The Four Winds

JACK HELD MOM IN his arms and kicked the hospital door open. “My wife needs help.”

The woman at the front desk looked horrified as she raised up out of her cushy chair. “You can’t—”

“I’m a goddamn California resident,” Jack said. “Get a doctor.”

“But—”

“Now,” Jack said in a voice so dangerous even Loreda felt a flash of fear.

The woman called for a doctor.

While they waited, blood dripped onto the clean floor. Ant saw it and started to cry. Loreda pulled him close.

A man in white bustled toward them, flanked by a nurse in a starched uniform.

“Gunshot in the abdomen,” Jack said. His voice broke halfway through the sentence and Loreda saw his fear. It heightened her own.

The doctor called for help and within moments Mom was on a gurney, being rushed away from them.

Jack pulled Ant close, held him. Loreda moved in to be with them. Jack’s arm circled her.

All Loreda could think about was how mean she’d been to her mom. For years. There was so much to say now, to undo. She wanted to tell her mother how much she loved and admired her, how she wanted to be just like her when she grew up. Why hadn’t she said it all before?

Loreda wiped her tears, but more kept falling. She couldn’t even be strong for Ant. She prayed for the first time in years. Please, God, save her.

I can’t live without my mom.

* * *

WHITE.

Lights too bright.

Stinging.

Pain.

Elsa opened her eyes again, squinted at the intensity of the light overhead.

She was in bed.

She turned her head slowly. Every breath hurt.

Jack sat in a chair beside her, holding Ant on his lap. Her son’s eyes were red, bloodshot. Tears streaked his freckled cheeks.

“Elsa,” Jack said softly.

“She’s awake,” Ant said.

Loreda rushed in, almost pushed Jack and her brother aside. “Mommy,” she said.

Mommy.

That one word brought everything back: Elsa rocking Loreda to sleep, reading her stories, teaching her to make fettuccine, whispering Be brave, into her ear.

“Where…”

Jack touched her face. “You’re in the hospital.”