Page 50 of Destiny

“Caroline?” I work to remove everything on top of her. “Bea! In here!”

“Oh, my gosh!” she says before helping me get the frail woman up. “Are you okay, Caroline?”

We lead her to the bed.

“I think I hit my head,” Caroline says as she raises her hand to feel for an injury.

I’ve never been that great in an emergency, but Bea jumps into action.

“Girls, please go play downstairs for a little bit. Okay?” she instructs.

“Okay.”

With the kids gone, she sits next to my ex-mother-in-law. “Caroline. Do you remember losing consciousness?”

“I—”

“At any time when you were on the ground, did you black out?”

“I’m not sure.”

Then, Bea points out the blood that’s in her hair near the back. I walk over and confirm that there’s also some on the wall.

“We need to take her to the hospital.”

“No, no!” Caroline objects. “No hospital. No doctors.”

“Caroline, you may have a concussion. We need to go get a scan of your brain.”

“No!” She quickly becomes hysterical.

“Do you have Clara’s number?” Bea asks.

“Of course. Why?”

“Give me your phone.”

I do as she says.

“Hello, Clara? Hi. This is Bea. I’m . . .” She looks up at me before continuing, “I’m the girls’ babysitter. Listen, your mother was over, and she and the kids were playing hide and seek. Well, she managed to bump her head in the closet—no, I understand. I’m not sure why she’d try to do that. But the issue right now is that your mother is refusing to go to the hospital. Can you please try talking to her? I’m very worried she may have a concussion.”

Then, she hands the phone to Caroline.

I can’t hear exactly what my ex-wife is saying, but it seems to work because we soon get her mother to calm down and agree to go get medical care.

“So, you’ll just stay here with the girls.”

“No, it’s okay. I can take her.”

“What? Are you sure?” I was not expecting her to offer that.

“Yeah. It’s better for you to stay here with them. Um, just let me make sure I get Clara’s number into my phone.”

“Yeah, sure.”

She types it in, and then we escort Caroline into the back of Bea’s car.

“Thank you so much for doing this.”

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