I thought I had finished this one, but then my agent looked at it and pointed out all the reasons it didn’t work, so it went back into the “Works in Progress” folder. I’ve worked out how to finish it, I just haven’t done it yet.<\/i><\/p>\n
The two girls were sprawled on the floor in front of the TV with a bowl of popcorn between them, giggling madly, when the phone rang \u2013 not a cell phone, but the landline Madison’s parents still used. Neither of them paid much attention as Mrs. Fernwright answered it, but when Mrs. Fernwright said, \u201cYes, she’s here,\u201d Emily realized it must be someone looking for her \u2013 probably her mother.<\/p>\n
\u201cOops,\u201d Emily said. \u201cSounds like I’d better turn my phone on.\u201d She reached for the pocket of her jeans.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut it’s just getting good!\u201d Madison protested. Then she sighed and hit the pause button. \u201cI suppose you better see what’s up.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cEmily?\u201d Mrs. Fernwright called from the family room door, and Emily stopped what she was doing, phone in her hand. Mrs. Fernwright’s voice was unsteady \u2013 really<\/i> unsteady. Something was badly wrong, for an adult to sound like that.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat is it?\u201d Emily asked, sitting up and turning to face her friend’s mother.<\/p>\n
\u201cEmily, there’s been an accident.\u201d Mrs. Fernwright’s face was white, and Emily began to be genuinely frightened.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat kind of accident?\u201d Emily asked.<\/p>\n
\u201cYour mother’s been hurt.\u201d<\/p>\n
Emily’s general unease suddenly solidified into a horrible fear that clamped around her belly. \u201cWhat’s happened to my mother?\u201d she asked.<\/p>\n
\u201cShe was hit by a car,\u201d Mrs. Fernwright said. \u201cI’m… we’re going to the hospital to see her.\u201d<\/p>\n
Emily swallowed. \u201cThe hospital?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cYes. St. Luke’s.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThat’s where she works,\u201d Emily said, but after the words were out she wasn’t sure why she had said them.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat’s not why she’s there,\u201d Mrs. Fernwright replied. \u201cShe’s in the emergency room, as a patient.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cIs… is it bad?\u201d<\/p>\n
Mrs. Fernwright looked miserable and trapped, not like herself at all. \u201cVery bad,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
\u201cOh, no,\u201d Madison whispered.<\/p>\n
Emily swallowed. \u201cHow bad?\u201d she asked.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe need to go now<\/i>,\u201d Mrs. Fernwright answered. \u201cDid you have a jacket or coat?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cNo.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThen come on.\u201d Mrs. Fernwright picked up her own purse from the table by the door and gestured for the girls to follow her. \u201cHurry! Both of you, move it!\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWhy is there such a rush?\u201d Madison asked.<\/p>\n
\u201cI told you, it’s very bad,\u201d Mrs. Fernwright answered. \u201cAnne… Emily’s mother is seriously hurt.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cHow<\/i> bad?\u201d Emily demanded, as Mrs. Fernwright opened the door to the garage.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhy are we hurrying<\/i>?\u201d Madison asked.<\/p>\n
Mrs. Fernwright sighed. \u201cWe are hurrying, Maddie, in hopes of getting there while Emily’s mother is still alive. Now, come on.\u201d<\/p>\n
Emily could not say anything in reply; her eyes grew wide and her throat seemed to close up. She climbed into the car without another word, and Madison got in beside her, eyes wide. Emily sat back, trying to press herself into the seat cushions as Mrs. Fernwright started the engine.<\/p>\n
Mrs. Fernwright murmured, \u201cIt may not be…\u201d She didn’t finish the sentence; she looked as miserable as Emily felt.<\/p>\n
They had gone several blocks when Emily finally gathered enough of her wits to ask, \u201cWhat happened? Who was that on the phone?\u201d<\/p>\n
Mrs. Fernwright didn’t answer immediately; she was focused on her driving. When they had cleared the next intersection, though, she said, \u201cThat was your father. He said your mother pushed someone out of the path of a car and was hit herself. The car went right over her.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cOh,\u201d Emily said, feeling very small and frightened.<\/p>\n
A few minutes later the car pulled into the parking lot of St. Luke’s Hospital, and Mrs. Fernwright cruised along three rows before finally finding a space not too far from the emergency room entrance. She pulled in and turned off the engine, then unbuckled her seat belt, opened her door, and got out.<\/p>\n
Emily sat frozen in the back seat, vaguely aware that she should be moving, she should be doing something, but she didn’t want to go anywhere or do anything. If she stayed here in the car it wasn’t real<\/i> yet. Beside her, Madison was also motionless, staring at Emily.<\/p>\n
\u201cEmily?\u201d Mrs. Fernwright said, opening the door beside her. \u201cWe’re here.\u201d She reached in and patted Emily’s shoulder.<\/p>\n
Suddenly Emily saw something that had nothing to do with the inside of the car, nothing to do with the hospital, nothing to do with her mother. For an instant she was somewhere else entirely, looking down at an old woman lying face-down on the floor of a hallway, sprawled across a small Persian rug. The woman was wearing gray slacks and a loose top in a bright floral print; her snow-white hair was cut short in a style Emily had never seen before.<\/p>\n
The woman wasn’t breathing.<\/p>\n
Then Emily was back in the car, and everything was just as it had been. Mrs. Fernwright was holding the door, and Madison was looking at her with a worried expression.<\/p>\n
\u201cAre you all right, Emily?\u201d Mrs. Fernwright asked.<\/p>\n
\u201cI don’t know,\u201d Emily said, not looking at her friend’s mother.<\/p>\n
Mrs. Fernwright’s hair was dark brown and shoulder-length, and she wasn’t really very old at all, but somehow Emily thought it had been Mrs. Fernwright she saw lying dead on the floor somewhere.<\/p>\n
It had been her imagination playing tricks on her, she told herself, that made her see that dead woman. The stress of being rushed here without any chance to prepare herself, the news that something horrible had happened to her mother \u2013 that had made her hallucinate. That was the only rational explanation. Nothing like that had ever happened to her before, but it had to be her imagination.<\/p>\n
Madison and Mrs. Fernwright were both staring at her, she realized. She swallowed, and spoke. \u201cWe left your TV on,\u201d she said. \u201cOn ‘pause.’\u201d<\/p>\n
She had no idea why she said that. She had needed to say something that wasn’t about her mother or weird hallucinations, and that was what came out.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt doesn’t matter,\u201d Mrs. Fernwright said. \u201cCome on.\u201d<\/p>\n
Emily forced herself to move, to get out of the car and stand on her own feet. Mrs. Fernwright reached out a steadying hand.<\/p>\n
Again, there was a momentary flash of somewhere else, some other time and place, and a white-haired woman lying dead on the carpet, but it was briefer this time, less disorienting. Emily ignored it and started walking.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I thought I had finished this one, but then my agent looked at it and pointed out all the reasons it didn’t work, so it went back into the “Works in Progress” folder. I’ve worked out how to finish it, I just haven’t done it yet. The two girls were sprawled on the floor in… Read More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7,8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-392","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-writing","category-work-in-progress"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.watt-evans.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/392","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.watt-evans.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.watt-evans.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.watt-evans.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.watt-evans.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=392"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/www.watt-evans.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/392\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":692,"href":"http:\/\/www.watt-evans.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/392\/revisions\/692"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.watt-evans.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=392"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.watt-evans.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=392"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.watt-evans.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=392"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}