Free The Time Capsule by Lurlene McDaniel Page A

come into the waiting room and had walked over to the sofa without Alexis even seeing her.
    Startled, Alexis looked up into her mother’s stricken face. “He knew he was sick again,” she said. “But he didn’t want us to know.”
    Her mother steadied herself on the wall. “How could he do that? Why?”
    “I guess we’ll have to ask him, won’t we?” Alexis’s throat felt raw and scratchy from holding everything inside.
    A man appeared in the doorway. “Eleanor? Ally? Where’s Adam?”
    Alexis saw her father. She jumped up from the couch, crossed the room in a few steps and flung herself into his arms. “Daddy!”
    His arms tightened around her, and she dissolved into a river of white-hot tears.

ELEVEN
    Alexis’s father held her while her mother filled him in on what had happened. “And where’s the doctor?” Blake asked when she paused.
    “He’s evaluating Adam now.”
    “We couldn’t reach you, Daddy,” Alexis said, her tears spent.
    “I’m sorry.”
    Receiving no other explanation left her feeling cold and hollow.
    “I’m going to see Adam and talk to that doctor,” her father declared.
    “We’ll both go,” Eleanor said.
    “Me too,” Alexis said.
    “They won’t let us all in at once, Alexis,” Eleanor said. “Please wait here.”
    Not wanting to cause a scene, Alexis backed off. Sawyer led her to a vinyl-covered couch, where he’d made a bed for her with a pillow and a blanket. “I found the stuff in that chest over there. I guess the hospital leaves it there for families.”
    “I can’t sleep,” she said.
    “Then rest until your parents come back. You look ready to explode.”
    “I won’t let them shut me out this time,” she said fiercely.
    She leaned back, mostly to placate Sawyer, but he was right—she felt like a simmering volcano.
    It seemed to take an eternity, but finally her parents returned. She met them in the middle of the room. “What’s happening?”
    Her father said, “Adam’s sleeping. He’s getting whole blood because his white count is off the charts. Bernstein will do a full workup tomorrow. He told us to go home.”
    “I’m not leaving,” Alexis said. “What about you and Mom?”
    “We’re both staying,” her mom answered.
    “We should try and get some sleep,” her father said. “They’ll come get us if there’s any change.”
    He settled into a lounger chair, and her mother went to a couch on the other side of the room. Alexis returned to her couch and to Sawyer, who had thrown some cushions on the floor beside it. He covered her and lay down on the cushions, then reached up, took her hand and held it until she fell asleep.
    Alexis slept fitfully. At one point, Sawyer got up and went down the hall. When he returned, he whispered, “I’m going home to clean up. I’ll go to school and tell people what’s going on. Kelly’s version will probably sound like a disaster movie.”
    “Tell Tessa to call my cell phone. And tell people they shouldn’t come down here, because no one can see him except us. I’ll go home sometime today to shower and change, but I want to talk to Adam first. I want to know exactly how this happened. And I mean
exactly
.”
    Alexis ate breakfast in the hospital cafeteria with her parents. No one felt like talking. Her mother nibbled on a muffin. Her dad moved scrambled eggs around on his plate with the back of his fork. He looked disheveled, with a stubble of beard on his face, his shirt and slacks rumpled. “After we talk to the doctor, I’ll go home and shower,” he said. “I’ll go in to the office long enough to dole out my most urgent projects.”
    Eleanor stared into space as if she hadn’t heard him, an expression of such sadness on her face that Alexis could hardly stand it.
    Blake said, “You come with me, Ally. Do you know where Adam left your car?”
    “It’s probably at Kelly’s.”
    “We’ll pick it up on the way home. After we talk to the doctor, the three of us are going to sit down and