We can only prevent further loss.’
Feeling thwarted, Kathryn turned on her husband. ‘Is this all they can do? We can live with a heart condition, but not brain damage. I want a second opinion. And where are the specialists? This is only the ER, for God’s sake. These doctors may be trained to handle trauma, but if Robin has been here for three hours and hasn’t been seen by a cardiologist, we need to have her moved.’
She saw Molly shoot a troubled look at Charlie, but Charlie didn’t say anything, and Lord knew Chris wouldn’t. Frightened and alone, Kathryn turned back to the doctor. ‘I can’t sit and wait. I want to be proactive.’
‘Sometimes that isn’t possible,’ he replied. ‘What’s crucial right now is getting her up to the ICU. The doctor there will call in specialists. This is all standard protocol.’
‘Standard protocol isn’t good enough,’ Kathryn insisted, desperate that he understand. ‘There is nothing standard about Robin. Do you know what she does with her life?’
The eyes behind the glasses didn’t blink. ‘Yes, I do. It’s hard not to know when you live around here. Her name is in the local papers so often.’
‘Not only the local papers. That’s why she has to recover from this. She works all over the country with budding track stars. We’re talking teenage girls. They can’t see this. They can’t begin to think that the reward for training hard and aiming high is…is this. Okay, you may not have had a case like this before, but if that’s so, just say it and we’ll have her transferred.’
She searched family faces for agreement, but Charlie seemed stricken, Chris was frozen, and Molly simply looked pleadingly from her father to her brother and back.
Useless. All three.
So Kathryn told the doctor, ‘This isn’t a personal indictment. I’m just wondering whether doctors in Boston or New York would have more experience with injuries like these.’
Molly touched her elbow then. Kathryn looked at her youngest in time to hear her murmur, ‘She needs to be in intensive care.’
‘Correct. I just don’t know where.’
‘Here. Let her stay here. She’s alive, Mom. They got her heart going, and it’s still beating. They’re doing all they can.’
Kathryn arched a brow. ‘Do you know that for fact? Where were you, Molly? If you’d been with her, this wouldn’t have happened.’
Molly paled, but she didn’t retreat. ‘I couldn’t have prevented a heart attack.’
‘You could have gotten her help sooner. You have issues, Molly. You’ve always had issues with Robin.’
‘But look,’ the girl urged, glancing at the medical personnel hovering at the door. ‘They’re waiting to take her upstairs, and we’re slowing them down. Once she’s there, we can talk about specialists, even about moving her; but right now, shouldn’t we be giving her every possible chance?’
Molly followed the others to the ICU and watched the team get Robin settled. At one point she counted five doctors and three nurses in the room, as frightening as it was reassuring. Monitors were adjusted and vital signs checked, while the respirator breathed in and out. Every minute or two someone spoke loudly to Robin, but she didn’t respond.
Kathryn left the bedside only when a doctor or nurse needed access. The rest of the time, she held Robin’s hand, stroked her face, urged her to blink or moan.
As Molly watched from the wall, she was haunted by the knowledge that her mother was right. If Robin had started breathing sooner, there would be no brain damage. If Molly had been with her, Robin would have started breathing sooner.
But she wasn’t the only one who had let Robin down. She couldn’t blame her mother for being frantic back in the ER, but where was her father? He was supposed to be the calm one. What had he been thinking letting Kathryn go on like that? Even Chris could have spoken up.
They didn’t have the guts, Molly decided, and then modified the thought. They knew better.
You have issues. You’ve always had issues with Robin. She knew her mother was upset, but Molly was feeling guilty enough to be flayed by the words. As the minutes passed and the machines beeped, she remembered occasionally deleting a phone message, buying the wrong energy bar, misplacing a favorite running hat. Each offense could be balanced with something good Molly had done, but the good was lost in the guilt.
Chris left at midnight, her father at one. Charlie had tried to get Kathryn to leave with him, to no avail. Molly suspected that her mother feared something awful would happen if she wasn’t there to stand guard. Kathryn had always been protective of Robin.
Hoping her own presence might go a little way toward making up to Kathryn for what she had not done earlier that day, Molly stayed longer. By two, though, she was falling asleep in her chair. ‘Are you sure I can’t drive you home?’ she asked her mother.
Kathryn barely looked up. ‘I can’t leave,’ she said and added, ‘Why weren’t you with her, Molly?’ with a speed suggesting she was brooding about just that.
‘I was at Snow Hill,’ Molly tried to explain. ‘The management meeting, remember? I didn’t know how long it would run. How could I commit to Robin?’ There was also the issue of the cat. But putting a cat before her sister was pathetic.
Kathryn didn’t ask how long the meeting had run. She didn’t even ask how it had gone. If she was brooding, it was about Molly’s negligence toward Robin, not about Snow Hill.
And Molly was guilty. That thought beat her down, before she finally broke the silence by asking, ‘Can I get you something, Mom? Coffee, maybe?’
‘No. But you can cover for me at work.’
Startled, Molly blew out a little breath. ‘I can’t go to work with Robin like this.’
‘You have to. I need you there.’
‘Can’t I do something here?’
‘There’s nothing to do here. There’s plenty to do at Snow Hill.’
‘What about Dad? Or Chris?’
‘No. You.’
She doesn’t want me around, Molly realized, her feeling of devastation growing. But she was too tired to beg for mercy, too wiped out even for tears. After asking Kathryn to call her if there was any change, she slipped out the door.
Molly’s cottage faced south, bringing year-round sun to the loft, while the forest behind the backyard shaded the bedrooms and scented the air with pine. Molly had learned of it by accident when its owner, who was leaving New Hampshire for Florida, came to the nursery looking for a home for dozens of plants. Now the owner wanted to renovate and sell, so Molly and Robin were being kicked out.
Molly thought the vintage kitchen was just fine. She loved the weathered feel of
