A/N: I researched the medical parts of this as much as I possibly could, but I still might have made some mistakes so I'm asking to be forgiven for any mistakes. Lol. I'm not a doctor. I'm just filmmaking major who watches a lot of Grey's Anatomy.
"What do we got?" The emergency room nurse sprung up from behind her desk as soon as the automatic doors slid apart. She pulled a pair of purple gloves from the box on the check-in counter and tied her long, red hair up into a high ponytail.
"Seventeen-year-old female unconscious, unresponsive and bleeding from the mouth." The head paramedic briefed her as he led the gurney past the check-in counter and down the hall. "I tried to start an IV, but her veins kept collapsing. Pupils are fixed, dilated and generally not responding to light. I found a pulse, but it's weak."
"Okay, page Dr. Gunning and get me a tray. We need to intubate her." The nurse aligned a shiny pair of fabric scissors to the collar of Quinn's shirt and cut her black cotton t-shirt all the way down to her navel. "Family say anything about what might have caused this?"
"No word, they're hysterical. Said she was fine earlier, they last saw her about three hours ago, before she went to her bedroom to take a nap. The other daughter walked into the bathroom and found her like this." The paramedic took his gloves off, knowing that his job here was done. "She's lost a lot of blood… keep me updated on this one, Cass. I've gotta get back out there in the field."
"Sure thing, Ron." The nurse put four sticky probes in Quinn's chest and turned on the heart monitor just as another doctor pulled the curtain back and entered the room.
"What do you got, Cass? Get me up to speed." Dr. Gunning immediately went over to the sink to wash her hands, quickly because she knew that any case with as much blood as she saw on Quinn's body required her to act fast.
"Seventeen-year-old female bleeding from the mouth. Paramedics said she's been unresponsive since before they got here, and her pupils are fixed. They were unsuccessful at getting an IV started, but I got one going in her neck, it's the only vein that wouldn't collapse. She's dehydrated. I'm trying to intubate but there's too much blood, I can't see." The nurse everyone called "Cass" kept working to get the tube down Quinn's throat, easing it down little by little.
Dr. Gunning looked at the monitor to access the damage, then moved to help the nurse get the tube in. "We've gotta intubate her, NOW. Her stats are falling, she's in sinus tach." She pushed hard, forcing the tube down Quinn's throat and immediately attaching the tube to the oxygen valve. "Family doesn't know what caused this?"
"They haven't got a clue. They said they saw her about three hours ago, then the other daughter found her like this in the bathroom. Paramedics said she lost a lot of blood, and I think they're right. This is a lot of blood…"
"Yeah, it's too much blood." Dr. Gunning replied, her tone slightly heightened with concern. She had been a doctor for years and never once had she seen someone bleeding from the mouth so profusely.
"What do you think this could be?" Cass asked, staring closely at the monitor to watch Quinn's status slowly begin to rise now that the machine was breathing for her. "A stroke? Head trauma? Abuse?"
"I don't know, I've never seen this much blood coming from someone's mouth. Something must have ruptured." Dr. Gunning pulled Quinn's eyelids up and shined her flashlight into them. "Her pupil's totally blown. I've gotta get her up to CT, something's still hemorrhaging. Go ask the family for something — ANYTHING — that can explain what the hell happened to this little girl."
As Dr. Gunning loosened the brakes on the bed, she wheeled Quinn straight out of the trauma room and up the hallway, moving as fast as her legs would take her.
Cass took a deep breath to steady herself before she had to go back into the waiting room, trying tj mentally prepare herself for something she didn't want to do. She hated this part of her job the most. She had been an emergency room nurse for fifteen years and over the course of her career, she had seen the most dire cases come through those doors. Some lived, most of them didn't. But the worst part was always when she had to go out and tell the family what they didn't want to hear. She didn't want to look them in their eyes and tell them that their seventeen-year-old daughter was gravely ill. She didn't want to poke them and prod them and ask a million questions as they tried to understand what caused this. She wanted to tell them that their daughter was sick, let them process it, and leave it at that. But alas, she had to do her job… and her job included asking for as much insight as they could give.
She stood at the threshold between the waiting room and the hallway and looked around at all the patient, sick, and sometimes worried families. She scanned the room for the little girl's parents, scoping to see if she could find a woman who resembled her. Probably blonde, she thought. Probably skinny. When she came up fruitless, she took another deep breath and glanced at the iPad in her hands.
"For Lucy?" She called out into the room.
Mercedes was the first one up and out of her chair, stepping in front of both her mother and her father. She hadn't bothered to change her clothes or fix herself before she and her dad jumped into the car and followed her mother and Quinn in the ambulance to the hospital. She still had Quinn's blood on the knees of her whitewashed blue jeans, her eyes were red and puffy, and her hair stuck up on all ends even though she wore it in a ponytail.
"How is she? Is she okay?" Mercedes grabbed onto her elbows as she folded her arms across her body, hugging herself in preparation for the worst news. "She's okay, right?"
"Are you the mother?" Cass asked Mrs. Jones as she slowly approached. She could have guessed she was the mother just by the way she looked. Tears still fell from her low, weary eyes and the worry lines on her face looked etched and permanent.
Mrs. Jones ran her fingers through her unruly, strewn hair and took a deep breath as she cleared her throat. "What's goin' on with her?" She tried to hold back more tears but when Mr. Jones wrapped his arm around her shoulder, it was like the floodgates opened. "She gonna be fine, ain't she?"
"She lost a lot of blood, but Dr. Gunning took her back for a CT just to find the source of the bleeding and we should know more shortly." Cass sounded robotic and she hated it. She hated that her job required her to be emotionless sometimes. "I just need to ask you guys a few questions that we weren't able to gather when she came in."
"Of course." Mr. Jones kept his arms around both his wife and his daughter and remained steady. "Whatever you wanna know."
"The paramedics told us that you last saw Lucy about three hours ago?" Cass asked.
"Yes ma'am," Mrs. Jones nodded. "She came home from school early. She been sick lately, so she came home early and —"
"Sick how?"
"Just um… nauseous, I guess. Nauseous and real sick on her stomach. She said she had a headache the other night too. I was gonna take her to see the doctor at the end of the week if she wasn't better." Mrs. Jones explained, feeling guilt settle in. How didn't she notice how sick her baby was? She should have pushed to take her to the doctor's sooner… "I was gonna take her at the end of the week…" She repeated and more tears rolled down.
Cass put her head down and swallowed hard. She tried to remain unaffected but it was hard seeing how much they loved this little girl who probably wasn't going to make it. She paused for a second, letting the Joneses regroup, then asked the next question.
"How was she acting when you saw her last? Was she dizzy? Slurring her speech? Did she seem out of it?"
"No," Patrice shook her head. "She was fine. She was arguin' with me, yellin' at me. She was fine. She was fine just hours ago. She was fine…" She buried her face in her husband's arm and cried, cried even harder when she felt Mercedes' arms wrap around her. "I shoulda went up and checked on her. I just wanna know what's wrong with my daughter…"
"That's what we're trying to piece together, ma'am." Cass cracked for a moment as she put her hand on Patrice's shoulder. She just couldn't imagine what they were going through. She had a daughter just a few years younger than Lucy and she couldn't imagine knowing that she might not make it through this night. "We'll know more when she comes out of the CT, and —"
"For Lucy Fabray?" Dr. Gunning called out Quinn's name before she even rounded the corner to enter the emergency room. She was a little sweaty, huffing and out of breath. And Cass knew that was an indication of something very bad…
"That's us," Jared raised his hand. "We uh, we call her Quinn. That's her middle name."
Dr. Gunning quickly caught her breath and turned her professionalism on like it was activated by a switch. "I'm Dr. Gunning, very pleased to meet you." She shook all three of the Joneses' hands and jumped right into it. "I took Quinn back for a scan just to see what's going on inside of her and see if I could pinpoint the source of the bleeding and it showed a lot of blood in her stomach area, and blood in her lungs. I still can't find the source because there's too much blood for me to get a clear vision, and her blood pressure bottomed out while in the CT. So I am upgrading her to a level one trauma, and we here at St. Rita's are not properly equipped to handle level one traumas and —"
"Wait, wait," Patrice held her hands up and shook her head. She was trying to grasp everything that Dr. Gunning was saying, but everything was moving and happening too quickly and she couldn't process. "What do you mean? What are you trying to say?"
"What I'm trying to say is —"
"She ain't find where all that blood was coming from because there's too much bleeding inside her to get a good picture of her body." Jared gently explained to his wife and to Mercedes as well. "While they was doing the test, her blood pressure went really low. And she's so sick that they can't take care of her here. So they gonna take her somewhere else."
"Take her somewhere else?!" Patrice felt her own blood pressure skyrocket at the very idea. She get how they were going to take Quinn somewhere else when she was so sick. What if she died while on the way to the hospital? What couldn't they do here? It was a hospital for crying out loud! Shouldn't they be able to handle everything? "Where you gonna take her to?! They barely got her here! She can't go nowhere else, she can't breathe on her own, she —"
"Mom, it's okay," Mercedes whispered and held her mother's hand.
"Where do you plan on taking her?" Jared asked, still the calm one.
"I have a transport team prepping her and we're gonna airlift her out to Dayton Children's Hospital. We have to get her there as quickly as possible. Now, one of you are permitted to ride in the helicopter with her, and —"
"I'm going," Patrice shrugged out of her husband's grasp and wiped her face free of tears. "I need to be with her, so. Alright, let's go. Let's get her outta here."
"We have to move fast, but I do have a few questions I have to ask before you're permitted to go." Dr. Gunning grabbed the iPad off of Cass and pulled up the questionnaire. "What's your name and relation to the patient?"
"Patrice Jones. I'm Quinn's mama."
"And is your address the same as the patient's?"
"Yes. 950 Leland Avenue, here in Lima."
"Any history with severe motion sickness?"
"No."
"Any history with sickle cell disease?"
"No."
"Any serious medical complications that can restrict you or have restricted you from flying in the past?"
"No."
"How tall are you?"
"5'4, 5'5 maybe."
"And how much do you weigh?"
"200, maybe 205? I'm not sure."
"But it's definitely over 200?"
"Last time I checked, yes."
Dr. Gunning sighed, feeling her heart breaking for the woman's dreams that she knew she had to slash. She herself thought it was a stupid rule, but she understood why it had to be enforced. Time and time again, she has seen many mothers and some fathers turned away and discouraged from riding in the helicopter for this same reason, and it never got easier to tell the concerned parents, "no."
"With all the medical equipment we have to have on the air ambulance, and the pilot and the two medical personnel… then the patient… any ride-along over 200 pounds is not permitted on the air ambulance, just to ensure the aircraft isn't weighed down and keeps the travel time under 20 minutes." Dr. Gunning regretfully explained.
Patrice covered her hands over her face and rubbed hard, trying to keep herself and her emotions in check. Mercedes put her hand on her shoulder without saying a word, and she completely ignored the silent sign of affection. She knew the doctors were all just trying to do their job and get Quinn to the children's hospital safely and quickly, but she couldn't help feeling like she wanted to strangle them. What difference did it make if she was five pounds over the weight limit? Her daughter was being life-flighted to a hospital and she couldn't send her alone! The thought of Quinn being on a helicopter by herself made her sick. She didn't know what was going on, but she couldn't stand the thought of Quinn being in that helicopter by herself. What if she died in there? What if she died on her way to the hospital? She'd have to die alone and Patrice wasn't about to let that happen. So she took a deep breath.
"Then you go," she mumbled to Jared. "Me and 'Cedes will run home, pack a bag, meet you there."
"'Trice, you —"
"You're going with her. We ain't about to send that baby up in the air all by herself. Even if she unconscious and don't know what's going on, she gonna know that ain't nobody with her. One of us gotta go with her. If it can't be me, it's gotta be you."
"Alright." Jared sighed and agreed. "Alright, I'll go. I'll call you when we land and let you know where they put her and what they say and stuff."
"Alright, love. I'll see you in a little while." Patrice stood on her tiptoes and hugged him. "You stay with her too, Jare. You hear me? Don't you leave her for one second."
"I won't. I promise." Jared nodded and followed Dr. Gunning up the hallway while she asked the same series of questions she asked his wife.
As she and her mother headed for the door so they could head back home and then make the hour long drive to Dayton, Mercedes kept her phone pressed to her ear while they walked through the parking lot.
"What's going on?" She answered on the other end of the phone after only one ring, and Mercedes could tell that she had been crying and waiting for this very phone call. "What are they saying?"
"Rachel…" Mercedes began sobbing as soon as she and her mom made it to their car. "It's bad…"
"What do you mean it's bad?!" Rachel's voice cracked and Mercedes could feel her world falling apart just by the sound of her voice. Maybe she cheated… but there was no doubt in her mind that Rachel loved Quinn. "Mercedes, don't tell me that! Don't tell me that!"
"They don't know what caused it or what happened. There's a lot of blood and they put her in a helicopter… they're taking her to Dayton Children's because they can't treat her here. They can't treat her here because it's so bad."
"They're taking her to Dayton?!"
"They can't treat her here. They said —"
"I'm coming."
"But I thought you said your dads won't let —"
"Screw what my dads say, I'm coming."
"Is this the transfer from St. Rita's?!" As soon as the doors to the helicopter flung open, the transport nurse from Dayton yelled over the propeller still swinging and asked the transport nurse from Lima to confirm who he already knew it was.
"Lucy Fabray!" The nurse from St. Rita's yelled back and helped him unload the gurney they had Quinn's body strapped to. "Family calls her 'Quinn'! She's seventeen, unresponsive and unconscious, bleeding profusely from the mouth! We did at CT back in Lima but couldn't get any good scans! There's fluid in the abdomen that appears to be blood but we haven't been able to find the source! Her pupils are blown, stats are in the tanks! We intubated her back at the hospital, but her stats are still dropping! She coded twice on the way here! I'm thinking she aspirated blood or is throwing a clot!"
"I'll take it from here!" The children's hospital nurse assured the nurse from St. Rita's and continued to wheel Quinn's body through the set of double doors on the rooftop. "You her dad?" He asked Mr. Jones as soon as they stepped into the warmth of the hospital and didn't have to scream over the helicopter propellers anymore.
"Yeah," Jared nodded and stared at Quinn as they shuffled into the elevator. He hadn't cried yet tonight, but he was pretty damn close now…
He thought she looked small and helpless. Her hair was still stiff and matted with blood and her eyes were closed gently like she was sleeping, but there was no color in her face. Her cheeks were thin and pale instead of their usual full and pink. Her mouth hung open a little, but only because of the tube that was taped and secured down her throat. Her body jerked and swayed lifelessly with every move the gurney made and he just thought that he would never recover from seeing her like that…
"You gonna tell us what happened to her? Nobody can tell us what happened to her… nobody knows. She was fine one minute… then my other daughter found her like this… we don't know what happened to her." He pinched the bridge of his nose as tears finally fell. "I just wanna know what's wrong."
"Well they sent her to the right place. We're gonna figure this out. We have an excellent staff here, sir. The best in all of Ohio. She's in great hands here." The nurse made his voice soft and reassuring, which made Jared calm down just enough to be able to walk off the elevator when the bell rang.
"Can I stay with her?" He jogged to keep up with how quickly the nurse wheeled the gurney down the hallway to a team of doctors already waiting for Quinn. "I told my wife I'd stay with her."
"You need to wait right outside this room, sir. Right outside, we have to work now."
He wheeled Quinn into a room with a curtain, and Jared watched with his back against the wall as they unstrapped her and transferred her onto a bigger bed. As he tried to keep more tears from falling, he listened carefully to every word the doctors said while working on her so that he'd know what to say to his wife and his daughter when they got here.
"She was a full code twice in the ambulance, paramedics administered CPR both times and were able to restart her heart, but the tube isn't doing anything for her breathing."
"I looked at the scans St. Rita's sent over and she has blood all in her abdomen and some in her lungs. She aspirated it, that's why she can't breathe. She's drowning in her own blood."
"She's in sinus tach, I can't find a rhythm."
"Watch out, I'm doing a doppler."
"She's going into cardiac arrest, charge to 250."
"Hold off on shocking her, I need to find out where this blood is coming from. I'm almost done with the doppler."
"She's arresting! She's having a heart attack, we need to —"
"Her esophagus is completely ruptured, that's where all this blood is originating. Go prep O.R. three, because as soon as she's stable, we're taking her up. We can't wait."
"She's still in cardiac arrest, she's dying, we —"
"Do NOT charge the defibrillators, we cannot shock her. She will drown in her own blood if we shock her, there's way too much blood in her lungs. Push one cc of heparin to stop the heart attack and let's get her ready to move. Let's go, go, go. Dr. Plume is already ready to scrub in."
The team of doctors had Quinn up to the surgical floor in two minutes flat, knowing that they had to work quickly if she had any chance at survival. In truth, none of the doctors working on her had ever seen an esophageal tear of that magnitude. They'd heard about it and studied it in medical school, but seeing actual tears as severe as Quinn's was actually very rare.
"Thank you, gentlemen." The anesthesiologist helped them to transfer Quinn to the operating table, then hooked up the anesthesia mask. "I can take it from here. I'm gonna put her under."
He held the mask to Quinn's face and watched the monitor to make sure the anesthesia was taking, and she was completely sedated...
The hallway is the kind of hallway that would make a kid forget that they're sick and in the hospital. The walls are bright green with murals of jungle animals hand painted on them. It doesn't even smell like a hospital, it smells more like a fresh package of crayola crayons when you open them. The tiles on the floor are plain white and clean, but adorned with black animal footprints, which makes me wonder how many kids have tried to walk along those footprints.
Which way is the pink floor? I heard them say they're putting Dad on the pink floor. The pink floor must be the surgical floor and if I can find the surgical floor, then I can find the waiting room. I want to be with Dad. I don't want to be alone anymore. I'm scared…
Which way is the pink floor? Somebody help me. I just want my dad.
I look up at the directory in hopes that there are signs big enough to guide me in the right direction, but I don't see anything about the pink floor. There's a map, but I don't know how to read it. This place is huge. I don't know where I am. I haven't been to Dayton Children's Hospital since I was five and got my tonsils taken out. Can somebody please just help me? I find it hard to believe that there's nobody around that can help me.
I see someone in scrubs walking towards me, so maybe she can help me… I just need to know how to get to the pink floor.
"Excuse me," I say very politely as I approach her, even though my throat feels like I'm swallowing glass shards when I talk. Ow… I touch my throat and rub it just a little because maybe it's just dry. "Excuse me, can you tell me how to get to the pink floor?"
She just chews her gum and keeps walking. She walks right past me.
"I said excuse me!" I shout a little louder at her and I really want to cry because my throat hurts so bad. It hurts so bad I feel like I might pass out. But I just want to get to my dad. I just want my dad. I've been alone all night and I know he's probably mad at me because I cussed at my mom earlier but I'm sorry. I'm sorry, I just want my dad. I don't want to be alone anymore. I don't want to be alone. I'm lost and I'm scared and I'm so lost and I want my dad! "Excuse me…" I try one last time before she's around the corner and out of my sight. She just keeps walking, though… why did she ignore me?
I'm so scared. I know I shouldn't be because I'm old, I'm practically an adult. But I am. I'm so scared.
I keep walking down the hallway because maybe there will be some kind of janitor or something that can help me. So I walk until I finally come to a big blue room with fish and sea turtles all over the walls. This is clearly not the pink floor, but there is an older lady sitting at a desk and maybe she'll be able to point me in the right direction. It's just that this hospital is huge and my head is really cloudy tonight and I can't really read a map very well right now. And my chest is burning… everything on me hurts so bad and I just need to find my dad.
"Excuse me," I bear with the pain in my throat enough to speak again. I taste blood in my mouth when I talk… why is that? "I'm Quinn Fabray." I introduce myself, but the lady doesn't look up. She just keeps typing. Maybe she's just rude like that. Baby boomers suck sometimes. "My name is Quinn Fabray and… and I don't really know what I'm doing here, but I… I kinda just woke up and I was here and I heard someone say my dad is on the pink floor and I don't know how to get there."
She keeps typing on her computer and even stuffs a handful of Fritos into her mouth.
"HELLO!?" I yell at her and all I can taste is blood… "HELLO! I'M TALKING TO YOU!" I slam my hands down on the reception counter to get her attention and let her know I mean business, but I don't even feel my hands hit the counter…
I lift my hands up and hold them out in front of me and my chest hurts even worse than it did a second ago because I can't see my hands! I mean, they're there! They're right in front of me and I know I'm looking at them because those are clearly my hands but they're not solid! I can see through them! Where are my hands?!
I want my mom! I want my mom and my dad!
I hold my hand against my chest because it hurts so bad and I feel like I can't breathe. I know it's probably a panic attack but I really feel like I'm having a heart attack. I keep my hand against my chest and back away from the lady at the desk, slowly at first. And I keep backing away until my back bumps against something hard and cold and smooth.
"MOM?!" I turn around really fast and even though I knew it wouldn't be her, I was still kind of hopeful.
Instead of Mom when I turn around, I find that I just bumped into a really big fish tank. A shiny fish tank. One where I can see my reflection…
Where are my clothes?! What happened to my hair?!
I have a light pink, paper-thin hospital gown on with dark purple hearts all over it. It's tied around my neck and my back and I'm not wearing any underwear. My feet are stuffed inside of really fuzzy pink socks and I have a bunch of colorful bracelets on my arm. My hair is all stiff and crunchy and it's darker on one side of my head than the other, like it's wet or something. But what really scares me is how bloody my face is. There's blood coming from my mouth. And it drips down onto the floor…
I want my dad! Maybe if I scream, he'll hear me and come get me!
"DADDY, HELP ME!"
The long red hand on the analog clock, the one that measured the seconds as they passed, circled around the circumference and passed the large black "12" at the top, signaling that yet another minute had passed. Routinely, like he had been doing ever since they took her back for surgery, Jared eyed the longer black hand and watched with burdening anticipation as it moved a mere centimeter to the right.
Listening to the consistent "tick-tock" sound was driving him mad. Insanity was finding its way to him. It was knocking at the door with a suitcase full of belongings, ready to fashion a cozy and permanent home deep inside his mind. It was knocking, previously had been ringing the doorbell. It was impatient now, demanding a residence...and if he didn't stop it within the next fifteen minutes, he was relatively certain that it would end up beating the door down.
Even though the only bad news he delivered as a doctor was that child needs braces or a tooth pulled, he remembered the bedside manner class he took in college, and his brain flooded with all the tips and advice that he was so properly trained to give when he was on the other side. He remembered them as if they were second nature.
Like a seal at SeaWorld trained to do all the tricks, he remembered everything from that one semester and when he had to recite the steps for his final grade, it was fluid and slid out of his mouth like saliva during a restful slumber. He wished someone would come out and talk to him, though.
Insanity was much closer now, he felt it. He heard it, even. It was standing on the porch, trying to pick the lock. It was almost successful. His leg began to tremble. He was silent, but his thoughts were loud. What if she dies? He thought to himself. He knew that he would never be okay if that happened. Nobody in his family would. They didn't mean to fall in love with Quinn, but it happened so naturally because she was such a great kid and so lovable. How would they go on if something happened to her?
He buried his face in his hands and finally prepared to let himself cry again, but he heard familiar voices that pulled him out of the fragile state.
"Dad…?" Mercedes called into the quiet room as she looked around.
"I'm right here, sweetie." He stood up and walked to meet her and his wife at the door, so they could decide where to sit as a family. He wrapped his arms around Mercedes and squeezed her.
"Any update? What have they been saying?" Mercedes looked up at him like she was seven again and asking him to buy her ice cream. "Rachel's on her way… she's half an hour out."
Jared cleared his throat and waited for his wife, who he could see was a mess, to join them. He wanted to wrap his arms around his entire family and shoulder this pain for them. He knew that his wife would ache like she lost an actual child if something happened to Quinn, knew that his daughter would go off the rails if she lost her best friend. He wished he could weather this storm for them…
"How you guys get here so fast? It's an hour drive. You two made it about 35 minutes." He asked, trying to lighten the mood a little.
"Mom was doing an 80 in a 25. And she pushed 100 all the way up the highway." Mercedes sat down in a seat that looked right into the TV playing some Disney princess movie, and her parents followed her suit.
"An 80 in a 25?" Jared asked his wife, grinning as he held her hand.
"Nevermind that," Patrice shook her head and plopped down in her chair helplessly. "What they say about her? They find out what's going on? How she do in the helicopter?"
"They lost her twice in the helicopter," he mumbled, trying to soften that blow as much as he could.
The noise that slid out of Mrs. Jones' mouth was slightly animalistic and extremely heartbreaking. She covered her hand over her mouth and shook her head. "Not my baby, not my baby, not my baby," she whispered to herself. "Don't you take my baby. You hear me?" She spoke up into the ceiling. "Don't you take my baby."
"Is she dead, daddy? Just tell me…" Mercedes put her head against his shoulder and held her breath.
"They got her back," he squeezed his wife's hand and spoke to his daughter directly. "They lost her twice but they got her back. Then they took her to this room downstairs to get her stable for surgery. Her heart kept giving out. And she still can't breathe. They think she was drowning in her blood. Cause there's a lot of blood in her lungs and in her stomach. Her um… her throat… her esophagus… it ruptured. That's where the blood's coming from. I uh… I talked to uh… a nurse. Quinn's nurse. She gonna be taking care of her when she gets outta surgery. I talked to her a little while ago. She just wanted to know about how she was acting before 'Cedes found her."
"What'd you tell her?" Patrice asked.
"That she was being normal. She was being her normal self. A little mouthy and agitated, but normal." He rubbed the top of his smooth, bald head and took a breath before saying what he had to say next. "They're talking about calling the people."
"What people?" Mercedes asked.
"...Child Services."
"What?!" Patrice stood up. "ON WHO?! She's sick! Why would they —"
"Sit down, honey. Sit down." Jared waved his hand at her.
"I ain't sittin' nowhere! They gonna call the people on us?! Just 'cause our daughter sick?! They can't do that! They can't take her away from us, Jared. She'll never make it! Why they doing this?! She's sick!"
"I guess…" Jared sighed. "I guess they called this specialist in to look at the scans of her throat. And he kept saying that she's really sick. He said she's VERY sick… and that this wasn't a one time thing."
"What do you mean?" Patrice wrinkled her eyebrows. "What do you mean it's not a one time thing? He think somebody abusing her?! He think it's us?! 'Cause it's Russel and Judy, not us! And I'm telling you, if they the reason this little girl gets taken off of us, imma be in jail."
"Not abuse, it's just…" Jared closed his eyes and tried to make enough sense of it to explain. "They said the only way this could happen is if she was throwing up."
"Okay and she was. She had a stomach bug." Patrice shrugged. "Why does that get the people called on us?"
"Because he said that this doesn't happen from throwing up just once. He said that kinda rupture in her esophagus comes from at least six months. At least. And they say there ain't no way she was throwing up that much without getting sick enough for someone to notice. They saying that she should've been got help."
"I don't understand, she hasn't been… she hasn't been throwing up. I woulda known. You know I watch her. You know I watch her, Jared. I woulda known if she was throwing up. I woulda known that." Patrice sat back down and purses her lips hard, trying to keep herself together. "Mercedes Marie, I need you to tell me something. And I won't get mad, I just need to know."
"Yes, mom?" Mercedes looked her mother deep in the eye.
"Has Quinn been making herself throw up?"
"Not as far as I know," she shook her head. "I mean, I know she used to. Like a long time ago, she used to. But she got help for that and she's been okay. She's been okay for a really long time."
"How long?"
"I can't say because I don't know when she got help for it, but I know it's been at least since before she had Beth."
"Are you sure about that? You're not telling me no lies?"
"No, mom." Mercedes shook her head again. "Quinn's been okay for a long time."
P.S.:
The Jones House is a real location in Lima. Google it if you're curious about what it looks like.