Free There Was an Old Woman by Hallie Ephron Page B

asking, ” her mother mimicked.
    Evie was speechless with fury and bottled-up hurt.
    â€œI . . . don’t . . . need . . . you or anyone else,” her mother said through gritted teeth. “Don’t you even think—” The final word died on her lips as she shuddered. Her eyes rolled back in her head, and her body went rigid with spasms.
    â€œMom?” Evie jumped up. “Mom? Mom! Help!”
    She groped for the emergency call button. Over and over she pressed it. Her mother lay there quaking. Was anyone coming to help?
    Evie ran out in the hall and headed for the nurses’ station. A nurse met her halfway. By the time they got back to the room, her mother had gone slack. Heart pounding, Evie watched the nurse take her mother’s pulse.
    A moment later, her mother’s eyes blinked open. A sheen of sweat coated her forehead and her gaze wandered about the room, across the nurse, until it fastened on Evie.
    â€œYou came!” she said.

Chapter Fifteen
    Going home from the hospital, Evie rode by herself in the back of the bus. She rubbed her wrist, trying to erase the sensation that she was still in her mother’s grip. She pushed up her sleeve, sure there’d be a mark, but there wasn’t. In the end, the damage her mother wrought was invisible.
    She took out her phone. She’d promised to call Ginger.
    â€œEvie?” Ginger said, picking up on the first ring.
    â€œYou were right. This time it’s different.”
    â€œI know. So?”
    â€œSo.” Evie could see her mother’s face, all hope and innocence when she’d woken up after her seizure. “One minute she’s talking to me, normal, you know? The next minute she’s bat-shit crazy. Saying the meanest things.”
    â€œOh, Evie. Surely you know by now that you shouldn’t get upset by anything that she says. The doctors have her all doped up on loads of medication.”
    â€œIt was more than being doped up. She’s screaming at me. Telling me to stop trying to tell her what to do with her life. Then she shudders and goes blank. She’s not there. And she’s not there. And I’m starting to panic because she’s still not there. And then, just like that, she’s awake again. And she recognizes me. But”—Evie swallowed the lump in her throat—“she thinks I just showed up. It was like something out of Groundhog Day .”
    â€œOh, Evie,” Ginger said.
    â€œDid you notice her belly?” Evie asked.
    â€œI know, it’s awful. The nurse calls it ascites. It’s a symptom of late-stage liver disease.”
    â€œLate stage? What does that mean?”
    â€œDidn’t you talk to Dr. Foran?”
    â€œDidn’t I—?” Evie stopped herself from biting back. Ginger never meant her Didn’t-you s to come out in the know-it-all, passive-aggressive way that they did. “There were no doctors around, and until this minute I didn’t even know her doctor’s name.”
    â€œI’ll text you the phone number.”
    â€œThank you.”
    â€œSo what’s your plan?” Ginger asked.
    â€œ My plan?”
    â€œTonight? Tomorrow?”
    Evie had assumed she’d sleep at the house, but she hadn’t bargained for the mess, not to mention the smell. But what was the alternative? It would take an hour and a half to get home to Brooklyn and another hour and a half back tomorrow morning.
    â€œI’ll probably stay there tonight,” Evie said.
    â€œYou’ll be okay?”
    â€œI’ll be fine. If not, I’ll go home.”
    â€œSee what you can figure out about her finances,” Ginger said. “If there are unpaid bills lying around. Maybe you can find a current bank statement?”
    Evie yawned. The day was catching up with her. “I asked her about money.”
    â€œAnd?”
    â€œShe says there’s plenty.”
    â€œReally? Well,