Chapter 18 - The Hospital Corridor
The drive from Columbus to Mason took forty-eight minutes in the driving rain. Forty-eight minutes of silence in the car, broken only by the rhythmic swish of the windshield wipers and the heavy, pounding beat of my own heart.
Frank drove with both hands locked tightly on the steering wheel, his jaw clenched so hard I thought his teeth might shatter. He hadn't said a word since we pulled out of our apartment parking lot. He didn't need to. The ghosts of forty years were waiting for us at the end of this highway, and neither of us knew what we were walking into.
When we finally pulled into the brightly lit, sterile parking lot of Mercy General Hospital, the rain was coming down in sheets, drumming a relentless tattoo against the car roof.
"We don't have to go in," I said softly, reaching across the console to place my hand over his white-knuckled grip. "Frank. If you can't do this, we put the car in reverse right now and go home. We owe her nothing."
Frank looked down at my hand, then out at the towering brick hospital entrance. He took a long, shuddering breath, letting his shoulders drop.
"No," he said, his voice steadying. "If I don't go in, I’ll spend the rest of my life wondering if I was just as cowardly as she was. Let’s go finish this."
We walked through automatic sliding glass doors into the antiseptic hum of the ICU ward. The corridors were quiet, smelling faintly of bleach and rubbing alcohol. Dr. Hayes was waiting for us by the nurses' station, holding a clipboard and looking exhausted.
"Frank? Chloe?" she asked, stepping forward.
"We're here," Frank said. "How is she?"
"She’s hanging on, but barely," Dr. Hayes said gently, leading us down the hallway toward a private room at the very end. "Her body is exhausted. She stopped fighting days ago, but somehow, hearing that you were on your way... it gave her just enough adrenaline to stabilize. I should warn you, she’s hooked up to monitors and IVs. It’s not a pretty sight."
"Helen Vance has never been pretty when she’s losing control," Paige muttered quietly. She and Scott had driven up separately to meet us in the lobby, standing a few paces behind us like a protective phalanx.
We stopped outside Room 412. The door was propped open a few inches.
Through the crack, I saw her.
May you like
Helen Vance, the matriarch of Mason, the woman who had ruled her family with an iron fist and a razor-sharp tongue, looked impossibly small. Stripped of her designer clothes, her hair undone and graying against the stark white hospital pillow, she looked like an ordinary, frail old woman. The terrifying aura of invincibility was gone, replaced by the harsh, unvarnished reality of mortality.
She turned her head slowly as our shadows fell across the doorway. Her eyes—those sharp, piercing eyes that had once reduced Frank to tears with a single glance—met her son's eyes across the sterile room.
