Page 17 of Where Are You Now
When she finally emerged from the office, her mother was making a pot of stew, the starchy scent of potatoes and vegetables filling the kitchen.
“I had groceries delivered. I’ve been putting them all away, and I made us an early dinner since we skipped lunch.”
Ava’s eyes widened. “So wecanget deliveries out here?”
Her mother grinned. “Get some good work done?”
“Oh, I just perused the internet,” she replied, picking up a carrot stick from the cutting board and taking a quick bite. “I wasn’t quite ready for work just yet.”
“It’s good to take things slowly.” Martha stirred the pot with a wooden spoon that had flowers carved into the handle that Ava remembered from her childhood. “Also, while you were in there, the hospital called to give me your first cognitive therapy appointment date at Vanderbilt. They want to do a full workup just as a precaution.”
After eavesdropping on the phone conversation, Ava thought it was no wonder they wanted to do a full workup. But all she said was, “Okay.”
Truth be told, she’d like to know if she was delusional or not. But deep down, Ava wanted to prove to them that there was nothing wrong with her cognitive abilities, and that whatshe’d experienced had been genuine. She wanted to believe that she’d survived with minimal injuries because she’d promised to find Lucas. But a part of her doubted whether it was real when everything around her was telling her it wasn’t.
“It’s first thing tomorrow,” Martha said.
“That’s great.”
Her mother eyed her. “You’re not fighting it? That’s uncharacteristic.”
“I’ll do whatever I have to do to get back to work.”
Plus—crazy or not—the more time she spent in Nashville, the more chances she had to run into Lucas if he was there.
Chapter Six
Still too sore to drive and still afraid to get behind the wheel, especially during morning rush hour, Ava’s mother drove her to her cognitive therapy appointment. On their way, Ava kept her focus on the city streets, scouring every sidewalk, storefront, and window for Lucas. Had she hoped to see him so badly that she’d conjured him up yesterday? Maybe she’d only seen someone who favored him. After all, she hadn’t gotten a good look at him in the hospital, and all she had to go on was his online profile picture.
She and her mother parked, went inside, and took the elevator to the therapy offices. Just like yesterday, they signed in and waited.
“Ava St. John?” a nurse called.
Ava left her mother and followed the nurse down the hallway.
“I’m going to take your vitals, okay?” The nurse motioned toward a small office with a scale and a blood pressure monitor. She sat down on the stool and rolled up to a built-in counter. “You can have a seat.”
Ava held her breath, a new tactic to avoid the shootingpain in her ribs when she changed positions, as she sat down in the chair next to the nurse.
The nurse clipped the pulse oximeter onto her pointer finger and slid the blood pressure cuff onto Ava’s bicep. She hit a button on the machine and then entered data into her tablet.
“Home address and personal information still the same?” she asked.
“Yes.”
The machine beeped.
“One eighteen over eighty—not bad.” The nurse entered the numbers and removed the equipment from Ava’s extremities. “Could you hop on the scale for me? You can leave your shoes on.”
Ava slowly stood and stepped onto the scale. The nurse recorded her weight.
“You’re having some tests done before therapy, right?”
“I think so.”
“All right, come with me.” The nurse led her farther down the hallway to a small room housing an exam table covered with a paper sheet. “The doctor will be in with you shortly.”
Ava climbed onto the padded table, rattling and creasing the paper, her legs dangling down from the end like a child on a swing. Her only entertainment was a poster, tacked on the wall, indicating the parts of the brain. She scanned each caption about the brain stem, the frontal lobe, and the occipital and temporal lobes, scrutinizing the pastel pink, blue, and green the artist had used to illustrate each element. The words blurred in front of her. She squeezed her eyes shut and opened them again, trying to find something to keep her busy while she waited. She wasn’t used to sitting still, and since the accident that was all she seemed to do.
