his.
“How bad is it?”
Margot shook her head. “I don’t know. The officer just said we should get to the hospital as soon as possible. But,” she said, choking on her own words, “I think it’s bad, Daddy. I think it’s very bad.”
11
Margot
Everything was upside down.
My dad has always been the impatient one, the person who honks at people who drive even one mile per hour under the speed limit and barks at checkout clerks whose registers run out of tape. But when we got to the hospital and had to wait while an officious woman scanned our identification and attempted, unsuccessfully, to print out our visitor badges, it was my mother who bristled at the delay.
“Our daughter is here, Mariposa Matthews, and our granddaughter, Olivia Matthews,” Mom snapped. “They’ve just brought them in. There was an accident. A serious accident! Why are you keeping us waiting?”
“It’s for your own protection,” the woman replied dully, frowning as she tapped on the computer. “And the protection of the patients.”
“I don’t need to be protected!” My mother’s voice rose to a nearly hysterical pitch. “I need to see my daughter and my grandchild, do you hear me? Right now!”
Dad put his arm around Mom and patted her on the shoulder. “Calm down, Lil. Miss, can’t we leave our identification here with you and get the badges later?”
The woman glanced up at him. For a moment, I thought she was going to waver, but then she pressed her lips together. “I’m sorry, sir. Hospital policy. Every visitor must be cleared through security and wear a badge.”
Philippa, who’d volunteered to come with us while Evelyn and Charlie stayed at my house to clean up, stepped up to the desk and took off her coat, revealing her collar.
“I’m Philippa Clarkson, the new pastor at New Bern Community Church.”
The woman looked up from her keyboard in surprise. “That’s my church. You’re taking over for Reverend Tucker?”
“Just for a few months, until he’s feeling better.”
“I’m sorry, Reverend. I didn’t recognize you. Normally, I never miss services, but I wasn’t able to go today. I’m new here and you know how it is,” she said with a trace of bitterness. “The low man on the totem pole gets stuck working the holiday.”
“That’s all right, Cheryl,” Philippa replied, glancing at her name tag. “It’s good of you to sacrifice your own Christmas celebrations to help people who are going through such a hard time. Do you think it might be possible to let me escort the Matthews family back to the ER? Since I’m a member of the clergy …”
Cheryl bit her lower lip. “I don’t know, Reverend. It’s kind of irregular and, like I said, I’m new here. I went six months without a job before I found this one. I don’t want to risk losing it, but …”
She looked at Philippa and then at my parents, her eyes resting a moment on my mother, who was weeping on Dad’s shoulder.
“Let me check with my supervisor.”
Five minutes later, a tired-looking nurse wearing a cranberry red cardigan and necklace of red, green, and blue Christmas lights ushered us to a waiting room. “Dr. Bledsoe will be right in to talk to you.”
My mother clutched at the nurse’s arm. “Where are they? When can I see them?”
The nurse smiled sympathetically and rubbed her palm over the back of my mother’s hand. “Soon.”
Mom sat down on a beige sofa with her pocketbook in her lap, clutching at the handle, her back stiff and eyes alert, as though she were waiting for a bus and was afraid she might miss it. Dad sat down next to her, but she seemed not to notice.
“Perhaps I should go find somewhere else to wait,” Philippa said, looking at me uncertainly.
“No,” my father said hoarsely. He glanced at my mother, who was staring straight ahead. “If you don’t mind, Reverend,” Dad said, looking up at Philippa, “I’d appreciate it if you could stay with us for a while. At least until the doctor comes.”
Philippa nodded and sat down in a chair across from my parents.
I hesitated before following the others through the door. Sensing a presence, I looked down the hall to see a man with gray hair and black-rimmed glasses who was taking off a blood-spattered lab coat while the nurse in the cranberry sweater stood behind, holding out a clean one, guiding his arms into the left sleeve, then the right, before nodding her head toward me, toward me and the door of the room I dreaded to enter.
12
Philippa
I stood with my back against a pistachio-colored wall, taking a moment to catch my breath while Margot and her parents were in one of the administrative offices, filling out paperwork. My cell phone went off, vibrating in my pocket and making me jump. Looking down at the screen, I was happy to see the words “Mom and Dad.”
Mom was on the kitchen phone and Dad on the bedroom extension. They’d called to wish me merry Christmas and get the reviews on my sermon, but I didn’t want to talk about that. The only thing on my mind was the Matthews family.
“It was so awful. She was alive when the ambulance arrived, but there was nothing they could do. Apparently, the car skidded off the road and over an embankment. It was a back road, not very well traveled. They think she was trying to take a shortcut so she’d get there faster. There’s no way of knowing for sure how long the car was down there before someone noticed the broken guardrail and stopped to investigate. Could have been hours. Anyway, by the time they found her …”
“Oh, that poor family,” my mother murmured. “To lose a child and a grandchild …”
“No,” I corrected her. “Only Mari was killed. The granddaughter is alive. At least for now. The doctor didn’t offer much hope of her surviving the night.”
“Have they seen her yet?”
“She’s in intensive care. They have strict rules about visitors. I don’t suppose it makes any difference. She’s unconscious.”
“Even unconscious people are sometimes aware of the presence of others,” my father said. “If the worst happens, it would be a great comfort to the family to see her now. At least they’d have the memory of seeing their granddaughter alive, and knowing she died surrounded by people who love her.
“Encourage the doctors to let them see her, Pippa,” he continued, using his pet name for me. “A minister can have a lot of influence inside the walls of a hospital.”
“True,” I said, remembering how a quick flash of my white collar got Margot and her folks past the security desk. “I’ll do that. But I feel at such a loss. Acing three sections of systematic theology does not prepare you for something like this. I feel like I’m flying by the seat of my pants here ….”
“Get
