The Reckless Oath We Made(29)

I didn’t believe Aunt Shelly’s health had anything to do with her not coming to see Mom. They hadn’t seen each other in years. They’d had a huge fight at Uncle Tim’s funeral, over some family heirlooms Mom thought she should have. They’d gone to Uncle Tim and, after he was dead, his wife, my aunt Shelly, refused to give them to Mom, because Emma had just as much right to them as me or LaReigne. One of those stupid fights that aren’t even about anything important, but that ended with Aunt Shelly cutting off all contact except for the family Christmas letter. That was Mom and Aunt Shelly both. Some great-great-grandmother’s wedding china was more important to them than actual family members.

I couldn’t blame Emma. If I had the option of walking away, wouldn’t I? Mom’s neighbors were standing out on their porches, and pretty soon reporters would show up, because who could resist watching a six-hundred-pound woman being publicly humiliated in front of the giant trash heap that was her home? Why would Emma want anyone to know we were her family?

“Yeah, well, thanks for coming anyway,” I said.

“Sure. I hope everything turns out okay.”

“I guess you’ll hear about it on the news, one way or another.”

“I’m sorry.” She stood there all wet-eyed, like she was going to hug me. In case that’s what she was thinking, I took a couple steps backward and held up the bottle of water.

“Thanks for this.” Then I walked back to where Mom was sitting in her recliner. She straightened up a little.

“Where’s Emma?”

“She had to go,” I said. As pissed as I was, I didn’t want Mom to know that her brother’s family had written us off.

When the tow truck came and loaded my car, Mom was so fixated on the cops carrying things out of the house that she didn’t notice. I was glad for that.

We’d been there another hour, and Mom had finished her bottle of water and half of mine, when she started coughing. I checked my pockets, and then the pockets on the recliner, but all I found was the TV remote and a bunch of romance novels.

“Mom, where’s your inhaler?”

She couldn’t stop coughing long enough to answer me, so I patted the pockets of her bathrobe, but all I found was tissues and Mentholatum. I’d had the inhaler in the house. I’d taken it out of her hand. What did I do with it? I couldn’t remember. Did I give it back to her? Did I lay it down somewhere? That was an amateur move. I knew not to set anything down in her house.

I crossed the lawn and, before Officer Toby could sneer at me, I said, “You need to find her inhaler. How much stuff have they taken out of the front room? Her side table, have they moved that?”

“Do I look like I know? I’ve been standing out here.”

“Then I need to talk to somebody who does know. It’s an asthma inhaler. Do you—”

Mom stopped coughing. Just stopped. I turned to look at her, and even from that far away, I could tell something was wrong. Her face was bright red and her mouth was open, but no sound was coming out.

“You need to call an ambulance,” I said.

“What’s the—”

“Call for an ambulance. Right now!” I pulled his radio off his shoulder and put it in his hand. Then I ran back across the yard. When I got to Mom, she had her hand over her heart.

“I can’t breathe,” she said. “I can’t breathe.”





CHAPTER 14





Gentry



’Twas as tho my heart lay upon the table aside my bed, for I woke an instant ere my phone buzzed.

If you’re not sleeping, I need a favor, was Lady Zhorzha’s message.

I answered I am awake, my lady, and a moment after, she called me.

“I’m sorry if I woke you up,” she said. “I just—my mother had a—I don’t know. Maybe a heart attack. They’re taking her to the hospital, but the police impounded my car.”

“Shall I fetch thee?”

“If you don’t mind, yeah, that would be great.”

“Gladly,” I said. I had bathed ere I lay down to sleep, so I rose, dressed, and went straightaway to the dragon’s lair. There, a great many of the sheriff’s men gathered all ’round the dragon’s hoard that they had heaped up under the open sky. I was hard struck to see it and confounded, for what hoped they to gain of such a thing?

Near hand upon the road stood the ambulance, and beyond weren the knaves and scoundrels that came upon the first day. They had come again to inquire and stare.

In the midst of it all, the lady dragon lay upon a cart, and a physician spake sharply and pressed upon her side. My lady was there, and I think much wroth with the sheriff’s men, most especially the one called Mansur.

His deputies weren armed like soldiers, and he commanded that they should clear the knaves that the physician might take the lady dragon to the hospital. I joined them, for there was one qued who would make an image of the lady dragon as she was put into the ambulance.

I pushed him hence, but a deputy laid his hand upon my arm and, tho it me liked not, I retreated not.

“I come for Lady Zhorzha Trego. She called for me.”

“Jesus Christ! Will you let him through?” my lady called to the deputies. To Mansur, she said, “I told you she wasn’t well. This is your fault.”