Chapter 12: Your Mother Never Held You

The call came at 3:40 that afternoon, while I was still walking out of the Peachtree Club into the sun.

"Waverly?" It was the chief nurse from the boardroom, breathless.

"Your mother collapsed on the unit. She's awake and already giving orders, but you need to come."

I ran.

Raylan was parked outside the club, because I had told him not to wait and he had waited anyway.

He was out of the car before I reached the curb.

"Get in," he said.

He drove with one hand on the wheel and the other wrapped around mine.

He didn't say a word until we reached the ER.

Maybelle sat upright in a hospital gown with a blood pressure cuff on one arm, scolding a resident.

"Two hundred over a hundred and twenty," she said, "is a number, young man. It's not a verdict."

"Mrs. Calhoun, you passed out on the floor of the cardiac unit."

"I was resting my eyes."

I stood in the doorway with my hand over my mouth.

She saw me and her whole face went soft.

"Oh, baby, come here. I'm fine. I only forgot to eat."

I held her so hard that the cuff hissed.

"You are not fine," I said into her hair. "You are never fine. You make everyone else fine."

"That's the job."

"You are fired from the job."

"Mm. Try it."

Raylan came in quietly behind me and put a paper cup of tea on her bedside table, without a word.

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