Samuel moaned in response. “Take me with you,” he said, though his voice held a lilt to it. “I’ll happily dress shop with you and never complain.”
“Is the demon-child still there?”
“Liz . . .”
“Sorry.” I smiled at the gloriousness of the country around me. “Well, is she?”
“Her mother called and said she’d be here in an hour.”
“And when was that?”
“Two hours ago.”
“You know, you don’t have to stay there. You can always leave. Tim and Samantha are totally responsible for Kaci and Jamie.”
“And leave what’s left of your great-grandmother’s china unprotected? Not a chance.”
“Don’t remind me.”
“How’s your mother?”
“Don’t remind me,” I repeated. “I’ll talk to you later. Be home before too late.” I disconnected the call and then turned the radio on. It was on K-LOVE, and I immediately changed it to an equally favorite country station, then sang as loudly as I possibly could until I reached the Swiss inn I’d grown so fond of.
I keep at least one book in my car for those times when I get stuck somewhere or need a good book to read. I was halfway through my third glass of wine and nearly finished with the book I’d brought in with me when my cell phone rang. It was the Good Shepherd.
I rolled my eyes. If Luke Nelson was calling me to find out if I’d done anything in the few hours since I’d seen him . . .
“This is Lizzie Prattle,” I answered.
“Mrs. Prattle, this is Veronica Daniels at the Good Shepherd.” The statement sounded more like a question than a fact.
“Is there a problem?”
“Yes, I’m afraid so. How soon do you think you could come up to the facility?”
“Is there a problem?”
“Mrs. Prattle, your mother has fallen. One of our residents from
the first floor—”
“Is my mother all right?”
“She may have broken her arm. We have an ambulance on the
way, and she’ll be transported to the hospital in Breck.”
“I’ll be there as soon as I—” I stood. When I felt the blood rushing from my head and my knees at the same time, I returned to my seat. “I’m in Silverthorne. I’ll call my husband and be there as soon as I can.”
I took deep breaths as I waited for someone to answer the house phone. When no one did, I called Samuel on his cell. In the background
I could hear a mild ruckus. “Samuel, where are you?”
“Higher Grounds. Took your advice and got out of the house.
Tim and Samantha—”
“Samuel, Mom has fallen. She’s being transported to the hospital and—”
“Is she okay?”
I pressed my upper front teeth into the thick pad of my tongue. “I don’t know, really. Samuel, please. Go to the hospital and wait. I’ll be there as soon as I can get there without speeding.”
I wasn’t speeding. If anything, I was driving too far under the speed limit. When I saw the Summit County marker I may have sped up just a bit, but I’m not sure. And my car may have been weaving ever so slightly onto the shoulder of the road. But only ever so slightly.
I’m also not sure how long the blue lights swirled behind me. When I noticed them, I felt a thousand and one pinpricks along my skin, and I groaned. The time I would spend on the side of the road going through the motions would be precious time away from Mom. But, a quick glance into my rearview mirror and I saw that it was only Donna. I breathed a sigh of relief. She was, no doubt, on
the lookout for me and was going to escort me to the hospital.
I pulled over to the shoulder and rolled to a stop. She did the same, coming up behind me. I powered down the window as she
approached, then turned my head to call out the window.
“Donna! Oh, thank goodness! Are you here to escort me?”
Donna stopped in front of the driver’s door and stared at me for a good long minute. Fear began to grip my heart as I imagined something far worse than the apprehension of being pulled over by a sheriff’s deputy.
Has something worse than a fall happened to Mom? Has she burned the Good Samaritan down to the ground, killing herself and many of the other residents?
“What is it? Donna, what is it?”
Donna cocked her pretty blonde head as she furrowed her brow. “Lizzie? Have you been drinking?”
I shined my flashlight into Lizzie’s confused face. She managed to stammer, “You’ve come to take me to my mother, right?”
“License and registration, please.”
She dug into her wallet and handed me her MasterCard as she asked, “Aren’t we wasting valuable time?”
“Lizzie, would you step out of the car?”
She looked at her credit card in my hand. “Oh dear.” She reached into her wallet and pulled out her license, then traded with me. “Here you go.”
I stared at her license then back into her glassy eyes. “I still need you to step out of the car, Lizzie.”
She looked baffled. “Okay.”
When she was standing before me I held up my pen. “I’m going to ask you to follow my pen with your eyes. Lizzie, can you do that for me?”
“Why?”
“Just give it a try.” I slowly moved the pen in a horizontal then a vertical line. My heart sank as Lizzie’s eyes jerked, showing mild nystagmus, a sure sign of intoxication.
“Lizzie, I need you to take nine steps forward, heel to toe, then nine steps back.”
“I thought you were going to take me to the hospital.”
“Are you ill?”
Lizzie swept her fingers through her graying bangs as if trying to stop her hair from dancing with the evening breeze. “No, I’m fine. Had a few glasses of wine, but I’m fine.”
“Just try the walk.”
I watched as she gently tilted first to the right, then to the left.
Oh boy.
“So how many glasses?”
She tucked her hands into the pockets of her jacket and pulled her shoulders higher, as if she were fighting the chill. “I don’t know, I was going to order dinner but didn’t get a chance.”
“Okay, can you stand with your arms to the side, then lift your left foot about six inches off the ground and count to ten?”
“How’s that going to help?”
“Just humor me.” I watched as she once again failed the test, having to lift her arms to keep her balance.
“You stay right there, I left something in the truck.”
“Okay, but hurry.”
I walked back to my cab to retrieve my Alco-Sensor, a small handheld breathalyzer. I’d have her puff into it, and if it indicated an alcohol level over .08, I’d have to arrest my friend and take her in to the station for a more conclusive blood alcohol test.
When I returned to my truck and opened my cab door, dispatch was broadcasting my call number through my radio. “Unit two, Summit View ambulance service has been trying to reach you about a patient they just delivered to the hospital.”
My heart jumped and I grabbed my microphone. “Betty, anyone I know?”
“A David Harris told me to tell you not to worry. He wants you to keep an eye out for Lizzie Prattle and get her down to the hospital in Breck.”
“What’s wrong?”
“Her mother’s in the ER.”
“Roger. Is she okay?”
“Word is, it’s nothing life threatening.”
“Roger that,” I said. “Thanks, tell him I’ve got Lizzie with me now and we’re on our way.”
I walked back to my tipsy friend, finally understanding her frenzy about getting to the hospital. “I’m going to take you to see your mother in just a second,” I said, “but first, can you blow into this please?” I held up my Alco-Sensor.
“You think I’ve been drinking?”
“Well, you just said so.”
“Oh. I did.” She laughed uncomfortably. She shifted her weight from foot to foot, as if to hurry me. “But this is an emergency.”
“I know, but let’s just see how much trouble you’re in.”
“Trouble? You don’t think I’m drunk, do you?”
I silently held up the testing device. “Let’s find out.”
Lizzie blew into the tube, and the digital readout registered a .07. I secretly breathed a sigh of relief. The number meant that what happened next was up to my discretion.
“Well?”
“I’m going to follow you to the off ramp, and I want you to leave your car in the parking lot across the way there. Then I’m going to take you to see your mother. We’ll talk about your test results on the way to the hospital.”
“Okay,” Lizzie said, stepping back into her car.
A few minutes later, I had the siren blasting as Lizzie sat buckled into the passenger’s seat beside me. “Lizzie, I’ve never known you to drink.”
Lizzie’s voice hardened. “Are you judging me? Because I didn’t think you, of all people, were like that.”
I picked up speed, passing cars as they pulled to the side of the road. “No, I’m just surprised.”
Lizzie gave me a stern look then turned on her best librarian’s voice. “All I can say, Donna, is if you were dealing with the kind of stress I’ve been under, you’d chill out with a glass of wine yourself.”
“But Lizzie, you’re drinking to the point of intoxication. You didn’t exactly pass my breathalyzer test.”
She sat stunned in the pulsating light. “I didn’t?”
I ran a red light, watching as the cars yielded to my race. “It was right on the borderline. I’m thinking about having the hospital run a blood alcohol test to get a more accurate result.”
Shock filled her voice. “You’re saying I’m drunk?”
“Yeah,” I said quietly then gave her a quick glance. Lizzie was staring out her passenger window as I asked, “Is drinking your way of self-medicating your stress?”
She spoke to the darkness. “I don’t know. Maybe lately.”
I zigzagged around cars that were trying to pull over. “That surprises me, Lizzie. I mean, you’re a godly woman. I would think you would go to talk to a counselor or pray before you resorted to drinking.”
Lizzie turned to me, trying to support her words with gestures that seemed a tad too sloppy for her usual prim demeanor. “I was just trying to get through these next few days. I’m not an alcoholic, you know, and besides, the Bible doesn’t say it’s wrong to drink.”
“But isn’t there some Scripture about getting drunk?”
Lizzie hesitated. “You’re referring to Ephesians chapter 5?”
“See, you know this Bible stuff better than I do. I bet you can quote it, right?”
Lizzie hung her head, “Do not get drunk on wine, which leads to debauchery. Instead, be filled with the Spirit.”
I sat silently.
Finally, Lizzie spoke, her words not as crisp as usual. “Still, I’m not an alcoholic.”
“Well, all I know is that alcoholism can happen to good people, and you’re one of the best people I know, so I’m worried, Lizzie.”
“I’ve only been drinking for a few weeks, you know, just to relieve the stress, till this wedding, till my kids move out, and my mom—” She gasped. “Oh dear, my mom!”
“It’s going to be okay. We’re almost to the hospital.”
“What are you going to do when we get there? I mean, about
me being borderline while driving my car?”
“Honestly, I haven’t decided. Though maybe I need to do something drastic to give you a wake-up call, so you can get help.”
“I don’t need help. I’m fine.”
“But you may have already become alcohol dependent, and, well, have you considered that your actions may mean you’re at least a problem drinker?”
She folded her arms across her tan jacket. “How can you say that, Donna? You only picked me up tonight because of that call that came in about my mother.”
“Not true. You were weaving. I picked you up because you couldn’t stay in your lane. I didn’t get that call about your mother until after I stopped you.”
Lizzie looked stunned. “Oh. I ah . . . Oh.”
As we neared the hospital, I turned off my siren but kept my lights flashing. “I think I’m going to let you off with a warning this time, but don’t drink and drive again. I don’t want to have to scrape you off the grill of an eighteen wheeler.”
I pulled up to the double doors and turned to my friend. In the rotating glow of red and blue, I could see she was trembling. “Aw, Lizzie, you go check on your mom, I’ll be inside in a minute. But in the meantime, I’m asking you to ask yourself a hard question.”
Lizzie unbuckled her seat belt and stepped out of the car before leaning back in. “What’s that?”
“Can you find another way to cope with your stress, besides drinking? You know, go for a walk, read your Bible, knit something? If you can’t, then you need help. Maybe you need to talk to a counselor or join a support group.”
“Okay. Yes, I’ll look into that.”
“One more thing . . .” I reached into the hidden compartment of my console and retrieved a piece of gum. “Here. Chew this. You need it to ward off the smell of wine on your breath.”
Lizzie frowned but took the gum anyway. “Thanks,” she said before hurrying through the doors of the ER. I switched off my rotating lights and pulled the truck behind the Summit View ambulance that was parked around the corner from the entrance. I reached for my clipboard and started to write up my report when someone tapped on the window. I lowered it. “David! How’s Lizzie’s mom?”
“She’s going to be okay. She tripped over her shoes, which she’d left in front of her recliner, and fell full force on her coffee table. At first I thought she broke her arm, but now it’s looking more like a deep bruise.”
I shook my head and sighed. “Poor Lizzie. She does have her hands full these days. I’m going in to check on her mom in just a minute, soon as I fill out this report.”
David looked hesitant, then leaned his head closer to mine, dropping his voice. “While I have you, do you wanna talk about our upcoming date? I mean, I know you were working around the clock this week to cover for Clarence, but what about next week?”
I nodded as I looked into his brown eyes, eyes that seemed to pull me into a closeness that frightened me. “Yeah, though next week is crazy with the upcoming Prattle shower. So what would you say to a weeknight date, maybe Tuesday?”
A lopsided grin spread across his face. “Sounds good. Do you have a favorite restaurant?”
“Well, would you mind going to the Mountain Bell Tower Resort’s restaurant? I have a few things I want to check out there, undercover, more or less.”