Being at the hospital was bad enough without having to play referee between her mom and Glory when Glory wasn’t even participating. Tallie sat between them, leaving Emmett on the edge of the aisle next to her mother, who was now talking to him, telling him he was a hero.
“No, ma’am.” Emmett shook his head with that bridge-hollow look in his eyes.
“Mama?” Tallie said, hoping she’d shut up. Emmett had rolled up his sleeves, revealing hot pink splotches on his forearms. She asked him if he needed anything for them. More gauze, aloe? He shook his head.
“Tonight has made me start smoking again. I’ll be back,” her mom said, standing and grabbing her purse. Tallie watched her walk out the automatic doors. There were a couple of costumed people in the waiting room. A little boy dressed like Spider-Man holding what appeared to be a broken arm and a little girl in a banana costume, sleeping on her mother’s shoulder. A man wearing a polar bear suit sat flipping through a magazine, the bear head in its own chair beside him.
Tallie’s dad leaned forward and touched her knee. “I’m sure he’ll be fine. He’s tough,” he said. “And thank you, Emmett. For helping him.”
“No need to thank me, Mr. Clark.”
The waiting-room televisions flashed an episode of Law & Order: SVU that Tallie had seen a hundred times. Glory pulled her knitting out of her bag, and Tallie asked her about it. It was a nice distraction. She listened to Glory talk about the dishcloth pattern she was using, how she’d found a sale on cotton yarn instead of ordering it from her usual place. The details were comfortably mind-numbing. Ben sat across from them in his LeBron James costume with his arm around the owl woman from the party. Popeye and Olive Oyl sat beside them, friends of Lionel and Zora.
*
“Lieve schat, are you all right?” Nico asked when he showed up, not long after Tallie’s parents. He’d ditched his blazer and bloody bolts but was still greenish-yellow-faced, standing there in his THE MONSTER’S NAME IS NOT FRANKENSTEIN T-shirt, scratching at his head. “Is Li okay?”
Tallie hugged him, told him what she knew.
“Chips,” Nico said quietly, frowning. It sounded like ships, and he said it oftentimes instead of shit because he’d grown up hearing his Dutch mother say it. Nico slacked his shoulders and let out his breath. He looked at Emmett. “Is he okay?”
“Burned his hands a bit,” she said. Emmett had his head back, his eyes closed.
“Your boyfriend?” Nico asked close to her ear.
“He’s my friend…a new friend,” Tallie said, thinking about the kissing. Madness. How had everything happened so fast?
“Well, do you need me to stay here with you? Do anything? Have you eaten? I could grab you something. Where’s Aisha?” he asked, looking around as if she’d appear at the mention of her name.
“Lake Tahoe. She’ll be back tomorrow. Today,” Tallie said, realizing it was Sunday. “I’m fine. I’ll get some food. Thank you. I’ll text you later.”
“You’re sure?”
“I’m sure. Go home and sleep,” she said, hugging him. He said goodbye and took her face in his hands, kissed her forehead before walking away.
*
Tallie was quiet sitting next to Emmett, in case he was sleeping. She closed her eyes and slipped her heels off, let her head lean on the wall. Was Lionel alive? She opened her eyes in panic, looked at Emmett, still beside her. She glanced at the flashing television before letting the wallpaper pattern blur and come back into focus. Is this how it happened? The family cautiously hopeful but worried, waiting in those chairs until the doctor or surgeon came through the doors with a mournful look on their face, warning of bad news? Tallie closed her eyes again, tried to concentrate on breathing to quell her seasick stomach. Lionel couldn’t die. Lionel wouldn’t die. But what if Lionel died? Poor Zora. Poor River. Her parents, his friends. All of them. People really did die from things like this. Freak accidents killed more people than Tallie cared to think about. Lives gone in an instant, unexpected last heartbeats happening every terrifying waking moment.
Lionel had been in New York City on 9/11, and for those three hours that morning when Tallie couldn’t get hold of him, she’d attended his funeral in her mind. And several years back, Lionel had been in a snowmobile accident during a work trip to Green Bay. Judith had called Tallie and said “Lionel’s hurt,” and Tallie’s brain had done the anxious work of putting him in the ground before her mom could tell her that he’d only had a small fracture in his wrist. The thought of losing her big brother was overwhelming. How would any of them go on without him? She was crying again, attempting to hide it but couldn’t, and waved her dad and Glory off before they could make a fuss over her. She put her head in her hands. Shook. She felt Emmett’s warm hand on her back, and, besides knowing Lionel was okay, it was the only other thing she needed in the world in that moment.