Robards, Karen Read Online Free PDF Page A

EMERGENCY sign beckoned newcomers toward the well-lit interior.
    “I’ll let you out here, then park,” Dominick said, stopping the car under the carport that sheltered the wide steel-and-glass doors. A sign affixed to the roof warned, AMBULANCES ONLY. Ignoring it, Grace unfastened her seat belt, then turned to do the same for her daughter.
    “Jessica?” She smoothed back the few strands of hair
     
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    that had fallen over her daughter’s face. “Jess, we’re here.”
    Jessica’s condition was unchanged. She was limp, but breathing regularly. Not by so much as the flicker of an eyelash did she acknowledge her mother’s voice or touch. Fear began to build anew in Grace, but she forced it back.
    They were at the hospital now. Medical assistance was at hand. Giving way to panic would only hurt her child. But she-almost—couldn’t help it.
    “Jess!” Gently, she shook her daughter’s shoulder. Jessica didn’t stir. “Jess!”
    Mr. Obnoxious got out of the car and opened the rear passenger-side door. The interior light came on. For an instant, as he leaned inside, his gaze met Grace’s. He was frowning. His eyes, she saw, were a clear golden brown.
    “Let’s go.” Without waiting for either emergency room workers to appear or Grace’s expressed or implied approval, he scooped Jessica out of the seat and into his arms. She lay with her head lolling back and her arms and legs dangling, totally boneless, as he bore her away toward the emergency room entrance.
    “Wait!” Taken by surprise by the suddenness of his action, Grace scrambled out the opposite side of the car, and was left to hurry behind as the cop carried Jessica across the pavement. The sight of her daughter lying so limply in a stranger’s arms made Grace feel sick. It reinforced what she knew but tried not to think about: Jessica was chronically ill. She was afflicted with this damnable disease, with all its implications for her long-term health, for life.
    THE MIDNIGHT HOUR
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    As she acknowledged that, the despair Grace had felt upon first learning the cause of her daughter’s troubling symptoms threatened to return in full force.
    What made the situation almost unbearable was the knowledge that there was absolutely nothing she could do to change things.
    But despair was of no use to her, or Jessica, she thought, and she resolutely refused to wallow in it. She chose, instead, to hope.
    Diabetes was a serious disease, but it could be controlled. The problem was, Jessica was very young. She refusied to accept the reality of her condition, or the restrictions it imposed on her. She refused to take care of herself and resented her mother for trying to make sure she did,
    For a diabetic to get drunk was akin to a person with a food allergy deliberately gorging on the forbidden substance. The consequence was foregone: sudden illness, maybe a coma, even possible death.
    It was reprehensible for a fifteen-year-old to drink alcohol, and deserving of dire punishment. But that punishment should not include death.
    What had Jessica been thinking?
    The hospital smell, a combination of alcohol and other disinfectants and sickness, hit Grace as soon as she walked through the double doors that slid open with a gentle swoosh to admit them. She had smelled it too often of late, and now it sickened her. Crossing her arms over her chest, she attempted to ward off the cold. It was entirely possible, she thought, that she would never be warm again.
    There were only a few people seated in the maroon-
     
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    and-gray plastic chairs that lined the walls of the emergency room: a man holding a bloody washcloth to his head, a woman clutching a sleeping baby wrapped in a blueand-white quilt, a nicely dressed elderly couple reading magazines side by side, another woman trying to contain an energetic toddler. The little boy’s laughter as he climbed over a row of chairs while the woman tried vainly to catch him was, to Grace, an off note,