two men what little information he knew about Carrie and the accident. It distressed him to realize that wasn’t much. He asked Mama a few questions, but she didn’t respond. She was completely focused on what was going on, not understanding that her help was needed in obtaining Carrie’s medical history.
Stepping back to give the medics plenty of room, Will gently put his arm around Doreen’s shoulders and assured her that Carrie would be okay. From where he was standing, Will could hear the paramedics asking questions but could only assume Carrie was answering. The medics masterfully slipped a neck brace on their patient and rolled her onto a backboard, strapping her down so even if she were able, she couldn’t move. Will was startled at the bruising that was already becoming evident on the side of her face, and he began to understand how hard she had hit the solid wood floor where he found her.
“She’s going to be okay, right?” he asked in a voice that didn’t sound much stronger than Carrie’s.
“We’ll get her to the hospital as quickly as we can.” The medics lifted her onto a cot. Within seconds, they extended the legs and were rolling her out.
Will walked behind, not looking at the actors who had formed a small gathering on the porch to watch their hostess being taken out on a stretcher. When the medics stopped to lift her into the ambulance, Will looked down at her face, but she was motionless.
“We’ll see you there,” he said. “You’re going to be okay.”
If she heard him, she didn’t respond. The medics lifted her into the ambulance, shut the door, and drove away. Will headed back inside, ignoring the questions the other actors asked as he walked past them.
Several feet from the staircase, he found the keys to Carrie’s sedan. Seeing Mama sitting on the stairs, staring at the floor where Carrie had been minutes before, he followed her gaze, noticing the charm bracelet that he had bought for her. Bending down, he scooped up her jewelry and put it in his pocket before kneeling in front of Doreen. “The ambulance took Carrie to the hospital. We should go too.”
Doreen stared at him for a long moment. “Did I do that?”
“She fell,” Will said, unable to confidently answer her question. “It was an accident.”
She looked at him with confusion, but Will didn’t have a clue what else to say to her.
“Come on,” he said. “We need to go.”
Chapter 10
The sounds of the hospital waiting room seemed to fade away as Will sat with Mama tucked between him and Natalie. They had barely spoken since they’d been instructed to sit and wait. As they did, Will’s mind faded. This fear, this agony, must have been what his family had gone through the day his father had a kidney transplant. Hours and hours of sitting and waiting, worrying, and wondering. Hoping. Dreading.
His heart pounded in his chest as his mind bounced between worrying about Carrie and the remorse he felt for not being with his family when he should have been. No, he couldn’t have done anything more than he had by being on the other side of the world, but he still should have been there. He should have been holding his mother’s hand like he was holding Doreen’s. He should have occasionally offered reassurances to his nieces as he’d done to Natalie.
He hadn’t been there, and that had always bothered him, but sitting in this emergency room waiting room now, he thought he could almost drown in the guilt.
“What is taking so long?” Natalie whispered to Will while Mama stared at the beige linoleum of the waiting room floor. Though Natalie had always come across as gruff to Will, he saw through her now. Her fear was right there in her eyes. The pushiness he’d sensed in her before suddenly became transparent. She wasn’t nearly as rough around the edges as he’d assumed—she was a protective friend who hadn’t cared for the imposition placed on Carrie.
Will checked his watch and counted the minutes that had passed since arriving at the emergency room. It was closing in on ninety, and they had yet to hear a word out of the medical staff. “You’re sure they know we are here for Carrie?”
“Yes. You try.”
“Try what?”
“Getting us some answers. Go,” she insisted when he didn’t move.
Rising from one of the uncomfortable plastic chairs, Will approached the window and gave his warmest smile to the nurse. As he’d expected, her eyes widened and she fumbled with the pen in her hand when she recognized the man standing in front of her. “Hi.”
“Hi,” she squeaked out.
“I don’t suppose you could find out about my friend, could you? Carrie Gable. She was brought in about an hour and a half ago.”
“Well, I…” Her hand lamely gestured toward Natalie, but one more look at William Walker and she caved. “I’ll see what I can do.”
“Thank you very much.” He returned to his chair and gently squeezed Doreen’s hand. “She’s going to see what she can find out.”
Natalie sighed. “You should have asked a long time ago.”
“I brought her here soon after she and Mike started dating,” Mama said out of nowhere. “She bumped into a cookie sheet that had just come out of the oven and reached out to catch it. Burned her hand something fierce.”
Natalie sighed. “I remember that. She was useless for days.”
“I don’t know what I’d do if—”
“She’s going to be fine,” Natalie interrupted. “A few bumps and bruises. That’s all.”
“If that were all,” Mama muttered, “they’d have finished with her by now.”
Will frowned, not having anything to say to the contrary. “They’re taking care of her. She’ll be okay.”
Another eighteen minutes went by before a young man in green scrubs came through the doors and headed for the trio, introducing himself as Dr. Pallot. “Your friend had a pretty nasty fall. She’s not really clear on what happened. Was anybody with her when she fell?”
Will put his hand on Doreen’s before the woman could speak. “There was so much confusion. No one is sure what happened.”
“Well,” the doctor said, “amazingly enough, nothing is
broken. Her right elbow was dislocated, probably from trying to catch herself. That’s pretty common in that type of injury. We got it back in place and everything is working fine. She’ll want to avoid heavy lifting and overexerting the joint for a few days, but it will be fine. Her arm will be in a sling for a day or two. She’ll need to get it moving as soon as possible so her elbow doesn’t get stiff, but since she’s right-handed, I want to stabilize her injury for now. The rib cage on her right side is pretty tender and will probably cause her a lot more pain than her arm, but none of her ribs are broken.”
“She was unconscious when I found her,” Will said.
“She has a concussion and a very bad headache. She may have some bouts of confusion to go with it. That can last for a few weeks, unfortunately. We’re going to keep her overnight for observation, but other than the fall, her memory is fine. Her speech is clear, and her eyes are reacting normally. I think she’ll be ready to go home tomorrow, as long as there’s someone around to keep an eye on her. She shouldn’t do too much until the pain eases up. I’ll prescribe some painkillers to help her through the next few days. She’s going to be fine, guys.”
“That’s it?” Natalie gawked at him. “She’ll be fine?”
“I want her to see her regular doctor in a few days to follow up, but I don’t expect any long-term issues. We’ll go over all of that when I release her, hopefully tomorrow.”
“Can we see her?” Will asked.
“Yes, but don’t wear her out.”
Natalie stood, pulling Mama with her, and then fell into step behind Will and the doctor. Will glanced back and slowed down as well, not giving Natalie enough distance from him to talk to Doreen alone. He’d seen the suspicion in her eyes, and he didn’t want her quizzing Mama.
When they arrived at Carrie’s room, the doctor stepped inside and smiled at his patient, even though she barely lifted her gaze to look at him when he spoke to her. Natalie stepped in and gasped at the sight of Carrie limp in the bed, one side of her face severely discolored.
“Oh my God.” Seeming to forget that she had been holding up Doreen, Natalie rushed to Carrie’s side. “What happened to you?” When Carrie quietly mumbled her response, Natalie turned to the doctor, accusation in her eyes. “What is wrong with her?”
