Saving Meghan(3)

We’re at the hospital.





CHAPTER 2


Becky’s phone buzzed for a second time.

Carl’s next message read: Can you talk?

The plane crawled forward a few more feet. Becky did the math in her head: six hours in the air, a layover in California until she could get a return flight home to Boston, six more hours to fly back, and then travel time to the hospital. All of it added up to far too long.

Becky got Carl on the phone.

“Baby, what is it? What’s going on?” Panic leaked into her voice.

“I don’t know. Holly was over with the twins. The kids were in the backyard kicking a soccer ball when Meghan just fainted. I called 911. The ambulance brought her to Saint Joe’s. But she seems fine now, alert, chatty even.”

“What did the doctors say exactly?” Becky asked. “And how could you let her run around?”

“She wanted to play.”

Becky got the subtext. Her daughter may have inherited her father’s natural athletic ability, but there was no question she got her strong will from Mom. The twins, Addy and Danielle, were younger kids from down the street. Their mother, Holly, was a neighbor who had become an expert on Lyme disease after Addy contracted it. Becky remembered now that she and Holly had made plans to meet for coffee and talk about the condition, plans she had forgotten about when she’d booked the last-minute flight to California.

The symptoms of Lyme disease are easy to miss or confuse with something else, and half the people who have it don’t even remember getting a tick bite. Meghan had already been tested, but Holly knew some rare forms of the disease that she thought worth consideration. It was no surprise she had brought the twins with her. The girls were always eager to learn soccer from Meghan, the older, far-superior player.

But Carl knew better, and it took every bit of restraint not to scream at him. Exercise, exertion of any kind, worsened her daughter’s symptoms, which was why Becky had insisted Meghan quit the varsity team, as well as the travel clubs where she was always the star.

The flight attendant, Katrina, stormed down the aisle, glowering as she marched. “You have to put that away immediately.”

At that moment, the captain’s monotone came over the loudspeaker. “We’re presently number three in line for takeoff. Flight attendants, please prepare for departure.”

“Now, please!” Katrina barked, pointing at the phone.

Becky ignored the order. “Carl, what’s going on? Is she all right?”

This was hardly the first time Meghan had been to the hospital, but it was the first time that Becky had not been with her. Anxiety built in Becky’s chest and spread outward as the hard stares of many sets of eyes bored into her from the front and back of the airplane.

“The doctor thinks she became dehydrated. No IV—she wouldn’t allow it, of course—but they’ve given her lots of fluids.”

Becky was not surprised. The only tangible result of all the doctor visits seemed to be her daughter’s newly developed and incredibly intense needle phobia. Too many failed attempts at venipuncture from inexperienced phlebotomists had deeply scarred Meghan and turned every doctor’s visit into an ordeal. Getting an IV into her would have been a miracle.

Despite Carl’s reassurances, Becky visualized her daughter on a hospital bed in the ER, the electrocardiogram going flatline. She heard alarms ringing in her ears, and imagined a swarm of doctors and nurses administering lifesaving care.

Becky pinned the phone between her shoulder and ear as she fumbled to unclasp her seat belt. She stood, nearly cracking her skull on the overhead bin as she rose, and clambered over her seatmate, issuing a string of apologies as she forced her way into the aisle.

“Ma’am, you must take your seat this instant,” Katrina said while blocking the aisle.

Ignoring the order, Becky shook her head in defiance. “My daughter is very sick. She’s in the hospital. I have to get off this plane. Now.”

“Ma’am, I’m ordering you back to your seat, right now.” Katrina pointed at Becky’s empty seat, as though she needed the reminder of how to find it.

Two flight attendants hurried toward the commotion while a third accessed the intercom, perhaps to inform the captain of the disturbance in row 16. The plane continued to roll forward, while Becky, retrieving her bag from the overhead bin, acted as though it had come to a complete stop at the gate.

“Please, I have to be with my daughter. She’s in the hospital; she’s very sick.”

“Hey, sit down, lady!” The angry voice came from some rows back.

Becky’s seatmate stood and glowered at the man who had scolded her. “Her daughter is sick,” he snapped. “She has to get off the plane. Have a heart, buddy.”

“If she’s sick, what’s she flying for?” the angry man shot back.

Becky paid no attention to him. Her thoughts looped like a recording on repeat: Get off the plane! Get off the plane! Get off the plane!

Becky figured she could knock on the cockpit door to get the captain’s attention, forgetting what those terrorists had done on that fateful day and how everything about flying had changed since then. As she pushed past Katrina, Becky felt a firm hold on her arm, followed by a strong tug backward.

“Take a seat!” Katrina commanded. She dug her fingers into Becky’s tender flesh.