Page 90 of The Troll’s Summer Flame

“If his condition is serious, I would call 911.”

I slam the phone down, convinced that it’s too late for 911. I pick up Earl and Tilly barks once, a sharp, desperate sound.

“Look, girl, I’m taking Earl to the hospital, and then I’m coming back for you.”

And if he makes it... I’m not letting him back in this hellhole ever again...

“I am not going to live in New York. Godless city hellhole.”

“Earl. If you don’t come with me, so help me God, I will dig you up and bury you in Manhattan.”

Earl looks genuinely terrified for a second, and then his scarred features return to their normal “Grumpy Old Cuss” position. “You’re acting like I’m dead.”

“If I let you go back to Mint Woods, you will be.”

“I don’t need nursing care. I don’t crap my pants and forget what month it is or who the president is. Hell, I can name ‘em all. November—and Washington, Adams, Jefferson, Madison, Monroe, Adams Jr., Jackson, Van Buren, Harrison—”

“Save the history lesson! You need to be some place where they can take care of your sugar and your meals, where they actually check on you like... Not like a patient,” I say quickly, because that’ll cause another shouting match, “but like a family member.”

“Places like that don’t exist. The VA out here was good, but they’ll tell me to move on in a couple of weeks. I don’t qualify long-term, not as independent as I am—and I’ll damn well stay that way—if I remember to take my damn pills and I eat regular.”

“Not the boxes of Girl Scout cookies all day long because it’s what you have handy, what you can reach.” I settle Earl’s battered blue hat with sewn-on patches back on his head.

Earl doesn’t answer. I know it hurts his pride to realize that he’d been so out of it, living on boxes of cookies and not checking his sugar regularly once he started needing help. We’re not even going to talk about the lack of clean clothes.

We’re not going to talk about what a shitty friend I’ve been to the only human who has ever befriended me. Sure, Earl doesn’t know what I am, but he doesn’t care, either.

“Stop that groaning. I ain’t dead.”

I stop groaning, but only audibly. Inside, I’m wracked with guilt and worry and fear. I knew things were bad, but I didn’t realize how bad. This was the first time I’d gone several nights in a row without checking on him. I told him I was too busy to stop by—as in too busy using my glamour pendant to see if I could get lucky with the hot new waitress at Jolene’s, the diner out on the highway. I’m kicking myself because I’m not even “real,” and I don’t have a job, or wife, or kids—what the hell kinda busy was I? Chasing a big ass and a nice pair of legs because I’ve been restless and needy, and not going to those damn conventions anymore... And because whenever I get the itch, I hear Cindy’s voice in my head, telling me to try something different, try for something real. All I know is that a few more days of listening to my hormones instead of my heart might have meant Tilly and me standing beside some coffin while a preacher who don’t know nothing about Earl tries to half-ass his way through a eulogy, and there’s no one to take his folded flag in one of those little glass triangle boxes.

“You need to be where people like me can come and go in safety and not worry about sneaking in and out, and where there’s not just me and Tilly.” Needs a posse of people who have his back, even if they’re not blood kin. Like Lennox has in Pine Ridge.

Earl needs more than me.

Damn it, this unselfish love crap bites ass.

“People like you? You... different, son?”

Son. This man loves me better than my own father ever got a chance to.

Maybe it doesn’t bite so much...

“No, I mean... I’m not family. And they get real picky about that, Earl.”

Earl hums, thinking.

I didn’t want to have to do this, but I’m going to do it. The nuclear option. “Earl?”

“What?”

“Mint Woods Nursing Homes don’t allow dogs. And if you ever have a setback like this again, where you skip a couple meals, let your sugars go crashing and boiling over with no rhyme or reason... They’ll put you in one. That’s right. VA home is too damn full, and every other place but Mint Woods is too expensive. You can’t be as ‘independent’ as they want? They’ll kick you out on your ass before you can say ketoacidosis. Tilly’ll probably be taken and shipped to some pound before I even hear you’re in the hospital. I can’t be with you twenty-four-seven. I know you don’t need that!” I interrupt myself before Earl can, his mouth open in an angry snarl. “But you need someone to look in on you a couple of times a day. Hell, Earl. I’d do it, but I don’t have a decent place for the three of us, and I don’t have a steady job.” I swallow grimly. “But I know where I can get one.”

Earl is quiet for a long time. I’m worried he’s slipping away, mentally, or maybe his sugar is bad again, but no. He’s just mulling. “Well. S’pose it won’t matter much. No one visits me but you. I can’t see how ugly the city is, anyway...”

“Not a city. Up in the mountains. My brother’s job runs right along the river, and his buddy is a krak—crack fisherman. Real sharp and knows all the spots. We’ll go fishing, Earl.” My voice is low, urgent, and desperate. Getting him to agree to this is just one part of the plan.

The other two might not be as hard, but they’ll be a close second.