The look on Valerie’s face made vomit crawl up my throat. She dropped her head. “She doesn’t know. She’s in surgery, right now.”
“Surgery?” Neil staggered backward and put out a hand to catch himself, grabbing the back of one of the chairs. He fell into it, paler than I’d ever seen him. “What… How bad was this accident?”
“They were on the West Side Highway. The car next to them slid out,” Laurence explained, as Valerie leaned her head against his shoulder. “They fishtailed and were hit by another vehicle.”
I remembered Neil saying, Tell her to give me an early birthday present and show up on time.
There was no chance he would forget he’d said that. I could practically see it playing across his face.
“Michael didn’t even make it out of the car. Emma was unconscious.” Valerie’s words burbled out with her tears. “They’re working on her, right now. All they’ll tell us is that it’s serious.”
“Serious like serious condition, or critical?” I asked, but that was stupid. They didn’t give you information like that at the hospital in the real world, did they?
No one answered me, anyway. We all sat there, paralyzed with shock.
I turned to Neil. “I’m going to have Penny bring us some clothes. Do we need to do anything else?”
“I called the au pair, so she knows they won’t be home on time—” Valerie’s voice caught.
Michael wo
uldn’t be home, at all.
“Where are Michael’s parents?” Neil asked, his voice dull, his inflection eerily neutral.
“Gstaad,” Valerie said with a helpless shrug. “They’ve been informed.”
Informed. What was happening? This wasn’t us. We didn’t have tragedies. Well, we did, but they weren’t like this. They were…drug problems and family squabbles. Not this. Not this horrible death and the threat of…
No, Emma was going to be fine. Because if she wasn’t…
“Does anyone need anything?” I asked, and rose on numb legs to go to the hallway.
I fished my phone from my coat pocket and dialed up Penny.
“Sophie?” She answered nervously.
“Do you still have the key to the apartment?” I asked her, struggling to keep the tremor from my voice.
“Yeah… Where are you? Is everything all right?”
“I need you to go to the apartment. Get us some clothes. Some jeans and a sweater for Neil, um, some jeans and a long-sleeved t-shirt for me.” This was good. This felt like making progress, in a hopeless situation. “And drive them here to New York Presbyterian.”
“Oh. Yeah, sure.” The tone of Penny’s voice indicated she understood the severity of the situation. “Right away.”
“Thank you.”
I hung up and clutched the phone to my chest. I wanted to call someone else, to deliver some kind of order, just to feel like there was something I could do to change anything about this situation.
Michael was dead. Emma would never see him, again. Olivia would never… God, she wouldn’t even remember him.
I wanted to cry. I felt like a traitor for not crying.
I picked up my skirt and held it with one hand as I opened the waiting room door. I felt stupid in a black-tie gown in a hospital waiting room. And I should have asked Penny to bring shoes.
Neil looked up from chewing his thumbnail. His eyes were red, and from the slouch of his shoulders, I could tell he felt every ounce of the pain that was to come for Emma.
“Who’ll tell her?” he asked me. “Do you think one of us will have to?”