Tumbling After

The phone was ringing when I opened the kitchen door to come in from the garden. I set down the basket of freshly cut flowers and reached for the phone. The clock above the sink showed it was 6:15 p.m.

“Hello,” I said as I tried to get my gardening gloves off without dropping the phone.

“Jill, it’s Dan, I need you to come to Pershing right away. Jackie has been in a terrible accident.”

Slumping back against the kitchen cabinets I clutched the phone tightly to my ear.

“What? Dan, what happened? Is she going to be okay? Tell me what happened!” I closed my eyes waiting for him to explain.

“I’m not quite sure what happened. She fell down the stairs and Lupe found her. She’s been unconscious ever since. Please Jill, please come here right now. She needs you,” Dan said desperately.

“I’m on my way,” I said and slammed the phone into the receiver while grabbing my car keys off the hook. I climbed into my car and rushed out the driveway. It was then the tears sprang into my eyes. I kept wiping them away but they continued with hot stinging blindness.

I pulled into the Pershing Hospital parking lot and raced to the admissions desk. “Where is Jackie Phillips? Her husband told me she’s been in accident.”

The poor receptionist frantically tried to type on her keyboard in an effort to access the information I was demanding.

“Ah, here we go, Jaclyn Phillips. It looks like she’s on the 4th floor in Intensive Care,” the clerk said as she read it from her screen. “But I don’t know if you are allowed to . . . “

I didn’t hear the rest of her sentence because I was racing to the elevator. Luckily, the doors were opening so I jumped in and pushed the button for the fourth floor. I had to get to Jackie - I needed to be with her.