Robards, Karen Read Online Free PDF

an anomaly in this place of fear and suffering. Off to one side, a man in a janitor’s uniform sloshed a mop over the gray terrazzo floor. Near where he worked, the empty escalator hummed almost silently on its neverending journey to an unseen upper floor. Piped-in easy-listening music jarred Grace’s nerves.
    The woman behind the admitting desk watched their approach. She had chin-length dark hair in the grip of a lousy perm, a plump, unlined face, and she wore a pink lab coat with a gray plastic nameplate pinned to one shoulder. Liz Barnes, receptionist, it read. A large clock affixed to the gray-painted wall above her head blinked the time: 3:25 A.M.
    The receptionist looked as if she meant to greet them, but the cop carryingJessica forestalled her. “I’m a police officer. We have a diabetic emergency
    here.” His words were crisp, cold, authoritative. “Oh. just a minute. ” With a frowning glance at Jessica, who lay as if dead in his arms, the woman lifted the receiver from the telephone on her desk, pressed a button, and spoke in a quick, low voice into the mouthpiece.
    “Someone will be right with you.” Her words were addressed to the cop as she put the receiver down.
    THE MIDNIGHT HOUR
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    She had barely finished speaking when the gray double doors to the left of the desk swung open. A nurse came out, clearly identified as Mary Morris, R-N. by the name tag on her white lab coat, Short stra cr t gray hair, no makeup, a little hi
    igh 1 1 ippy in her white uniforin pants and smock, was Grace’s quick first impression as she joined them.
    “She’s diabetic?” Placing her fingers on the pulse point beneath Jessica’s left ear, Ms. Morris addressed the question to the cop. “Type l?”
    “Yes,” Grace answered, moving in closer. Her heart was pumping fast, in classic fight or flight response, she supposed. It was all she could do to keep her voice even. She put one hand protectively on Jessica’s shoulder. “She’s been drinking, but I don’t know how much. I think her blood sugar’s way too high, and
    “Did you test it?” Ms. Morris moved a stethoscope over Jessica’s chest as she spoke.
    Grace took a deep breath and shook her head. “I brought her right in.”
    Ms. Morris nodded, lifting the stethoscope fromjessica’s chest and disengaging it from her own ears. She looked from Grace to the cop and back. “You the parents?”
    “I’m her niother.”
    The cop shook his head. “I’m a Franklin County police officer.”
    “Bring her on back.” Ms. Morris turned and headed back through the double doors, gesturing to the cop to follow, which he did. Grace was right behind hun.
     
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    KAREN ROBARDS
    “Ma’am, excuse me, ma’am, if you’ll just step over here for a second to give us the information we need The receptionist called after her and smiled apologetically as Grace glanced back. The woman had to be kidding—but of course she wasn’tArrangenients had to be made so the hospital would be paid. “It’ll just take a couple of minutes.”
    Taking a firm grip on her composure, Grace returned to the admitting desk as Jessica was borne into the treatment area through the gray double doors, which swung shut again, closing Grace out.
    “It’ll just take a moment,” the receptionist inurmured again, soothingly, as Grace stared at those doors with pain-filled eyes. “I need your insurance card.”
    Glancing at the computer screen to which the receptionist turned, it occurred to Grace that she didn’t have her insurance card, or indeed, anything else, with her. Rubbing her hands over her face, she fought back an urge to scream. It was important, for Jessica and for herself, that she remain calm and in control.
    “I don’t have my purse with me. Or iny insurance card,” she confessed. She could barely stand still, so anxious was she to rejoinjessica. “We should be in the computer. We’ve been here before.”
    Five times in the fifteen months since Jessica’s diabetes had been