Page 75 of Big & Lily

When you say “hospital” to a Jersey girl, she pictures a monolith of an institution, taking up a block or more of real estate, with ambulances coming and going and people carrying flowers and balloons and wearing concerned faces as they parade through the front door. Here in Palmer, the hospital feels more like a bank than a medical facility. The only ambulance in sight is parked off to the side. Across the street is a McDonald’s and a pharmacy.

Brick parks and asks Xavier to run inside for a wheelchair, and the boy’s face lights up. The whole crew tumbles out of the van as if we are a tourist bus stopping for lunch. The two-hour drive here was filled with chatter and laughter and a few out-of-key songs—our sweet friends trying to distract us from our pain. At one point we passed a scenic overlook for the peaks of Denali, and I asked to stop so everyone could have one last view of what they gave up today.

“Nonsense,” said Luna. “We’re on a mission, no stopping.” We all strained our necks to catch a glimpse as Brick continued driving. The sky was cloudless, and the view, what we could see of it, was perfect, and I felt awful—for my traveling companions, despite them insisting it was their choice to come along, but also for my sister.

“I really wish you could have seen it,” I said to her quietly.

“You didn’t push me off the trail and down a ravine. Or did you? My memory is a little foggy.”

Xavier comes out of the front doors pushing the wheelchair like it is a go-cart, but when Brick helps me into it, the boy gently takes my other arm. Lily stops Ian. “You’re a good dad,” she whispers to him.

“Well, he’s worried about you... both. He cares about you.” Then he crosses his arms and smiles. “I’m proud of him,” he says. I see Lily nudge her elbow into Ian’s side as Zave wheels me into a side door that reads,emergency.

The waiting room is quiet. It has the requisite posters for choking procedures, and COVID precautions, and a shocking illustration of what could happen if your car hits a moose—spoiler alert, moose wins, you die. An older woman thumbs through a magazine. A young man with a scraggly beard and dirty hiking pants holds an ice pack to his elbow.

While Brick checks us in, Luna sits next to me and picks another twig out of my hair. “How will I get along without you,” I say as I give her a squeeze.

“Boston isn’t that far from New Jersey. By the way, Mimi has decided to go ahead with the treatment. She’ll call her oncologist as soon as we get home. When she’s done, you and Lily should come up and celebrate with us when she rings the bell.”

“Oh, Luna. That’s fantastic.”

“Yes, coming on this trip was just what we needed.”

“For us too.”

“You have a funny way of showing it,” she says, pointing to my swollen ankle.

“Worth it.”

“Did Brick slip you a funny painkiller from his first aid bag?” We giggle.

“I didn’t realize that was an option.”

Luna sighs. “Such a hoot.”

Brick brings over paperwork on a clipboard, and we are called into the back before Lily and I can sign it all. (Another thing that would never happen in a busy, suburban hospital—we’d be waiting for hours, broken and bleeding in a crowded waiting room.)

“Follow me,” says a nurse as she takes control of my wheelchair. The whole group lines up behind us. Dane takes Lily by her elbow to escort her in. “Are you all family members?” she asks, giving my companions the once-over.

“Yes,” says Dane, and I smile.

“Well, one family member only,” she says.

“It’s okay,” I tell her. And then to my sweet new family, “You all wait here. Lily and I’ve got this.”

“How about we all go across the street for a coffee and a McMuffin? It’ll be on Bridget,” says Brick.

“Yes, absolutely on me,” I say as I am rolled away. “It’s not drinks for falling in the drink. But it’s the best I can offer right now.”

“Will an Alaskan McDonald’s have reindeer breakfast sausage?” asks Xavier, and everyone laughs.

The emergency department is a square room with a nurses’ station in the center and four cubicles, only one of which is taken. The nurse stops in front of a restroom. “We’re going to need urine samples from both of you. There are cups on the shelf on the wall. I can help you,” she says to me, “if you need.”

“Urine samples for a few possible broken bones?” I ask. Are we being drug tested? Is this a liability thing, the insurance company won’t cover us if we were high when we went over the edge?

“It’s standard procedure before we can take X-rays. For women of childbearing age, we need to rule out pregnancy. It’s in the forms you just filled out.”

My stomach drops. My jaw clenches. Lily was doing so well. This is going to set her back. Erase anything positive this trip has given her.