They tried to move as fast as the paramedics did, which was, of course, pointless. The paramedics pushed Helen on the stretcher through all the double doors until a doctor and two nurses appeared. The doctor was asking the paramedics questions filled with medical jargon that Nell couldn’t understand, and then they were gone, through doors to the hallway marked AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL ONLY.
The four of them stood there in the ER waiting room, the senseless chatter gone through those last double doors and everything now silent. Mo had lost all color. Nell knew that the situation was bleak, that there was nothing so disastrous as no pulse for that amount of time—and who knew when in the night it had stopped?—but she also kept thinking, The girl’s thirteen. She’ll wake up somehow. Don’t young bodies just know how to do that? It was an idiotic thought, but she wouldn’t let go of it.
She took Fiona and Mo to two plastic chairs in the waiting area and sat in between them. Fiona was shivering and intermittently gasping for air. Nell found herself rubbing circles on Fiona’s back with one hand and keeping her other arm around catatonic Mo. Somehow Nell had become, in the past ten minutes, the caretaker of these women. What was it in her DNA that allowed her to remain so stupidly calm in the face of disaster? She realized this was the first time she had touched Mo in weeks—the two had been speaking only out of necessity—and then she hated herself for thinking about something trivial like that. Jack paced across the linoleum floor, back and forth.
Helen and Fiona’s parents lived two hours away. Nell tried not to think about what that car ride might be like; she didn’t know how much Jack had told them. They would have already been coming to camp that day; it was the last day of the summer. The only other person in the waiting room, besides the four of them, was the receptionist. She was typing away at her computer as if it were any other kind of morning. Nell watched the clock above the desk. She counted the second hand making its rotation six times around.
During the seventh rotation, the doctor, a squat man in his fifties, came back through the swinging doors for authorized personnel only. He looked around as if getting his bearings, as if he didn’t work in this same emergency room day after day. Jack approached the doctor. Nell realized that she should stand, and she pulled Mo and Fiona up with her.
“The parents?” The doctor looked between the three of them. “Are any of you the parents?”
“No,” Jack said. “They aren’t here yet.”
“This is her sister,” Nell said, putting her arm now firmly around Fiona’s shoulder. Fiona worked for Nell at the stables, and although Nell had never taken much of a liking to her, she now wanted to protect her like she’d never wanted to protect anyone before. The fact that Fiona’s mother wasn’t there—it was too sad, on top of all the other sadness. The doctor took his thumb and forefinger and squeezed his temples. He took a deep breath.
“I’m so sorry,” he said, unable to look at Fiona. “There was nothing we could do.”
Nell was suddenly very aware of how she breathed in and out. She focused on reminding herself how to do that, like she would stop altogether if she didn’t. In, and she held it. Out, and it came sputtering. She wondered if she’d ever be able to breathe normally again. Would she always just monitor her breath all the time now, reminding herself she was still living?
“We think she had been…” He struggled to find the right words. “We think it happened many hours ago. Probably not long after she went to sleep.”
Fiona made some sort of gasping, choking noise, and Nell held on to her tighter.
He tried to look at Fiona now, but his eyes landed somewhere above her head, as if looking at her directly would cause him too much pain. “Look at her,” Nell wanted to say to him. “The least you could do is look at her.”
“Okay,” the doctor said to everyone’s silence. “Does anyone want to…? Does the sister want to…to see her?” He glanced at Nell.
Nell shook her head. “Let’s wait until the parents get here.”
“Again, I’m so sorry,” he repeated to the space above Fiona’s head. “Please let me know when the parents arrive.” He nodded in defeat and walked slowly back through the swinging doors leading to the emergency room.
—
Fiona too seemed to have forgotten how to breathe. She was trying to get words out, but they kept stopping at her throat. It sounded like she was choking.
“Deep breaths,” Nell said. “Deep breaths.”
The girl’s mouth was wide open; she was making a rasping sound as she struggled for any sort of air. She put a hand on her stomach.
“Are you going to be sick?” Nell said. Fiona nodded. Nell took her by the arm.
“Bathroom?” Nell asked the receptionist, hearing the urgency in her own voice.
The receptionist pointed, wordlessly, down the hallway to her right.
Fiona could not wait until they got to the bathroom stall and, as soon as they entered the room, vomited all over the tile.
“It’s okay,” Nell said, keeping an arm around Fiona, who was staring at her own sick on the floor. Nell grabbed a paper towel from the dispenser with her free hand. She took a corner of the towel and wiped it carefully around Fiona’s mouth.
Fiona was struggling to get air again, and it sounded like she was desperately trying to say something.
“What is it, Fiona?” Nell said. “You can say it. It’s just me.” As soon as she said this, she felt disingenuous. “Just me”? They weren’t friends, nor had they ever been. Why would Fiona want to say something to Nell, in this moment out of all moments, over anyone else?
“I—” she stammered. “I can’t—”
“I know, I know,” Nell said, moving in to place the girl’s head on her own chest.
But Fiona shook her head. Nell didn’t know. Fiona’s eyes opened wide in fear. “My mother,” she gasped, as if she had just remembered her.
—
They sat in the waiting room longer, Nell in between Mo and Fiona again. Both catatonic now. It felt both brave and foolish to still be there, to be one of the people the Larkins would have to see first. What could it have been? Did anyone know Helen might have been sick? She had ridden with Nell; she had seemed like the healthiest girl.
And what would happen to Dandelion, her horse? Another petty thought.
Nell turned to look out the window of the waiting room. It was a small hospital; Jack was sitting right there on the curb where the ambulances were parked. His hands were covering his face.
Today, everyone was supposed to go home. This was supposed to be the timely, tidy end. Mo and Nell had flights back home on Monday; once, they had planned to spend the rest of the weekend at a hostel in New York City. They were going to try to see the Sunday matinee of a Broadway show. But after Nell rejected her, Mo had changed her reservation to stay in an actual hotel, and now Nell would be at the hostel by herself. Now they would be two once-friends wandering at the same time through the same foreign city.