The Trouble Is

Chapter 35: Life Support

It takes us a lifetime to get to the hospital. East refuses to let me out at the door while he parks the truck, so once we're parked we jog to the doors of the emergency room. As we get close, I can see that people are everywhere. There's a group of kids still in their bathing suits crying just inside the door. There are kids in baseball uniforms standing around in the hallway. There are parents and teachers and the ministers from the Methodist and Baptist churches. I don't see Katie's parents anywhere.

We walk through the doors, and all the girls start hugging me. They are crying and saying how they are praying for Katie. They're inviting me to join them. I don't understand what is happening here and wish, wish, wishthat I had waited for my mom. I can smell all of it at once: lake water, perfume, sweat, medicine, alcohol, blood, and fear, all blurred together.

East grabs me and pulls me away from the swarm of girls. He leads me to the little window where visitors have to sign in. I briefly wonder how injured people manage to sign in before remembering that if they are that injured, they come in through big doors that open automatically.

"This is Anne," East says. "Can you please tell Katie's parents that she is here? I know they're busy right now, so we're going to wait in the chapel. You do have a chapel, don't you?"

The guy at the desk writes down "Anne" and "Chapel" on a little sticky note. He gives us directions to the chapel. We start to leave, and then East goes back to talk to him. He speaks softly, and the guy nods.

"Good man," East says to him.

"What was that about?" I ask.

"We are going to the chapel to wait on your mom and Katie's folks," he explains. "Our new friend, Andrew, is going to keep our location quiet. You can text your mom and ask her to come through the front door of the hospital and meet us in the chapel."

I'm a little amazed at East's tactical maneuvering there, and incredibly grateful.

"Good thinking," I say. He squeezes my hand tight, and the little woven bracelet slips down between our hands.

****

Mom blows through the doors to the chapel and comes right at me, arms open. She wraps me up and keeps me there, standing in her arms, as she rocks back and forth a little. I see East give her the raised eyebrow, head-to-the-door gesture that means "Should I leave?" Mom shakes her head no ever so gently.

We stand like that for seconds and hours all at the same time, then finally sit on a pew. Me, Mom, and East.

Mom talks in that quiet, matter-of-fact way she has sometimes. She tells us what we already know about the accident, stressing that it was an accident. She talked to Katie's dad on the way over here. They want me to come see them after Mom has talked to me, when I'm ready.

"OK," I say. "What else?"

Mom takes our hands, mine and East's, forming a tense chain.

"Anna," she says it so softly that I can barely hear it. The quietest tears in the history of the world pour down her face, pool on her neckline, rolling over the bones that protrude there after so many rounds of poisonous medicine. And I know then. I know. It doesn't matter if she says the words or not. Katie is gone.

****

Katie has an interesting phrase she loves to use. She learned it from her parents, who picked it up in some exotic place. It's "do the needful." It means what you would think—simply to do what is needed. It seems to imply respect and maybe a bit of trust to do what is necessary without going into all the details.

Mom, East, and I sit together in the chapel for a while until a nurse stops by to say that Katie's parents are ready for us.

And then, with Mom and East beside me, I do what I have to do. I do the needful.