Lisa doesn’t even look back to see if Carla’s following as she races through the corridors of the hospital, the doctor’s words ringing through her mind. She’s stable. She’s awake. You can see her.
The doctor told her the room number, and she finds it with ease, as though she’s drawn there by intuition. Maybe it’s a mum thing, but she has a feeling that even if she didn’t have the room number she would have found the way to her daughter.
She bursts through the doors, her heart jumping in her throat when she sees her. Pale, exhausted, arm in a sling. But out of immediate danger. Alive.
Betsy’s eyes are closed, so Lisa takes a moment to watch her. She looks tiny, like a child again. Her little girl. She hears the door open behind her, and she knows without looking that it’s Carla, the unmistakable sound of her massive boots squeaking across the linoleum floor. Betsy’s eyes shoot open, and she smiles weakly at the sight of her mum and step-mum, her face falling a little when she sees the matching looks of concern etched across their faces. They look exhausted, broken. Lisa’s blonde hair falling out of place, her jumper half tucked, the last traces of the make up she hastily washed off in a hospital bathroom smudged across her face. Somehow, she looks worse than Betsy.
“Hey,” she says weakly as Lisa strides over to her and presses a kiss to her head.
“Hey, how are you feeling?” Lisa asks, now running her hands across her daughter’s hair, not wanting to let go now that she’s got her back. After she so nearly lost her.
“Tired.” Her voice is hoarse, her throat dry from all those hours of surgery. She closes her eyes again. “Am I ok?”
“Yes, you’re ok,” Carla butts in. She’s been waving the positivity flag all night for Lisa. There’s nothing she can do, she knows that, except make sure her girls keep a positive state of mind. Not that it worked for Lisa. It didn’t stop her panicking, spiralling, blaming herself. But maybe it will work on Betsy. Lisa offers her a small smile, a sign that despite her constant rebuttals of Carla’s reassurances, she is grateful to have a voice to counter the worst thoughts that have plagued her all night long.
For a moment Carla thinks it's worked, until she realises that perhaps Betsy is too exhausted, too whacked out painkillers and anaesthetic to really work herself up into a panic. That will come later, she’s sure. She just hopes Lisa has calmed herself down by then. She can already see Lisa’s shoulders dropping a little, the relief that Betsy is conscious and bullet-less beginning to wash over her, the tension she’s carried all night easing slightly. Just slightly. Carla knows she won’t be fully calm for a long time, not until Betsy has fully recovered, both physically and psychologically.
Lisa shrugs her coat off and lowers herself into one of the chairs, Carla taking that as her cue to sit in the other. No one says anything for a moment, the couple simply watching the slow rise and fall of Betsy’s chest as she breathes. Carla’s eyes catch on the board above the bed, where Betsy’s name is written. Did she know her full name was Elizabeth? She must have done, she supposes, but she’d never really clocked it before. She’d never met anyone less suited to a name like Elizabeth, but she figures that’s probably why they call her Betsy instead.
Betsy opens her eyes again, and tries to lift her arm - her good arm - but finds her movement restricted by the IV line in her wrist. Normally she’d be able to fight against it or manoeuvre around it, but she’s too exhausted to figure it out. Lisa notices the movement, of course, and leaps into action. She stands, panicked and scanning Betsy’s face for any sign of discomfort.
“What’s wrong? Are you in pain? Shall I get a nurse?” Lisa’s words fall out in a jumble, all the questions blurring together as her motherly instincts kick in. If she wasn’t so tired, Betsy would laugh at her mum’s helicopter parenting.
“No, I’m fine, I’m just thirsty,” Betsy croaks out, nodding towards the jug of water on the table. “I can’t really move either of my arms.”
“Oh,” Lisa sighs in relief. She pours out a glass and brings it back to Betsy, lifting to her lips. As Betsy slowly sips it down, Lisa is reminded, momentarily, of when her daughter was a baby. She became an expert in reading her facial expressions and her body language, listening to every noise she made and decoding it. She suddenly realises that she’ll need to become an expert at reading her daughter again until she’s better. As her daughter’s sips slow, Lisa brings the glass away. “Ok?”
Betsy hums in response, and Lisa replaces the glass on the table. She decides, at that moment, that she’ll be spending another night in the hospital. There’s no chance she’s leaving her daughter alone.