Читать книгу Abide With Me - Delia Parr - Страница 15

T he ambulance ride was a blur. The stay in the emergency room at Tipton Medical Center lasted until nearly eleven o’clock that night. The final diagnosis of Andrea’s injuries was a relief: no broken bones. Still, a bruised left shoulder and a badly sprained left ankle were proof enough that the left side of her body had borne the brunt of her fall.

Exhausted but comfortable, thanks to pain medication, Andrea was propped in bed with a pillow behind her as yet another emergency-room physician arrived to review her chart and her test results one last time before releasing her. He was young enough to be her son, too, just like all the other professionals she had encountered at the hospital during her visit. Didn’t anyone over the age of fifty work in hospitals anymore?

The young doctor stopped reading her chart for a moment, lifted a brow and shook his head. “A skateboard accident? Next time you’d be better off wearing protective gear,” he admonished.

She sighed. “I was hit by a skateboarder. I was simply trying to cross the avenue on foot. I wasn’t skateboarding.”

He had the decency to blush. “Sorry. That makes more sense.”

She tightened her jaw. She was annoyed that the skater had actually struck her, but she was more annoyed she had not seen or heard him approaching. “I’m just grateful I didn’t break any bones,” she admitted.

“You might not be,” he warned. “Your ankle is severely strained. You’re lucky you didn’t tear a ligament. It’s going to be a good six to eight weeks before you’ll be able to put any pressure on that ankle and try walking again. If you’d broken it, you’d have been able to get a walking cast and had an easier time of it.”

He wrote out a prescription, handed it to her with a set of preprinted instructions and signed her release. “Make sure you take the pain medication with food and follow those directions. Have you got any questions before I turn you over to your family?”

She swallowed hard. “How long before I can drive? I have to work, and I’m a real estate agent. I need to be able to drive. My car is an automatic,” she offered as an afterthought.

He paused. “Rest up for a week. By then your shoulder won’t give you any trouble, and you’ll be able to maneuver about on crutches. You can try driving then, but I wouldn’t recommend it.”

She clenched her jaw. “Crutches. For six or eight weeks?”

He shrugged. “That’s the best I can do. Don’t forget to keep that ankle elevated. It’s important. I’ll send your sisters back again now. They’ve got a pair of crutches for you to take home, but it won’t be easy going for a few days.” He shook her hand. “Good luck. And watch out for skateboarders,” he cautioned before he left.

Andrea tapped her fingers on the mattress. A week at home. Six to eight weeks on crutches. Five weekly chemo treatments. And no driving. How in glory could she manage all that and still run a business?

She closed her eyes and tilted back her head. “I don’t mean to be ungrateful, Lord, and I truly am thankful that my injuries aren’t very serious, but wasn’t having my cancer come back again enough of a cross? Aren’t I worried enough, wondering if I’ll be able to keep working as usual throughout my treatments? Did I really need this, too?” she whispered.

All the fears and frustrations of the past few weeks rose up within her. And today’s harrowing accident added enough pressure to overwhelm her. Suddenly, tears streamed down Andrea’s cheeks. She brushed them away quickly, only moments before Madge and Jenny entered the cubicle.

Madge was carrying a pair of old wooden crutches, with some sort of stuffed gray critter on top of each armrest. Fortunately, the critters were not purple. “I had my neighbor bring these down for you. She broke her foot a few years back. Look!” Madge tugged on one of the critters. “They’re squirrels. Aren’t they cute? They’ll help pad the crutches so your underarms don’t get sore.”

Andrea managed a smile while Jenny steered a wheel-chair next to Andrea’s bed and helped her from the bed to the chair. “Michael’s waiting outside with your car to take you home. Madge and I will follow behind in her car. Ready to get out of here?”

Andrea gripped the arms of the chair. Despite being well bandaged, her ankle throbbed unmercifully, until Jenny raised the footrest and elevated Andrea’s leg. She let out a sigh. “More than ready.”

It did not take very long to reach the car, get strapped in and situated, but Andrea did not relish the prospect of reversing the process when she got home.

Michael eased her car forward. “I’ll take it slow,” he promised. “How are you doing so far?”

She grimaced. “Great. I’m sorry to be such a bother. Who’s minding the girls?”

He hesitated. “Cindy Martin.”

“But she’s only eleven or twelve.”

“She’s twelve. Katy and Hannah have been asleep for hours, and Cindy’s mom is right next door, in case there’s a problem. They both wanted to do something to help. They’re pretty shook up.”

As they rounded a corner, Andrea braced herself by holding on to the dashboard with her right hand. “I suppose I made for quite a lot of gossip today, but I don’t really know the Martins all that well. At least not well enough to think they would be that upset,” she said.

Michael glanced at her quickly, then turned his attention back to the road. “You don’t remember?”

“Remember what?”

“The skateboarder who hit you.”

“I can’t remember him because I never even saw him. If I had—”

“It was Jamie Martin.”

“Oh.” Suddenly it all made sense, and Andrea sighed. At fifteen, Jamie Martin was the daredevil of all daredevils, the reigning king of the skateboard world in Welleswood. The fact that he ranked first in his class, served as a junior advisor in his church youth group and was on a fast track toward becoming an Eagle scout rankled most adults more than a little. “Is he…was he hurt?”

“A few minor scrapes,” Michael reported. “Jamie’s always careful to make sure he’s wearing protective gear.”

Andrea snorted. “I wish he was as careful to avoid pedestrians.”

“He’s pretty upset about what happened,” Michael said softly.

“So am I,” she snapped. Her churlish words echoed in the car, and she shook her head. “The kids need a place to skate, a safe place,” she murmured. “I thought the commissioners had been looking into that. What happened?” She shifted her aching ankle and saw her house down the block. She was almost home.

Michael chuckled. “They’ve been looking even harder since this afternoon. The mayor called an emergency meeting for seven o’clock tonight. Your accident apparently inspired renewed interest in that matter.”

“Great,” she muttered. As visible as she was in the community, she deliberately avoided politics and local controversies of any kind, although her role in Welleswood’s renaissance had required that she participate in both for a while. Her name, no doubt, had been invoked more than once tonight, and her accident put her square in the center of the never-ending battle between the critics of skateboarding and the advocates.

As Michael turned into her driveway, she checked the clock on the dashboard. Eleven forty-five. Good. This horrendous day was almost over. She leaned back in her seat and relaxed. Nothing could happen in the next fifteen minutes to make the day any worse.

Ten minutes later, with her three “girls” nestled alongside her on the couch and Madge in the kitchen, Andrea learned how very wrong she could be. No wonder Jenny left with Michael without even coming inside. Anyone who had known Andrea for more than twenty-four hours would have known better than to do what Madge had done.

Andrea clenched both hands into fists and counted backward from ten to zero before she allowed herself to call out to Madge, who was in the kitchen tagging the casseroles that friends had dropped off for Andrea’s freezer. “Let me get this straight. This afternoon, while I was being treated at the emergency room, you left and showed the Campbell house for me at three o’clock, even though you don’t have a real estate license, which means, of course, that if anyone finds out, I could lose my license!”

Madge poked her head into the living room. “I know that, silly. I didn’t go alone. Doris Blake went with me, but it was more like four o’clock by then. Doris has kept her license current, and she was happy to help. She promised to stop by to see you tomorrow and tell you all about it.” Madge grinned maddeningly and popped back into the kitchen.

Andrea’s heart took a quick leap and began to pound. Doris Blake was the woman who had called and left a message on Andrea’s answering machine about wanting part-time work. “I don’t believe this. You took Doris with you?”

Madge returned to the living room with a tray and set it on top of the coffee table. “You missed supper, so I fixed you some iced tea and a light snack. I bet they didn’t feed you at the hospital, did they?”

Andrea’s stomach growled. “As a matter of fact, they didn’t.” She nibbled on a cracker topped with cheese spread. “Don’t change the subject.”

“Why not? It always works for you.”

Andrea tightened her jaw and stared at her sister. “This is important. This isn’t a game. This is about my business. My livelihood.”

“Exactly,” Madge countered. “Which is why I asked Doris to be there today. I also know you can’t shut down your office for six to eight weeks, but unless you have someone undeniably reliable and qualified, you won’t give yourself the time you need to rest and recuperate from your spill today, either. Need I mention the fact that you have weekly chemo scheduled, too? That’s why I spoke to Doris, and she’s agreed to come work for you starting tomorrow. Well, actually, I guess, she really started today since she showed the house.”

Andrea gasped. “You’ve hired her to come work for me?”

Madge beamed. “I knew you’d be surprised. Pleased, too, aren’t you? And just a little amazed at how fast I can work? I might not have been in the business world like you’ve been all these years, but I’ve learned a lot, volunteering as much as I have. Besides,” she added as her eyes filled with pride. “I remembered what you said when I told you I wanted to help you, even before you had your little mishap today. I’ve got caretaker duty chauffeuring you to your doctor’s appointments. I’m handling your insurance paperwork and I’m going to weed your gardens. That’s all.”

She really could mimic Andrea’s tone of voice well. She knew it, too, judging by the glint in her eyes.

“So, since you won’t let me help you do anything else,” Madge continued pertly, “I know Doris can. And she’s qualified, too. Amazing how things all work out, isn’t it?”

Andrea shut her eyes. Amazing indeed. In a matter of weeks, her entire life, both personally and professionally, had come unraveled. Try as she might, she was utterly and completely helpless to stop it or to make any successful attempts to knit her life back together. Instinctively, she grabbed the only lifeline that had any chance of saving her from total destruction.

Prayer.

Lots and lots of prayer.

She even said one for Madge, hoping her sister might be sent a blessing that would turn her attention to something or someone other Andrea.