Chapter 1 World Spins Madly On - The Weepies

Fern Redmund jerked awake her breath momentarily caught in a spasm of anxiety. Her consciousness raced to catch up with her instinctive response when the cause of her reaction again assaulted the night. Groaning, Fern reached out for the ringing cell. Warily, she brought it to her and flipped it open. "The phone rarely brings good news," she thought, flipping it open, and flinched as her eyes focused on the display, "and never after two A.M."

Nevertheless, she had pressed accept and had the phone to her ear before the third ring. "Fern Redmund? This is the Mercy Medical Center in Redding, California. My name is Javier Trujillo, I'm a registered nurse, and I am calling from the shock trauma intensive care unit."

"Shock Trauma? Redding? That's, what, more than six hours from here."

The voice on the other end gave the harried noncommittal response of an overworked nurse before continuing on, "Our records indicate that you are the in loco parentis guardian of Lux Cassidy?"

"No, that would be Nathaniel Bazile and Cate Cassidy." Fern replied by rote before the import of the situation hit her. "Wait, why? What's happened."

The voice remained businesslike, but compassion leaked in around the edges. "There has been a car accident. Lux is in critical but stable condition in the STICU. I'm sorry, I cannot give more details over the phone."

Fern mouthed the words three times before she could will the air from her lungs to give voice to her thoughts, "and her parents?"

The voice hesitated long enough for Fern to tug on her jeans and flats before simply saying, "they were pronounced at the scene."

Fern had slipped on a shirt and palmed her keys before the Nurse had time to hang up his phone.

Lux fled in terror from a nightmare image of an infinitely vast mangled bloody cage that screamed in a rage of twisting metal and shattering glass. Somewhere within her was the knowledge that escape would only come from waking up, but the monstrous possibilities that reality presented made the horrors of the awful cage almost comical in comparison and so she ran on.

Fern clicked her phone open and shut effectively canceling yet another call from the social services of Washington State; she had argued with her boss enough for one day. It had been sixteen hours and the agency wanted her to return home until "Lux's situation resolved". "Resolved," Fern turned the word over in her mind. It reminded her of a revolving microwave dinner just waiting to be consumed and discarded. She knew she was too close, that she wasn't supposed to prioritize any particular case, any particular child, over another, but Lux was supposed to be her happy ending. In all of the horrific cases she had worked, in all of the inevitable tragedies they had devolved into, Lux had been a glittering bright spot that had kept her going. A foster ward who had been reunited with her birth parents, and, moreover, birth parents who were reasonably competent and completely devoted.

Sighing, Fern flipped her phone open and dialed through her list of contact numbers. Mr. Bazile's family had reported that Baze's parents were in the Bahamas on their yacht and were not expected back until the end of next week. She dialed the cell phone they had provided but didn't bother leaving a message. It wouldn't contain anything the previous ten did not. She hesitated before calling Cate's mother, she checked her notes quickly for the name, Laverne, again, but she had promised to keep the frantic mother updated.

Wincing, she recalled the earlier call. It had been quarter after ten when Fern had arrived at the hospital and finally been cleared to interview a doctor. It was maybe ten after eleven when she had begun her first round of calls.

"Yes, hello!" Laverne Cassidy's voice had snapped over the line in tones consumed by frantic panic yet strangely slurred.

Fern had only just been able to hear the mechanical qualities of her own words infused with her own shock held in check, if only just, as it was. "I'm calling about Lux-"

"Lux. Oh, shit Lux. Is she...is she-"

"She is alive, but her case is serious. She is going to need her family with her."

"Serious? Serious how?"

Fern had drawn a deep breath trying to order and summarize the list of issues and medical jargon that the doctor had supplied her with into a form she felt able to relate, "She had a number of broken bones and internal injuries. She suffered a number of cardiac arrests in transit." she had drawn a deep somewhat ragged breath, "and there is evidence of a stroke. Currently...currently she is in a coma and they can't asses the degree of damage, if any."

Laverne hadn't answer for so long that Fern had begun to fear she had collapsed. Finally, weakly, the voice came back, "But, but she is alive? Is...is Cate then?"

"I'm sorry." Fern had tried to coax some warmth into the words, but there was none within her to be found.

"That is...that's what they had said." Laverne's voice had carried a defeated note then.

"But Lux. Lux is alive," she had tried to stress, "and she is going to need you. Please, come down to the hospital."

"I can't," the small voice had returned.

"Why not?" Fern could not have helped the acerbic note that crept in.

"My license... Abby, my youngest...my, my daughter, she is my ride. But she is in the hospital."

"Oh, no," Fern had breathed, "was she in the car too?"

"No. Food poisoning. A thread worm from bad sushi."

"And your license?"

"I... DUI... Oh God I am the worst mother in the world." That had been the end of any meaningful conversation. All Lavergne could do was sob. Fern had promised to keep in touch, but she just didn't have the strength within her to hold another hand.

Glancing down, the small pale hand curled within her darker fingers was haloed in light through the film of her tears. She snapped the phone open one last time and called human resources telling them that she was in the hospital and felt too unwell to come in for a few days. Both true in their way, although she doubted her supervised would be amused. Then she held her thumb over the power key shutting the phone down all the way. Shutting herself down all the way. For the time she had had as much as she could handle.