Forward by Natalie Keller Reinert

Author:Natalie Keller Reinert
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: three day eventing, equestrian fiction
Publisher: Natalie Keller Reinert
Published: 2019-09-15T00:00:00+00:00

The waiting room was filled with people who had been taken by surprise that afternoon. A tree trimmer who had stayed too long in the oak tree he’d been sculpting, until the wind swept him right out of its branches and down to the hard earth below. A young woman in shredded Spandex who had been riding her bicycle on the rail-to-trail route and lost control of her bike while swerving around a downed tree limb, winding up with some road rash she wouldn’t forget in a hurry. A shell-shocked middle-aged man wearing socks and sandals, who had been in a house struck by lightning. I didn’t know what exactly had brought him to the emergency room. Maybe he just wanted the scientific reassurance that he was still alive.

Pete had gone through the swinging ER doors on a gurney and disappeared deep within the bowels of the hospital hours ago, but I still sat in the emergency room waiting room as if I thought he was in triage for a sprain and would be out again shortly, eager to be out of the wheelchair they’d forced him to ride in and ready to grab some dinner on the way home.

Pete had gotten hurt before, but things weren’t going to be that simple this time. I knew it, yet still I sat there. Waiting.

Lacey had taken Jordan home, and Lindsay had taken her place; then Lacey had come back after the barn chores were done for the night. “They’d done almost everything,” she’d said as she’d settled into the plastic chair next to me. “You’ve got a wonderful bunch of kids, Jules. They’d do anything for you.”

She was asleep now; her head was resting on my shoulder, her chestnut curls tumbling down my chest and arm. I couldn’t feel my right arm anymore, but I didn’t move. I was too thankful someone was there with me to risk waking her, reminding her that she could be anywhere but here, in this waiting room.

“Surgery tomorrow,” the doctor finally told me. She said other things, reassuring things, then medical things with too many syllables, then more reassurances. I looked up at her, a crick in my neck; Lacey was still asleep on my shoulder. “But all in all, it’s a straightforward break in a good place,” she said finally. “I wouldn’t be surprised if he wants to walk out of the hospital.”

I started to cry, my shoulders shaking, and Lacey woke up then and thought the worst, and she wailed, and the doctor took a step back as if rethinking her excursion to the land of civilians, and the other people waiting for their turn swiveled their heads and touched their faces and covered their mouths, thinking there was a death. “It’s okay, he’ll be okay,” I sobbed, swiping at Lacey, who had stood up and was advancing on the doctor crying, “what happened, what happened, what happened?”

Afterward, though?

I just felt angry.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.