Love in Limbo

Chapter Four

When I finally made it back to the facility it was midday. I was greeted at reception by a nurse who handed me the sign in chart. I signed and smiled, handing it back to her before racing up the corridor and to the elevators. I had to find Cassidy, the desperation I felt to locate her immediately, it was overwhelming, I had just met her and yet I feared I had lost her already. I kept worrying about why Blair's Father wanted her home, and what the news was that he so desperately needed to tell her. I didn't know what to believe, how had I met her Sister when she was unconscious, in a coma, and had been for eighteen months?! As soon as the elevator reached the second level I ran out into the foyer, gazing at the residents names on a colorful display that was found on each level of the community home.

"Colonel Colonel Colonel" I repeated, until I see her name in blue lettering "Cassidy Colonel" I whisper, before reaching for the door that leads to the corridor with her room on.

I pass doors that are shut, and those that are open, with residents sat watching TV, and some sleeping in their chairs. I am flustered and panicked. I search frantically for her name,
until I see it, two doors from the end of the hall. I take a deep breath, afraid of what I will see when I enter the room. As I inhale and exhale my shoulder bag comes loose and swings down from my shoulder, hitting the door in the process and opening it. The motion revealed the room in its entirety, the empty room. I feel my brow furrow, and my heart starts to miss beats as I enter the room. I steady myself with my hand on the wall as I take in the empty space. There is a board above the chair in the corner that has not been wiped yet, and there I see her name, and the words Traumatic brain injury.

"Where is she" I start to call out. "Where has she gone" I call louder and frantic.

My calls are heard, when Nurse Gloria enters the room, shocked to find me there. "Oh honey, what are you doing in here" she asks, taking in the horror on my face. "Your Grams is one floor up" she adds, clearly thinking I'm in the wrong place.

I raise my eyes to meet hers. "Is she dead" I whisper, feeling my legs turn to jelly. I slide down the wall, feeling my back hit the floor. "Did she die" I ask again through sobs "Did Cassidy die".

Gloria moves across the room, and lifts me to my feet "Cassidy Colonel" She asks me, whilst wiping the tears from my cheeks. She smiles at me through her hands that are cupping my face kindly "Cassidy has been moved up to the third floor. Her insurance stopped paying for the room, so her parents had to move her to a smaller one that they could afford"

I found myself laughing out loud at her words, like a lunatic "they moved her" I repeated to Gloria, placing my hand over my mouth and falling back down the wall as she nodded. The relief that washed over me in that moment wasn't normal, it was a wave of all consuming desperation.

"Room three hundred and twenty one" she said, taking my hand and helping me to stand again. "Do you mind me asking, how you know Miss Cassidy" she asks.

I look back at Gloria. I lift my bag back onto my shoulder and wipe my eyes. "We met at camp when we were kids" I reply.

Gloria wraps her large arm around my shoulders and squeezes me gently. Gloria is tall, gloriously tanned, she's cheerful and sunny, with large lips that always seems to be curled into a naughty smile, like she knows a secret you don't know. I wouldn't say she was over Fifty. Her weave was tall and eccentric like she was, and the residents loved her. "I am just glad miss Cassidy has a friend in this world that's bothered to visit with her. She will be thrilled for the visit Sarah"

I am startled that she knows my name, she reads my reaction "Your Grams don't stop talking about you" she adds to my curious expression. "I think the whole place knows about Sarah Cooper and her bad coffee habit by now" she adds with a little laugh as she departs the room.