right now more than you do.” He stepped back and grabbed the curtain, ready to leave. “Was there anything else?”
“More than I do?” Sophia’s voice was getting high-pitched in her outrage. “I suppose you decide that?”
“I do.”
Grace felt a little chill go down her spine at the quiet confidence in those words. She looked at Dr. Gregory again, at his calm profile, his unwavering gaze.
He can handle anything. He can handle Mr. Burns. He can handle my sister.
Then she realized he’d turned to her, locking gazes with her for the briefest of moments, just long enough for her to imagine he was silently asking her to keep Sophia under control.
I wish I could.
“You’re just leaving?” Sophia sounded incredulous.
Grace wished she had as much control over her sister as Dr. Gregory seemed to think she had. She put a hand on her sister’s good ankle and patted her reassuringly. “Thank you, Dr. Gregory. We’ll stay right here, then, until a room opens up.”
He nodded at her. “I’ll be back.”
Grace hoped he’d be quick. His hair was shaggy and he needed to shave—yesterday—and his glasses weren’t chic geek, just geek. His white coat was two sizes too big, and yet he looked like a hero to her. Somehow, when Grace stood next to Dr. Gregory, Sophia seemed less intimidating, but he was gone with a slide of metal curtain rings, and Grace was left to manage her own personal movie star.
“Where the hell is that macchiato?”
Hurry back, Doctor. I need you.
Grace wanted Dr. Gregory.
What she got was a frighteningly competent nurse named Loretta. The nurse seemed to be just as unimpressed with having a movie star for a patient as Dr. Gregory was, but still...
It would have been nicer to have Dr. Gregory by her side.
Sophia’s ankle was not broken, the nurse reported, but she would need to wear a hard plastic medical boot for a week. The nurse removed the ice. She’d brought a few sizes of the plastic boot to try. By the time the correct boot was strapped around Sophia’s lower leg, poor Sophia was clutching Grace’s hand in real pain.
Nurse Loretta gave Sophia a pill for the pain, something Dr. Gregory had apparently foreseen the need to prescribe, then Grace and Sophia were alone again. This time, Grace perched on the edge of the bed, and they did yoga breaths together while they waited for the pain medicine to kick in.
“We could do ‘breath of lion,’” Grace suggested.
“The dumb one where we stick out our tongues?” But Sophia made a funny face at Grace as she said it, one that always made Grace laugh. “Hope no one with a camera sees us.”
The sarcasm, the cursing, the defiance had all disappeared in the last half hour. Grace stuck her tongue out and panted. Sophia did, too, but they couldn’t keep panting with straight faces.
“Ohmigod, we look dorky,” Sophia said, and the sound of her laughter was music to Grace’s ears.
My sister is back.
Grace could have cried in relief. It was so good to be needed again—no, not needed. She was always needed. It was good to be wanted again. Sophia wanted her by her side.
Sophia’s laugh turned into another round of coughing. Grace winced in sympathy; her sister’s ribs had to hurt from the force of her cough. Sophia sank back into her pillow. She’d never looked more pitiful, not even on screen when she’d died as a pioneer woman to great critical acclaim.
Grace smoothed Sophie’s hair over her shoulder. “Can I get you anything?”
She attempted another smile, a wobbly bit of bravery. “Just don’t leave me again. I need you here.”
“Of course.”
I wish Dr. Gregory could see us now. He hadn’t been very impressed with Sophia so far, that much was clear. When she’d complained about Mrs. Burns moving to a room, Dr. Gregory had thrown Grace that last look, the one that said Can’t you keep her in line?
It nagged at Grace. Maybe the look had been more like How do you put up with her? Maybe the look had been simply disappointment with Grace. Or puzzlement. Why do you help someone who is so rude?
Because I love her. She’s my sister. She’s my whole family.
But, of course, Dr. Gregory didn’t know that, just as Sophia didn’t know anything about Mrs. Burns’s dangerous situation. If she did, then of course she’d be content to wait a little longer. With a crinkle of the plastic-covered mattress under her, Grace scooted closer to her sister’s side, ready to confide in her.
“Ouch! Don’t bump me. Sit on that stool.”
“Sorry.” Grace slipped from the mattress onto the doctor’s rolling stool, trying not to feel sad at how short-lived their shared laughter had been.
It wasn’t Sophia’s fault. She was still in pain, and the pain was making her irritable. Really, she was acting as normally as anyone would in her condition.
Grace leaned closer, too aware of the curtains, although no other patients were around now. “Listen, something kind of scary happened while you were on the phone with Deezee. The lady that was in the next bed—”
“The one who got treated better than I did?”
“I don’t know about better. Maybe faster, but there was a good reason. Let me tell you what happened.”
Mrs. Burns’s sad tale had exactly the effect that Grace had known it would. Sophia was subdued, silent. Probably, like Grace, she was thinking how fortunate she was to have been born into a loving home, where the concept of Daddy hitting Mommy was unimaginable. This afternoon was a vivid reminder that other children were not so lucky.
“Then I’m glad they moved her,” Sophia said.
“I know. Me, too.”
“That would have been a mess, if the two of them had started fighting again. People would have come running, and these curtains wouldn’t have kept us hidden. Hell, the guy could have thrown her right into our cubicle or something. I can’t be involved in that kind of thing. Can you imagine the shock on everyone’s faces if the curtain had come down and they’d seen Sophia Jackson lying here?”
Grace was silent. That wasn’t exactly the empathy she’d expected.
“Martina is threatening to leave me if I’m involved in any fights,” Sophia said. “She told Deezee the same thing.”
Martina was a publicist, and one of the few people whom Sophia still seemed to listen to. Then again, Martina had been Deezee’s publicist first. She’d introduced the two of them, actually. It was yet another reason that
