Chapter Seven
Farkle didn't know what to think as he rode with Riley to the hospital. The ambulance was bright and she was on flat on her back with an oxygen mask strapped to her face. The medics calmly went about their checklists, checking her vitals and talking to her. Farkle just held her hand and nodded encouragement to her. She mostly kept her eyes shut and was lying still. That is, until they got to the hospital. As soon as they parked the ambulance in front of the emergency entrance, unstrapped the mask from her face, and began to unload her, she heaved up her dinner without warning.
No one knew what was happening. They rushed her into a curtained off section, got her a basin to hold to her face, hooked her up to an IV that was supposed to help with nausea and ran off to find a doctor.
00000000000000000000000000000
"She's doing better?" Maya asked as Farkle stepped out into the waiting room. He looked exhausted, his face sagging with worry.
"Yeah." Farkle nodded quietly. "They're going to send her home soon. They ran tests. It's not the same thing as Kisha."
"Thank God." Maya breathed and grabbed Farkle's hand to give it a reassuring squeeze. His fingers were icy cold. "You need something to eat."
"I'll figure something out." He waved the idea off. Maya sighed in frustration. Farkle didn't understand that he was no help to Riley if he was starving.
"Here." Maya reached into her shoulder bag and pulled out a bag of crackers that she bought from a vending machine earlier that day. "I brought these for you." That was a total lie. She had been planning on eating them all day, but now that she saw that Farkle would never end up eating until Riley did, Maya decided to sacrifice her food for the good of her friend.
"Thanks." Farkle took the bag and Maya saw the gratefulness in his eyes. "Have you heard anything about Kisha?" Farkle asked as the two of them stepped out of the waiting room and into one of the main hallways.
"The news is all over it." Maya sighed. "People are freaking out, thinking your guys' condos are infected or something."
"Please tell me they don't know about Riley too."
"Haven't heard anything about her yet." Maya assured him. He sighed in relief. The last thing he wanted was for Riley to be involved with the press at a time like this.
"Have you seen Kisha?" Farkle asked.
"I checked with the receptionist," Maya explained, "but it was hard to get to her through all the reporters and people. They won't give any information on her." Maya put a hand to her head. "I'm not going to sit down until they figure out what's wrong with Riley." As soon as the words came out of Maya's mouth, a nurse stepped out into the hall and made eye contact with the two.
"Are you Riley's husband?" the nurse asked as Farkle looked up.
"Yes." Farkle nodded. "And this is a family friend, Maya Hart."
"I think we found something you should hear about." The nurse had a strange look on her face. Farkle watched as Maya's entire body stiffened up. "She's recovering well," the nurse added as she saw the worried expression on Maya's face, "just we found something when we were running tests that might explain this whole thing."
"Like what?" Maya and Farkle followed the nurse back into the care unit and down a hallway and into a small room.
"Here's the folder," the nurse handed Farkle the file. "In order to make sure that Riley hadn't contracted the same virus as Kisha, we had to run a number of blood tests and do a few scans. The doctors upstairs are still working to find out exactly what is wrong with Kisha. However, with Riley, we located the problem fairly quickly. Her blood mass was much higher than normal and her white blood cell count is extremely higher than Kisha's or even the average person of her size and shape."
"What does that mean?" Farkle asked as he flipped through the pages in the file.
"Well, since she's already doing so much better and Kisha is still under intense care, we decided to assume that Riley had not contracted a virus. So then we just went about examining her without the prospect of a virus." The nurse disposed of her latex gloves efficiently and began to rub some sanitizer into her palms. "We gave her some strong medicine for the nausea and she responded well to it. And that's when we solved the issue."
"What issue?" Maya was getting tired of listening to all these things she didn't understand.
"Well you see, in order to treat certain patients with severe nausea, we sometimes give specific women a medication that we usually reserve for pre-natal purposes. And due to Riley's allergy to a common element used in most other nausea drugs, we gave her the pre-natal fluid."
"And?" Maya had no idea where this was going.
"And it all added up." The nurse actually smiled for a second. "The blood mass, the high white-blood cell count, and the reaction to the pre-natal medicine. So I did a standard life-center check. You can see it on page three." The nurse motioned to the file and Maya quickly grabbed the folder out of Farkle's hands and flipped rapidly to page three. She thought she might know a thing or two about what the nurse would say next.
"Oh my gosh." Maya breathed when she stopped at page three. "Nausea." She gasped. Her eyes snapped back up to the nurse and the nurse smiled and nodded slightly.
"What?" Farkle looked over Maya's shoulder, trying to see what she was looking at. "Maya, what's wrong?"
"Nothing's wrong, Farkle." Maya actually smiled and took a few shuddering breaths.
"Quite the opposite." The nurse pointed at a few words printed across the page and Farkle's eyes flew to them.
"Farkle!" Maya cried, "Riley's pregnant!"
00000000000000000000000000000
"Minkus?" a quiet nurse poked her head into the overnight ICU waiting room. Maya and Farkle were sitting in the chairs reading, Riley was splayed out on a small cot, sleeping peacefully with a smile on her face. When she heard the voice, Maya stirred in surprise. It had been quiet for hours.
"I'm Farkle Minkus." Farkle stood up quickly to shake the nurse's hand. "Is there news on Kisha?"
"Janie." The nurse offered her hand quickly, then continued, "It says on her contact sheet that you are her legal guardians?" the nurse clarified.
"Yes." Farkle nodded. "We've been waiting to hear if Lena wants us to pick the rest of the kids up from the station. And to hear anything new about Kisha. How is she doing?"
"I'm sorry you've had to wait so long." Janie apologized. "I happened to hear that your wife is pregnant."
"A pleasant surprise, yes." Farkle beamed.
"Congratulations." Janie smiled to Maya. Maya's eyes widened slightly.
"Oh no." she shook her head and quietly laid her book in her lap. "I'm just a friend. The mother is asleep."
"Of course." Janie smiled. "This whole thing probably isn't very good for her."
"She insisted we stay." Farkle explained.
"She cares about people." Maya added quietly. Janie's smile faded.
"That's what I came to talk to you about." She folded her hands in front of her. "Kisha passed away about twenty minutes ago. Lena is filling out paperwork and has requested that you and your wife pick her children up from the police station and take them home for the night. She says she will call you in the morning."
"Of course." Farkle swallowed thickly. "If that's what she wants."
"I'll get Riley." Maya moved into action. Her instincts took over and she slowly shook Riley awake gently. "Come on, Riles. We're going home now."
"So soon?" she sighed sleepily.
"Yeah, the nurse says we can go." Maya limited what she said at the moment. "Let's get you to the car."
"Did they ever find out what the virus was?" Farkle asked as he watched Maya help Riley down the hall.
"You weren't informed?" Janie asked, her voice dropping.
"Informed of what?"
"It wasn't a virus. By the time they got the blood samples back, it was too late. But they still ran the samples. There were traces of arsenic in her bloodstream."
"What does that mean?" Farkle asked.
"Whether with cleaning supplies, or a mislabeled bottle at school, Kisha was poisoned."