Chapter 8: Emergency Room

I went to the hospital because Sybil had no one else who knew her pills.

That is what I told myself in Max's car, with my hands in my lap and the seat belt buzzing.

He drove in silence.

"You don't have to come," he said at the second light.

"I know."

"I'm glad you did."

"I know what she takes," I said. "It's all I know."

He nodded and said nothing more until we reached Mass General.

Sybil lay on a gurney in a curtained bay with a blanket tucked to her chin and her pearls still on.

Her hair was perfect.

She had one hand pressed to her hip and the other held out to me.

"Aubrey," she said. "Thank God."

I did not take the hand.

"What happened?"

"I was reaching for my book. The chair rolled, and I went down. The housekeeper's away, and Juliette was upstairs, and nobody came."

"Corliss called an ambulance," Max said.

"Corliss was in the garden, dear. She had come about the invitations, and she saw it through the window."

"How long were you on the floor, Mother?" Max said.

"Oh, a very long time," Sybil said.

The doctor came in at nine.

She was a young woman with a ponytail and tired eyes, and she lifted Sybil's blouse at the hip and pressed with her thumbs.

"Does this hurt?" the doctor said.

"Terribly," Sybil said.

"And this?"

"Terribly."

The doctor nodded.

"Can you lift this leg for me?"

Sybil lifted it a few inches and let it drop with a moan.

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