Free Ignited by Corrine Jackson Page B

eyes. I’d hoped that my stepmother’s condition might have changed for the better during the night, but Lottie’s grim answer killed that idea. The sense of doom that had hovered since the call came wouldn’t go away.
    “Oh God,” Lucy said.
    She reached for Asher’s hand, and I told myself it was a good thing. She should have somebody to comfort her, and in the last months he’d become a kind of brother figure to her. It was odd how a crisis could bring people together or rip them apart. The two of them hadn’t exactly excluded me during the flight, but I hadn’t been capable of offering much to the conversation. I wanted to crawl into a hole and shore up a wall behind me, but I couldn’t do that now. So I focused on putting one foot in front of the other and taking the next breath, hoping I could survive this, too.
    Lottie shot a confused glance at Lucy and Asher’s joined hands and the good three feet of distance between them and me in the elevator. Clearly, Asher hadn’t told her anything. I avoided her questioning gaze by staring at my feet and calling myself a coward.
    “This way,” she said, when the doors opened.
    We exited the elevator on the floor marked Intensive Care Unit. The scents of sick people and the chemicals used to clean up after them wafted up my nose, and a panic attack threatened. That desire to run wouldn’t go away. Nothing good had ever come of a visit to the hospital. Vivid memories assaulted me, and I tried to shove them away as I trailed after the others. There was no room for thoughts of my mother today. I would not remember how she had died from an injury like Laura’s.
    Lottie pointed us toward an empty waiting room and went to find a nurse. We took off our winter wear and stood around in awkward silence until she returned with Laura’s doctor, a middle-aged Japanese man with a soothing baritone voice. Dr. Okada explained my stepmother’s condition, using a lot of technical gibberish.
    “I don’t understand,” Lucy asked, with a helpless gesture. “What does all of that mean?”
    “I’m sorry,” Dr. Okada said. “Her heart is weakening, and she’s not eligible for a transplant. I’m afraid it’s only a matter of time. A day, maybe less.”
    Lucy broke down. She fell against me, her body shaking with sobs that rattled out of her chest. Her tears dampened my shirt, and I rubbed her back in comforting circles. Through it all, I felt myself shutting down, all systems powering off. The pain floated away, and the apathy settled over me like an old companion. The way cleared for me to take care of business like I had all those years I’d taken care of my mother. There would be details to go over, plans to make, and my sister to watch over. The responsibility would be mine because there was nobody else.
    Asher touched my hand, and I looked through him. He didn’t figure into my plans for today. I couldn’t deal with him, too. He swallowed, and his hand fell away.
    “You can visit with her, one at a time,” Dr. Okada said. Then he was gone, his white coat swishing behind him as he went off to save people who didn’t have weak hearts.
    Lucy’s sobs didn’t stop, but they quieted. She shuddered against me with great hiccups, sweating like an overwrought child. I pulled away to see her red eyes and shattered expression. “Lucy, do you want to see her first?”
    She nodded.
    “Come on,” Lottie said, with unexpected gentleness. “I’ll show you where she is.”
    She sent a sympathetic glance my way, and I remembered that she had lost both her parents and a brother on the same day. She took Lucy’s arm to lead her away, and I was left alone with Asher. I retreated to a blue armchair. Happy striped wallpaper covered the walls, and a generic painting of a flower hung in front of me. Did anyone really believe that a picture of a flower would offer solace when all you could think about was how a loved one would never make it outside to see the real thing again?