Weekend Freewrite - 3 Prompt Challenge

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This is an entry for @mariannewest and @freewritehouse - their awesome, always fun, always challenging - 3 Prompt Freewrite. Each of the 3 prompts are highlighted in bold print. If you've never done one these, go to 3-Part Weekend Freewrite - 6/27/2020 for all the details and to see all the links to everyone's entries. I guarantee some entertaining reading even if you don't decide to enter for yourself.

Mommy, she said. my tummy hurts. Before I could do anything, she was passed out on the floor, curled in a fetal position. My heart lurched in my chest and I dove for my phone to call 911. Anxiously awaiting the arrival of help, I verified that she was still breathing and sent up a silent prayer that everything would be all right.

As I followed the ambulance to the hospital, the prayers continued nonstop. How had this happened so quickly? Last night her slight fever and cough had seemed very ordinary and no great concern. Nothing that Childen's Tylenol and some Vapo-Rub wouldn't ease. And yet this morning, here she was, burning up, unconscious, and on the way to the Emergency Room.

Her dad will, of course, blame me for not taking proper care of her. Everything was a battle these days and the struggle to maintain some sort of stability in the face of our less-than-friendly impending divorce had been a traumatic event in Karly's everyday life.

A raggedy looking old woman sat on the steps leading from the parking lot to the emergency room entrance. She looked up at me with a hopeless and resigned look and her eyes seemed to focus on my diamond earrings.

"I guess they're worth more to you than to me, Miss, but the poor has got to live as well as the rich," she murmured in a dejected voice.

Even though my need to be with my daughter was overpowering, her words cut me to the quick. She couldn't know that these earrings were the only thing I had left from my mother and they were my good luck charm in times of tragedy. Lending me a much-needed strength, I'd been wearing them for the past two weeks and I reached up now to touch them reverently. My financial condition was anything but rich at this point and I could surely sympathize with this poor woman's misery. However, I knew that my wallet was empty of cash and I had nothing to offer her, not even my time, with my daughter in danger.

"I'm very sorry for whatever circumstances have brought you here, but I have to get to my daughter. She's very sick, just now arrived in the ambulance. If you're still here when I come back, I'd like to help out. Or maybe you'd like to come in with me, and we can visit the cafeteria together when Karly is stable?"

The lightening in the window of the cafeteria was followed by the earsplitting crescendo of thunder as the rain lashed against the glass in fury. It had been a long couple of hours waiting for the lab work to come back and getting a diagnosis and a treatment plan. Karly had responded to the treatment and now was sleeping peacefully with her dad currently by her bedside. Surprisingly, he hadn't blamed me as I had expected. In fact, we'd reached a truce while dealing with our concern over Karly. For the first time in weeks, my heart felt lighter and I had hope that we were going to be able to work things out.

I sat across the table from the old woman, whom I now knew as Isabell. I watched her eating what was probably her first decent hot meal in days. Fingering the earrings I felt they had done their job once again, lending me strength and I felt my mother's presence. Taking the earrings out of my lobes I held them in my hand and studied Isabell's face. Here was a woman who could use some strength and support in her life.

"Isabell, I'd like you to have these." I slid the earrings across the Formica tabletop and reached out to take her hand. I explained what the earrings meant to me and that I was gifting them to her to use as she wished.

Her eyes filled with tears and she gripped my hand with both her own gnarled and arthritic hands. "Oh, Miss, I can't believe me luck. I can get back to me family and not come empty-handed and be a burden to them that was barely feeding themselves."

I rose from my chair and gave Isabell a quick hug. "I've got to get back to Karly, I want to be there when she wakes up. Best of luck of you and your family."

As I walked away, I was certain I could feel mom smiling down on me.

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