The Bad Jokes #1: The Redhead

Chapter 21: One Hundred Percent Certainty

Walking into my condo for the first time in days, I shut the door behind me and leaned back against it. My eyes closed, and I opened them immediately, trying to focus on anything but the image of Rory dying in the ambulance, the frantic two and a half minutes the paramedic fought to bring her back, the sight of Rory's body jumping under the shock of the defibrillator paddles.

We're losing her!

No heartbeat!

She's not breathing!

Pushing away from the door, I forced the scene from my mind, but other images kept crowding my brain.

The frantic rush to get Rory out of the ambulance, her heartbeat only just restored.

All the blood.

Rory deathly still as they rushed her past me so fast I was three steps behind.

The nurse stopping me as they took Rory straight into the OR.

You can't go past here, sir.

I kept seeing images, the team waiting for us at the emergency room doors. I laced my fingers together and rested them on the top of my head as I paced, not moving more than six feet from those doors.

"Our daughter was just brought in," a male voice caught my attention as he demanded information from the receptionist. "Rory Matthewson."

"Please," the woman with him begged, a woman who could only be Rory's mother with that hair. "Where is she?"

Before the receptionist could answer, I said, "In surgery. She's in surgery. They took her straight from the ambulance into the OR."

Both Mr. and Mrs. Matthewson turned to look at me, their faces changing from worry to shock as they took in the shirtless man covered in blood.

"Chase Matthewson," the man said, stepping in front of his wife to come to me, holding out his hand to shake. I hesitated, my hand covered in dried blood.

So much blood.

"Is that my daughter's blood?" he asked, eyeing my hand.

I nodded, and he clasped it immediately as I introduced myself.

"Tell us what happened," he demanded, and pulled his wife tight against his side. She cried quietly as I told them everything -- every fucking horrifying detail -- that had gone down, impressing on them it was my fault Rory had been shot. 

And had died. For more than two minutes. 

And could still die in surgery since she was that unstable.

Amy Matthewson, as she'd introduced herself, stepped away to make a phone call.

"There's a restroom right over there," her father said to me. "Go get cleaned up."

"I can't leave her," I said, looking at the doors leading to the OR.

For a long minute, Chase looked at me, then he walked away and returned moments later with a nurse, who took me aside, but still within sight of the OR doors and helped me clean up.

By the time I finished, the rest of the clan had descended on the hospital: Gracie and Justice; Judge and Sorrel Buchanon; Rory's grandmother, Mary Alice Andrews Matthewson -- or just Ma'am, as she directed me to call her; Gracie's parents, Bridge and Mercy Matthewson; and Alex came in last and handed me a shirt and some sweats.

"Roar's condo's being cleaned," he said as he handed me the clothes. "But she won't be going back there if the clucking hens have anything to do with it."