“Melanie, she didn’t want to hurt you— she never intended to let him get away with it.” My mother murmured while Kyle continued to yell on the other end of the phone. I counted to ten slowly and tried to regulate my breathing, but Kyle's panic overwhelmed me as he bounced back and forth between demanding answers from us and demanding his staff make a plane magically appear.
“Gram knew that Ben was cheating. That’s what she knew.” I snapped, desperate to shut him up for a minute.
Kyle went deathly silent.
My head had started to spin again, and I closed my eyes tight against the wave of nausea. In the distance, I heard an ambulance turn on to our road.
“Kyle, the paramedics are about to arrive. I will call you from the hospital.” My mother said softly.
“I’ll be home soon.” He sounded tense and far away.
“I don’t want you to move until they move you.” My mother instructed, and I hummed an acknowledgement.
I barely listened as she explained to the paramedics what had happened and that I was pregnant. They asked me a few questions, but then quickly realized that I was distracted and switched into transport mode. They gently warned me that they were going to stabilize my neck‘just in case’and load me into the ambulance.
Then they turned to my mother and told her which hospital I was going to be at if she wanted to follow. My jaw dropped at the incredulous scoff that came out of my otherwise polite mother as she followed me into the ambulance without bothering to reply to them.
“Mom!” I hissed as the paramedics exchanged confused looks. “That was rude!”
My mother looked back at the paramedics and then settled down beside me with a frown. “Melanie, they expected me to just leave you alone after watching you pass out on my floor.”
“I’m an adult, they might have rules against letting parents ride along for adults.” I rolled my eyes and groaned. She narrowed her eyes at me for a moment and then shifted her body back to face the men.
“My husband is planning on meeting me at the hospital. I’d be more comfortable traveling with my daughter to the hospital if you don’t mind.” She sounded like her usual self again, and I relaxed.
“That should be fine, ma’am.” One of them replied with a casual shrug. The other grumbled something under his breath about not riding in the back of the rig and headed to the front.He left the back of the rig and my mother for the man who had pulled the imaginary short straw by being kind to us.
“I apologize for being rude before.” A contrite smile softened Mom’s features.
“People tend to behave unlike themselves in moments of high stress; we learn not to take it personally.” The man replied, and then his eyes shifted to the front where his partner was, “eventually.” He shot a wink at my mother when his partner scoffed. Then he put his professional face back on and asked me how I was feeling.
I assured him that my vision had returned to normal and that I didn’t feel like the earth was tilting beneath me anymore.
By the time we got to the ER, he had conducted the concussion exam again, checked all of my vitals, and convinced my mother that I was stable. My father had beaten us to the ER and had insisted on waiting by the ER entrance rather than in the waiting room. He was lucky that most of the staff knew him from his years of being a pharmacist in the area.
After a quick triage and short wait, a doctor stepped into the little room they had stuffed us into. The ER doctor concurred with the paramedic’s assessment and told me that even though he wasn’t worried, he wanted to run some labs and get an ultrasound just to be safe.
Then a plump and pleasant older nurse came in and set me up with an IV and some fluids to make sure that I wasn’t dehydrated and told us that the doctor would be back to speak to us shortly. All of which seemed perfectly normal untilhe returned and informed us that a room had already been prepared for me.
“Which one of you called and forced them to admit me?” I glared at them and waited to see which one would crack first.
“Honestly, I didn’t even know you could reserve a room ahead of time. That’s convenient.” My mother smiled and tucked a strand of my hair behind my ear.
“You’re not supposed to be able to.” I grumbled and stared at my father.
“Don’t look at me.” He threw his hands up and shook his head. “I’m glad that you and the baby are going to get checked out properly, but I didn’t call ahead.”
Going from the back of an ambulance to a private room in just under three hours was unheard of. Someone had pulled some serious strings.
A few minutes later, we were on our way upstairs to the room.
“Maybe it was Kyle?” My mother said after we were settled.
It didn’t sound like a Kyle move to me… but it did sound like a Griffin move.
“Kyle was saying something about Griffin before he hung up, wasn’t he?” I asked my mother.
“Oh, that’s right. Maybe Griffin called ahead.” She looked around the room we had been brought to. “This does feel like something he would do.”
