Started this tonight. Paranormal Romance. Not sure about her name. May change it. Already have a Juliet elsewhere. May also change to first person. Not sure, want to go from his head as well, so probably not. Also may remove the fictional town. Feels like cheating. Just have the mom live in Phoenix.
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Juliette gripped the steering wheel
a little tighter. Why didn’t she leave as soon as she got the first call? Was
the test in her literature class really so important? So important she couldn’t
gone home when she got the call? Aunt Erin had called on Monday and asked her
to come home as soon as possible, said that her mom was very, very sick.
Juliette had passed it off as Erin being an extremist of sorts and had said she
would come on Friday after her classes. Now it was Wednesday and Erin had
called again to say that her mom had gotten worse and the hospital had flown
her to Phoenix because they could do nothing more for her in Tunsen.
Tunsen was her hometown. A strange
place by any standard. It had been founded under the guise of yet another
Arizona mining town by her great-great however many times great grandfather
back in the eighteen hundreds. Now it boasted a population of less than two
thousand. The closest town was two hours away, Not that anyone in town remembered or cared that her family
were the descendants of Oliver Tunsen. Her mother, Sarah, had been the younger
of two daughters of the last Tunsen, and much to Grandpa Tunsen’s chagrin, she
had indeed chosen to change her name when she married Jasper Harris. Jasper.
Dad. He was a whole different story. She wondered if anyone had called him. She
hoped not.
She shook her head to banish thoughts
of him. That was the last place she needed to go. She pushed the accelerator
down and sped her Jeep around a little Toyota that decided the speed limit
really was a limit. Couldn’t they see they were the only one on the entire
freeway actually going seventy-five? Didn’t they know she had to get to the
hospital?
And she knew she was being
unreasonable. But her mum was in the hospital. She wasn’t waking up, Erin said.
And they didn’t know what was wrong. She wasn’t surprised Tunsen Medical Center
couldn’t help. Since she moved down to Tucson she had realized that Tunsen
Hospital shouldn’t even be considered a hospital. You could get a flu shot and
they could set a bone or stitch a cut. If you were brave, you could have a baby
there, but pray nothing goes wrong because you’ll have to be flown to Phoenix.
They just weren’t equipped for anything like that. They didn’t even have an
operating room. Hopefully the doctors in Phoenix had a better idea of what was
going on.
She squeezed the steering wheel even
tighter, her knuckles pale, and glanced up at the exit signs. She couldn’t
remember the exit number, but she knew it was 7th Street. She still
hated the freeway after being out of Tunsen for four years, she was so
accustomed to its smaller streets and lighter traffic. She let out a panicked
caw when she saw it was the next exit, and weaved her Jeep over into the far
right lane then onto the onramp, earning her plenty of honks and angry
gestures.
Soon she arrived at Good Samaritan
Hospital. She’d been here once before when Grandpa Tunsen died. She was only
twelve then and thought the tall white building looked like something out of an
alien movie. Looking at it now, ten years later, she still had the same
impression. Inside it didn’t take her long to find Erin. She was shouting at a
nurse about how her sister needed silk sheets.
“Erin,” she called as she came near
and the older woman’s head popped up, her anger dissolving into tears. The
woman had mood swings like Juliette had never seen in anyone else.
“Julie, baby,” she called, brushing
a hand through her pixie short gray hair. She had a streak of hair at her
temple dyed pink now, last time Juliette had seen her it was green. She hurried
over and pulled Juliette into a hug, hunching over to do it. Erin was built
like Grandma, tall and spindly, almost scrawny but never gaining any weight no
matter how many cupcakes they ate.
“What’s going on?” she asked,
pulling gently from Erin’s arms.
Just like that Erin brushed the
tears from her cheeks and her anger was back. She turned her glaring eyes back
to the nurse. “I was trying to explain to this nurse that my sister needs
better sheets. Silk. Or Satin.”
“Mom doesn’t need silk sheets.” She
smiled at the nurse, a cute girl with an upturned nose and curly hair wearing
blue scrubs like she’d seen on everyone else. “Thank you.”
Aunt Erin had married Victor Dawson
who owned a chain of restaurants throughout the country. And somehow he ended
up choosing Tunsen, Arizona to build his mansion retreat in the woods of the
White Mountains. Completely random to her, but Tunsen seemed to have that kind
of draw. But since then, Erin had gone from living in the rundown condo with
the leaky roof that Juliette remembered from her childhood, to Dawson Manor.
Juliette had hated staying with her there. She got lost in the massive mansion.
“She deserves silk sheets.”
“She doesn’t even like silk sheets,
Aunt Erin,” she muttered, rubbing her hands on her face. “Where is she?”
Erin led her to the room nearby. A
heart monitor beeped and kept track of her vital signs, the numbers didn’t mean
anything to her, though. Her mother lay on the bed, tucked into crisp white
sheets. She was pale, her normally glowing complexion ashen. Her chestnut hair
peppered with gray strands fanned across the pillow case. She brushed her hands
through her own dark brown curls and slumped into the chair beside the bed.
“What’s wrong with her?” she
breathed weakly.
“She has a fever that just keeps
going up. She had been coughing all the time, then she starting throwing up.
Then her speech was slurred and she couldn’t walk straight, like she was drunk,
falling over. It all happened so fast. She passed out and I couldn’t wake her up,
I took her to the hospital and they flew her here pretty quickly.”
Juliette nodded weakly and took her
mom’s hand. Her skin was too warm and clammy.
“Victor is contacting doctors all
around the country and flying out whoever he can.” Erin rubbed her shoulder. “I
called your father.”
Juliette flinched and shrugged her
hand off unthinkingly. “Why?”
“They were married for twenty
years, Julie.”
“What did he say?” she asked,
already suspecting the answer.
“He hung up.”
Juliette snorted. “Figures.”
“Julie,” she began but Juliette
waved her hand.
“I just want to sit with mom and
not think about him. Please.”
Her aunt nodded a bit and rubbed
her shoulder again before walking out of the room.
Juliette sighed, leaning forward to
put her arms on the mattress, folding them to pillow her head and keep hold of
her mom’s hand. “I’m here. I’m sorry, mom. I’m sorry. Please wake up. Please,
I’ll do whatever you want. I’ll stop fighting. Just wake up.” She pressed a
kiss to the back of her hand. “I’ll move back to Tunsen, learn the magic.
Whatever. You just have to wake up.”
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