Strings Attached Read Free Page B

equipment and came out of the bedroom next to where Jeremy was standing. She reached out and grasped his hands, smiling bravely.
    “Is she gonna be OK?” he asked.
    “Let’s wait outside and let those men do their job. She’s in good hands.”
    She wrapped her arms around him, and he put his head in the crook of her neck and breathed the familiar scent of her moist, spicy skin. He thought about crying, and realized that he should somehow be more upset under the circumstances, but strangely he wasn’t. Truth be told, he was more pissed off at her than anything.
    So he made a sniffling sound and hid his face.
    “It’s OK now, baby. Jesus will heal her,” she whispered in his ear. “He brought you home just in time to save her today. Lord be praised.” She rocked him slowly back and forth in her arms. “Lord be praised.”
    Good—she bought it.
    They were waiting together outside on the walkway when the tall paramedic emerged from the living room. He looked from Jeremy and back to Mrs. Jackson. “We’re trying to stabilize her so we can take her to the hospital. Her vital signs are improving, but it looks like she aspirated her vomit. We can hear a rattle in her lungs. We should be ready to go in about ten minutes.” He nodded and then descended the stairs.
    “Sure.” Jeremy knew the drill.
    She might get stabilized, but he suspected now that she was in the worst shape of her life; in the past couple of months he thought she’d aged another ten years. He could hardly believe she had ever been that teenage girl with the perfect smile and supermodel body who once matched the physical perfection of his dear, doomed father.
    What happened?
    The clung of the paramedic ascending the metal stairs startled him.
    “How old are you?”
    “Seventeen…and a half.”
    “You got any relatives to stay with while she’s in the hospital?” he asked, popping the gurney upright.
    “He’s staying with me,” Mrs. Jackson announced. “His mother and me arranged it, long time ago.”
    “You got that in writing?”
    “Not exactly,” she said. “But I practically raised this boy. He’s like my own baby, though he don’t look like one no more. I’ll see he gets what he needs.”
    “Sure. I’ll just need to get your name and telephone before we go. And I’ll tell Social Services they can find him here tomorrow. Can you find him a ride to County?”
    “I’ll drive him,” said Mrs. Jackson. “And his name’s Jeremy.”
    “Jeremy Tyler,” added the boy.
     
     
    Mrs. Jackson dropped him off at the entrance to County General, then sped off to visit her sister who lived nearby, with instructions to be out front in exactly an hour. He sidled past the bums panhandling on the front steps and made his way up to the security station, where a walking skeleton of a man argued with a security guard about smoking inside the building. Jeremy emptied his pockets and stepped through the metal detector, afraid it would go off even though he was smuggling nothing, the same way he was always reluctant to pass through those shoplifter detectors in stores. He received the obligatory little pink wristband with his mother’s room number on it from the information lady, who, he couldn’t help noticing, had one eye swollen shut. This place is a human junkyard, he thought, shoving his hands deep into his pockets while shuffling down the corridor past the banks of doors, each one a gateway to someone’s Brush With Death, toward the sign at the end with the room numbers on it.
    He followed the arrows until he found it.
    Room 260.
    He paused, sucking in the first half of a sigh before crossing the doorway. The doctor, a petite and efficient-looking woman, was standing at the foot of his mother’s bed jotting notes in a large blue binder. She took a few moments to finish, snapped the folder shut, and turned to peer at him through rimless glasses that revealed soft brown eyes—intense but friendly. Safe.
    “Are you Jeremy?” She