Carrie pops up. “Oh, good, you got my note.”
“Where’s . . . Is my mother . . . ?”
“She’s in the room with him.”
“What? Who?”
“Didn’t you get my note?”
“What note? All I know is what you left on my voice mail.”
“I left a note on Ethel—in the parking lot. Figured you’re a detective now, or whatever. You oughta think to look for my car. Anyways, how the hell did you find me, then? Never mind. Your mom—she’s fine. I mean, she’s still drunk but I think she’s coming down now . . . like way down.
She’s all weepy and shaky. But—”
“Carrie,” Janie says firmly. “Focus. Tell me what’s wrong with my mother and where I can find her.”
Carrie sighs. She looks tired. “Your mom is fine. Just drunk.”
Janie glances nervously through the open door to the hallway as a nurse walks by. Her voice is low and urgent. “Okay, okay, I get that she’s drunk. She’s always drunk. Can we stop shouting that please? And if she’s fine, why the fuck are we all in Intensive Care?”
“Oh, man,” Carrie says. She shakes her head. “Where to start?”
Cabel nudges Janie and Carrie toward the chairs and sits down with them. “Who’s ‘him’, Carrie?
Who is she with?” he says gently.
Janie nods, echoing the question.
But she already knows.
There’s only one “him” it could possibly be. There is no one else in the world. No one else that would make Janie’s mother react this way. No one else Janie’s mother dreams about.
Carrie, whose normally dancing eyes are dulled from the weariness of the unusual day, looks at
Janie. “Apparently, it’s your father, Janers. He’s, like, really sick.”
Janie just looks at Carrie. “My father?”
“They don’t think he’s going to make it.”
10:06 p.m.
Janie falls back into the chair. Numb. No idea how she’s supposed to feel about this news. No.
Freaking. Clue.
Cabel lifts his hand to pause the conversation. The three sit in the waiting room in silence for a moment, Janie looking blank, Carrie working a piece of gum, Cabel closing his eyes and shaking his head ever so slightly. “Start from the beginning,” he says.
Carrie nods. Thinks. “Yeah, so, this afternoon, probably around three o’clock, I heard somebody hollering outside. I ignored it ’cause there’s always somebody yelling around our neighborhood, right? And I’m folding laundry on the bed and then through my window I see Janie’s mom, which is so weird, because she, like, never goes outside unless she’s walking to the gas station or the bus stop to get booze, right? But today she’s in her nightgown wandering around the yard—”
Janie flushes and puts her hands to her face. “Oh, God,” she says.
“—and, uh, she’s calling ‘Janie! Janie!’ and then she sort of stumbles and I go running outside to see what’s wrong with her. And Dorothea, she’s crying and says, ‘The phone! I gotta go to the hospital,’ over and over about twenty times, and I’m calling you and leaving you messages and finally I just drive her here ’cause I don’t know what else to do. And it takes us like an hour of sitting in the ER and talking to the receptionist before she’s . . . um . . . calmed down and able to explain that she’s not sick—that she got a phone call and she needs to see Henry.”
Janie looks up. “Henry?”
“Yeah, Henry Feingold. That’s the guy’s name.”
“Henry Feingold,” Janie says. The name sounds empty. It has no meaning to her. It doesn’t sound like what she imagined her father’s name would be. “How would I even know if that’s him?
Dorothea,” she says, emphasizing each syllable, “never bothered to share any information with me about him.”
Carrie nods solemnly. She knows.
And then.
Janie blinks back the tears as she realizes the truth. “He must live nearby if they brought him here. Guess he didn’t ever bother to know me, either.”
“I’m sorry, hon.” Carrie looks at the floor.
Janie stands abruptly and turns to Cabel and Carrie. “I can’t believe she ruined our vacation. And
I’m so sorry, Carrie, that you wasted your whole day and evening here. You are such a good friend—please, go on home or to Stu’s or whatever.”
She turns to Cabel. “Cabe, I’ll handle this from here. I’ll take the bus home once I collect my mother. Please, guys. Go get some rest.” She walks toward the door, hoping Carrie and Cabe will follow so she can usher them out and suffer the embarrassment of all of this in private. Her bottom lip quivers. God, this is so fucked up.
Cabel stands up, and then Carrie stands too. “So,” Cabel says to Carrie as they follow Janie to the door. “What’s wrong with him? Do you know?”
“Some brain injury or something. I don’t know much—I heard the doc tell Dorothea that he called
911 and was still conscious until after he got here, but now he won’t wake up. They finally let
Dorothea in to see him about thirty minutes ago. And Janers,” Carrie says, “it was no problem, okay? You’d do the same if my mom needed help. Right?”
Janie’s throat tightens and she blinks back the tears. All she can do is nod. When Carrie hugs her, Janie chokes back a sob. “Thanks,” Janie whispers in Carrie’s hair.
Carrie turns to go. “Call me.”
Janie nods again, watching Carrie walk to the elevators. And then she looks at Cabel. “Go,” she says.
“No.”
He’s not going anywhere.
Janie sighs uneasily. Because it’s great he’s so supportive, but this situation is totally weird. And