Page 124 of Call Back

“All right!” Roy shouted, his whole face turning red. “You win.”

“And just so we’re clear, you touch a hair on Tilly or Magnolia’s heads, and you will spend the rest of your life regretting it. Got it?” Roy didn’t answer and Colt gave him a shake. “Do. You. Understand? Feel free to nod if you can’t choke out the words.”

Roy glared at him for another two seconds before giving a sharp nod.

Colt dropped his hold and took a step back. “I think you and Belinda should wait in the visitor’s area until your mother is ready to see you.”

“Who the hell do you think you are?” Roy demanded, his eyes wild with anger. He cradled his bloody right hand to his chest. “Who gave you the authority to tell me what to do?”

“From this point forward, consider me Tilly and Magnolia’s bodyguard, and I’m issuing a restraining order. If you don’t stay at least twenty feet away from the two of them, I’ll kick your ass whether you touch them or not. Got it?”

Roy gave him a look of violent hatred, but he didn’t respond in any way. Instead, he spun around and headed down the hall.

It was then that I noticed all the people standing in the patients’ doorways, gawking our direction. But as Roy headed toward them, they scattered out of sight.

“Come on, Belinda,” Roy hollered.

Belinda shot Tilly a horrified look before turning around and trailing after my brother. She didn’t look at me at all.

I watched her walk away, and Tilly put her hand on my shoulder. “She made her choice, Maggie.”

I wasn’t so sure she had.

“I’m sorry about this ugly incident,” Colt said in an apologetic tone to the nurse, who’d approached us now that Roy was gone. “I’d be happy to pay for the damage.”

“Like hell you will,” the nurse said with a grin. “He deserved that and more. Never could stomach a bully.” She walked past him and patted his arm. “I’ll get housekeeping to clean up the broken glass.” She winked. “And not to worry—security is on its way . . . to the visitor’s waiting room.”

“Thank you, Colt,” Tilly said, wrapping her arms around Colt’s back and hugging him. “I do believe he would have hit me.”

“He won’t dare touch you now,” Colt said, glancing down the hall toward the waiting room. “I’ll make sure of it.” He pointed to the closed door with the number 433 on the plaque. “Can Maggie go see her momma now?”

Tilly shook her head. “Not yet. Her doctor is performing a procedure. That’s what originally riled Roy up. He didn’t like that he had to wait. The nurse who witnessed the incident caught an earful earlier.”

They continued to discuss Roy’s escalating behavior, but I tuned them out as I stared at Momma’s door, wondering what waited for me on the other side. Would she look much worse than she had at lunch two days ago?

The guilt was overwhelming. I should have stayed with her last night. I should have never moved out. I’d wasted precious time with her. What had I been thinking? I’d wanted to protect her, yes, but I should have found a way to stay with her anyway.

The door opened and a woman wearing pink scrubs walked out, letting the door close behind her. “Are you Magnolia?” She stood directly opposite me, only a couple of feet between us.

“Yes.”

Colt stood on one side of me, his arm wrapped around my back, and Tilly stood on the other, grabbing my hand and clutching it tightly enough to cut off my circulation.

“I’m not going to sugarcoat it, Magnolia. Your mother is very sick. She has a low white cell count from her last round of chemo, which made it easier for her to pick up an infection. If she’d come to see me a few days ago, I could have treated it with oral antibiotics, but now it’s spread throughout her body. She needs an IV antibiotic, but she’s refusing treatment.” She hesitated. “I’m sure she’s told you about her DNR, and her request for no heroic attempts.”

I nodded, surprised I was listening to this dry-eyed. It was taking everything in me to follow what she was saying. “And she’ll die if she doesn’t take the antibiotics?”

“There’s a chance she’ll fight it off, but it’s very, very small.”

“That damn stubborn woman,” Tilly muttered in a broken voice.

I felt myself on the verge of cracking, but I couldn’t let that happen. Not now. “Can I go in and talk to her now?”

“We just put in a port to make it easier to draw her blood and administer the medication if she changes her mind. The nurse is cleaning her up, but she’ll be finished in a minute.”

“Thank you.”

As I watched the doctor’s retreating back, I turned her words over and over in my head, struggling to understand my mother’s decision. I understood her request to withhold machines to prolong her life, but I’d never considered penicillin to be a heroic effort.

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