Down & Dirty (Lightning 1)

It isn’t supposed to be happening.

Not now.

Not yet.

Not when I just had breakfast with Heather this morning.

Not when I told her I finally have someone I want her to meet.

Not when I still have so much to say to her.

Please God, not yet.

I’m driving faster than I should, faster than is safe through the still-crowded streets. I force myself to slow down, because the last thing Lucy and Brent need is to have something happen to me, too. But it’s hard when all I want is to get to the hospital and see my sister. Talk to the doctor. Find out just how bad things really are.

When her nurse called me at dinner, it was with the news that Heather had a seizure—and that she’d been unresponsive since. When I asked, Lisa told me any number of things could have caused the seizure, but she didn’t elaborate. She didn’t have to. I could tell by her voice that none of the options were good.

Could tell that she was afraid that this might be the last time we have to rush Heather to the hospital. And that made me afraid—terrified—that my sister might not get to come home again.

For a second I think I’m going to have to pull over and throw up. Only the knowledge that it will slow me down—keep me from getting to Heather—keeps me on the road, my foot on the gas pedal.

Not yet, I repeat again and again as the twenty-five-minute drive drags on forever. I’m not ready. Please, God, I’m just not ready. Not now. Not yet.

Finally, finally, I make it to the hospital. I swing into the emergency room parking lot, pull into the first available slot. Then I’m out of the car and running for the sliding glass doors.

The first thing I notice is how crowded it is, how nearly every seat is taken. I make a beeline for the front desk, cursing internally at the line of people standing at the window waiting to be helped. God only knows how long it’ll take for me to find out where Heather is and how I can get there.

I pull out my phone, planning to text Lisa, but she must have been watching for me because suddenly she’s there, at my elbow. Her eyes are serious, her mouth pressed into a straight line and her always neat gray hair looks like a hurricane has gone at it—or her very restless hands.

“We can go straight back,” she says by way of greeting, steering me toward the double doors that lead to the ER’s inner sanctum. A quick nod at the nurse behind the desk has her reaching over and buzzing us in before we even reached the doors.

“Tell me,” I say as we wind our way through the maze of hallways.

“It’s early yet, so they haven’t said anything about what they think it is.” She doesn’t look at me as she talks, just focuses on getting us where we’re going. “But her doctor is on call tonight and he’s already been in. They’re running some tests, and we should know soon.”

“How is she?” I ask, then before she can answer, I continue, “What tests?”

“She’s still unresponsive. But she’s breathing on her own, which is a good sign. Her blood pressure and heart rate are all over the place, which isn’t so good. They’ll be doing an echocardiogram in the next few minutes to get a look at her heart, but…”

“But what?”

“I’m not a doctor, Hunter.”

“No, but you’ve been a cancer nurse for twenty years. And you work for me, nobody else. So there is no protocol here. Tell me what you were going to say.”

She sighs, then looks me straight in the eye as she answers, “My gut says she had a stroke.”

My knees go weak and for a second I fear I’m going to go down. I shove the pain and terror down deep, draw from the same place I tap when I’m hurt and exhausted and have one more quarter to play.

“A stroke?” I repeat, when I’m sure my voice won’t shake. “They ran tests just a couple weeks ago. The cancer’s not in her brain—”

“No, but it is in her bloodstream—that’s how it travels. We always knew this was going to be a possibility as small clumps of cells circulated through her body—”

“But not yet. The doctors said we had more time—”

“They said six months,” she tells me gently. “That was their best guess at the time. And it’s been four.”

“I know exactly how long it’s been!” I snap, then immediately apologize. It’s not Lisa’s fault that my sister is dying. It’s nobody’s fault, or at least that’s what Heather keeps trying to get me to believe.