Page 64 of Reckless Love

“Their nurse called in sick. So I had to cancel what I was doing. It wasn’t work, you know, with the strike.” She doesn’t meet my gaze.

“Right, of course.” I didn’t exactly forget so much as I haven’t been paying close attention. Then her phrasing hits me. “Don’t tell me you were supposed to be part of that stupidity at the Tucker mansion?” I can’t help the noise of frustration that escapes. Truly, I thought she was smarter than those antics.

Before she can reply, the emergency services operator is on the phone, asking for the house details for the ambulance, saving my sister from admitting anything.

When I get off the phone, Vanessa wrings her hands. “Did they tell you how much? We don’t really get any money with the strike. The union’s so new…”

“I’ll take care of the cost if they declare the ride a nonemergency,” I say. “I’ll figure it out.” Even though I’m not completely sure how. If I have to ask Owen for a loan, I will. “I said I’d meet them at the front door.”

Really, I just need to take some deep breaths. As soon as I step outside, the tight ball inside me starts to unwind. The night has gotten away from me. Between seeing Ava hurt, losing my temper with Raul, my mother’s fall, and now discovering my sister is still making dangerous and idiotic choices, I’m functioning on a series of adrenaline spikes. I just get one thing unfucked for another thing to fuck up.

Sirens wail in the distance, and as the ambulance pulls into my parents’ driveway, I direct the paramedics to my mother. They load her on the stretcher, and Vanessa climbs into the back of the ambulance with Mom.

“I’ll go,” she says.

I stand at the rear of the ambulance, and I consider protesting. Something’s still off with my sister, and I don’t know what it is. A weird energy that doesn’t feel related to our mom’s fall.

When the ambulance leaves and I wander back into the house, I’m still mulling over what’s itching at my brain when my dad says, “She was late, you know.”

“Vanessa?”

“Not sure when the nursing cancelled, but Nessy wasn’t here when the other nurse had to leave.”

“But she’s not working. Groceries?”

“Didn’t come home with anything. We were here on our own when your mom fell.”

“What?” Would Vanessa have admitted later on that our parents had been left alone?

“Don’t know what she was doing, but she wasn’t here. Didn’t have a phone near me, so we just had to wait. I was worried I’d fall too if I tried to figure out how to get help.”

“How long was Mom lying there?”

“An hour, maybe?”

“An hour?” I sputter. What if Mom’s injury had been worse? What if Dad really had fallen trying to get to a phone? Rage floods my chest. “Vanessa didn’t tell you what she’d been doing?”

“No,” my dad says carefully. “But she’s been spending time with people who’ve got some radical views. Heard her on the phone a few times. Scares me. Nessy isn’t… She never used to be… Vindictive. Angry. But they’re making her that way.”

I sink into the couch and rub my face. “I had a detail on her. Maybe I can find out what she’s been up to.” Her safety was my main concern if Raul Santos found out she was one of the organizers for the union. I just hope she’s not still pulling strings behind the scenes.

“Something’s not right.” My father grimaces. “Her and a few other people—grand plans.”

“Why didn’t you say anything sooner?”

“You work long hours, and until tonight… Well, Nessy’s never let us down. But all this union organization and strike action is changing her. I’m not as sure she’ll make good choices as I once was.”

Vanessa has never said anything to me, but I can’t imagine quitting university and returning to Bellerive to care for our aging parents while working a minimum-wage job is the future she hoped for. There’s not much room for acting, singing, or theater—things that once gave her tremendous joy. In fact, I can’t remember the last time she mentioned any of those things.

But that doesn’t mean she can slide into illegal shit, which is what I’m suddenly worried about. She’s clinging to the notion she can fix The Nile, as though that’ll be some magic potion to save everything else.

“I’ll talk to her,” I say. “Or talk to the detail I had on her. See if they know anything.”

“Rachael, our next-door neighbor, will come over and sit with me if you want to get to the hospital. She’s a night owl. Won’t mind a late-night call. Nessy’s asked her a few times in the past when she had to go out and you weren’t home. Think it might be good for you and your sister to be at the hospital together in case any big decisions need to be made.”

“Mom broke something, but she’s going to be fine,” I say.

“Son,” my father says with a sigh, “neither you nor your sister have much of a life right now. Your mother and I don’t think the current arrangement is working.”