Chapter 8: The Lobby

By noon the numbers had come down enough for them to wheel me to the ground floor for an ultrasound.

Roderick pushed the chair.

My sister walked on my other side with my bag and her arms folded around it.

The hospital lobby was full of people at lunchtime.

Visitors with balloons and flowers, a volunteer at the information desk, a security guard, and a coffee line that went to the doors.

We were crossing it toward the imaging wing when I heard heels on the marble, fast, behind us.

"Roderick."

Celia came around the chair and stood in front of it.

She had on the same cardigan.

Her face was blotched and furious, and the soft voice I had heard upstairs was gone.

"You turned off your phone," she said.

"Celia, this isn't the place."

"Sammy had a seizure at six this morning. I called you six times. I called you from the nurse's phone. He asked for you the whole time."

"Is he all right?" Roderick said.

"He's alive. No thanks to you."

People in the coffee line had stopped talking.

A woman with a bunch of tulips took a small step back.

"I told you I would call again if I had to," Roderick said, and his voice cracked. "My wife was in the hospital. She is in the hospital."

"I can see that," Celia said, and finally looked at me.

Her eyes went from my face to my belly to the plastic bracelet on my wrist.

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