If You Fall

Forty One

No one interfered. Reed opened the back door and Dane put her in and climbed in with her and I got in the passenger seat, shutting the door as Reed was pulling away from the curb.

The ride to the hospital was too much like the one in Canada, though this one was punctuated with the little girl voice alternately crying and calling for her mommy. I sat with my fist pressed hard against my mouth, horrified on levels I hadn't know I had inside me, desperate for us to reach someone who could help with any of this. It only took three minutes to get to the hospital but it was interminable.

We left the car in the emergency parking zone and Dane once again took her in his arms. In the bright lights she looked a thousand times worse, vomit dried in her hair and ear, and Dane's tears were no longer quiet. He was sobbing so hard it was a wonder he could see where he was going. Reed took him by the elbow and led him to the intake window.

"We just found my sister," he said in clipped words. "She has been missing two weeks. She's a heroin addict, she was clean for nineteen months before this. She has bipolor disorder, dissociative identity disorder, and is off all of her meds. She's likely using heroin, possibly overdosed. She's dissociated right now. She's very ill." His voice faltered on the last word, and he swallowed. Dane sat on the chair next to us for the next window, cradling her on his lap, and Reed observed her almost fearfully. "I'm afraid she's dying," he whispered.

I couldn't look at her again, because the calm I had been maintaining threatened to overwhelm me. I pinched the skin on my stomach hard, twisting it, trying to keep my shit together. You may not lose it when Reed needs you to keep it together, I told myself sternly, the loathing I felt at my own weakness helping strengthen the words. Just fucking keep your shit together!

I could do this one thing for him. Or die trying. Which felt like an option with my chest tight like it was. The stench coming off her made everything so much sadder somehow and I wished I could have cleaned her up first.

They rushed out and put her on a gurney as Reed repeated the information, answering questions easily and concisely as they wheeled her back. He handed me the keys, kissed me on the head, and did the same to Dane before following them as if he belonged.

I brought Dane out to the Jeep, past the curious, half-guilty stares. I folded him into the passenger seat as he cried openly, then got into the driver's seat, adjusted it, and found a spot in short-term parking. The vehicle reeked of the drug house and I opened the windows. 

Reed's cigarettes were on the dash and I got one out, handing it to Dane. He looked at me, unembarrassed in the depths of his grief. "She's going to die, isn't she," he said brokenly.

I thought he was probably right and hoped to Christ he didn't see it on my face. I'd thought that before but had been wrong. "She'll be okay," I told him firmly. I found the little red lighter in the pack and sparked it, making Dane automatically put the cigarette between his lips. I lit it for him and he inhaled deeply, coughing a little.

"They should let her," he said, wiping his sleeve across his eyes. He opened the door and blew his nose on the ground, then pulled it shut. The cold ate away at us but we sat. "Be better for 'er if she just doesn't 'ave to do this anymore," he went on, but this only made him cry harder and I was alarmed at the ferocity of his emotion. Not to mention my inadequacy for dealing with it.

"Shhh," I said, because it was a universal soothing thing. I leaned awkwardly to hug him and he fell into my arms like a little kid. "She'll be okay. They'll fix her. They will. Reed will take care of it. You'll see." Since he looked up to Reed like I did I knew it would help.

After a few minutes he was all cried out and he sat up, unabashed, slumped and desolate. He lit another cigarette and shook his head. "Me, I wasn't born into the greatest family. Mum was a trollop, my pops 'er pimp." He half-laughed. "Was no doubt as I took after 'im, like a copy, I was. Mum was a lush, but we 'ad a little place, not too bad. Sure, she 'ad her johns over and they weren't all that great, I mean sure, they roughed me up a bit, but we did okay. 'Ad food most the time and all."