They ask me questions that I wish I could answer with “yes.” Can I get in? Do I know where she keeps a spare key? Do I have a phone number for a family member?
I check under the doormat and in the flowerpots by the front door, but I can’t find a key. There’s a small, inauspicious pile of rocks on the other side of the door, and half-heartedly I lift those, too, and reveal two keys. I look down the road, hoping the ambulance will appear and I’ll be able to hand the keys over without going in myself. Should I call Mom? No, I have to go in. I fiddle with the keys, my hands still shaking, and the door clicks open.
I hesitate—scared, scared to go closer. Maybe Mrs. G. is dead. I don’t want to see her close up if she is. I can imagine her eyes—glassy and scary like in the movies. If she is dead, should I close them? I’ve seen that in movies, too, but I don’t want to touch a dead person.
Mrs. Gayatri is lying crumpled, her feet sticking out at an awkward angle through the doorway to the kitchen. I can’t see her head. I edge nearer, on tiptoes for some reason, as if any sound might wake her—but I want her to wake up. I want it more than anything.
“Mrs. Gayatri?” I call.
I bend over her. She seems to jerk slightly. Her head is on one side. There’s blood, a gash on the side of her head and a pool of blood underneath. I gulp. Nausea rises in my throat. It looks as if someone has hit her hard on the head. Did someone attack her? Something is sparkling on the floor beside her. Fragments of glass. Did someone hit her over the head with a bottle or a vase? Then I see a dark wooden photo frame on the floor. Someone must have hit her and she fell against the wall, knocking the picture off its hook.
My heart is pounding. Taking care not to step on the glass, I crouch and put my hand under Mrs. G.’s nose. To my relief I feel air moving. She is definitely breathing.
“Mrs. Gayatri! Mrs. Gayatri!” I call. “It’s Kasia from next door. Don’t worry—an ambulance is coming.”
A small sound comes from her, but it isn’t words. I wait. It feels like forever. I feel so alone, with such a huge responsibility—someone’s life and there’s nothing I can do except crouch here and hold her hand.
I wonder what Mom would do, and then I call her. She says she’ll come right away. I’ve got this weird, floaty feeling in my stomach, like the inside of a lava lamp. I glance down at the frame. The picture, which I think is of Mrs. G.’s husband when he was young, has slipped out, and there is another photo behind it. I see it is a picture of Mr. and Mrs. G. with a girl around my age standing between them, smiling straight into the camera.
Before I have time to wonder about this girl, Mom arrives and has her arms around my shoulder, and the ambulance is here, too, with two paramedics.
“You’re her neighbor? Maybe you can give us a few details,” one of the paramedics asks Mom. “What is her full name, date of birth? Do you know her next of kin?”
Mom can only give Mrs. G.’s last name. She never told us her first name or her birthday, and she has no family that we knew of.
The paramedic turns to me. “Kasia, is it? You’re the one who called us? You did the right thing.”
“You should call the police,” I tell her. “I think she was attacked—see that gash on her head?”
“You saw someone attack her?” she asks, looking alarmed.
“No, no.” I shake my head. This is so awful.
“Looks like a stroke to me,” I hear her say. “She must have hit her head on the wall as she fell. That’s why it’s bleeding. There’s no sign of an attack, is there?” she asks the other paramedic who is examining Mrs. G.
“No,” comes the answer.
“But…the gash…” I say. “I thought…the blood…” I can feel my cheeks flushing red with embarrassment.
“She has a big imagination,” I hear Mom say quietly, embarrassing me even more.
“Mom…”
“You did a good thing,” Mom says to me now, squeezing my shoulders. “My Kasia, you’re a good, brave girl.”
As Mrs. Gayatri is carried out on a stretcher, I realize I still have the photo in my hand. Who is the girl standing in the middle, and why was this picture hidden behind another? I stare at it for a moment, then tuck the photo under my coat.
I turn toward the ambulance. “Do you think she’ll be okay?” I ask the paramedic.
“She’s in the best hands now,” she replies.
The doors slam and the ambulance disappears down the road.
Mom squeezes my hand. “So sad,” she says, “to see her like that.”
“You don’t think she’s going to die, do you?” I ask.
“I hope not,” says Mom. “I offered to go with her in the ambulance, but they said no.”
“I think I need to lie down,” I tell her, as exhaustion suddenly overtakes me.
“I’m not surprised—what a shocking thing!” says Mom. “Thank goodness you found her, that’s all I can say, or who knows how much longer she could have been lying there. I’ll call the hospital later, and maybe go and visit her tomorrow.”
When Dad comes home, we tell him all about it. “I do feel sorry for the woman, not having family around her,” says Dad. “But try not to get too involved, okay?” He gives Mom a hug.
Later, I lay in bed looking at the photo. Mrs. G. looks much younger, but the girl couldn’t be her daughter, could she? Mrs. G. would have mentioned her when I asked if she had any children. I think back, trying to remember her exact words. “It’s sad when everyone you love has gone.” It was something like that.
The way the girl is standing between Mr. and Mrs. Gayatri—it definitely looks like a daughter with her parents. Unless she was a visitor—a niece or something. Maybe Mrs. G. did have a daughter and she died—like the girl at number 46. But then why would she cover her photo? I’m sure she’d want to remember her.
I put the photo in my bottom drawer with the daffodil card that Josh signed, planning to give it back when Mrs. G. is home.
Mom calls the hospital to find out how Mrs. G. is, but since she’s not family they are reluctant to tell her anything. Eventually they tell her that Mrs. G. definitely had a stroke but that she’s doing okay.
* * *
The next day Mom says she’s going to visit her. I wish I could go, too, but I am not well enough. I feel wiped out.
“Mom, before you go, take a look at this,” I say. I get the photo out of the drawer and tell her how I found it behind the picture in the smashed frame.
“Why did you take it?” Mom asks, frowning as she looks at it closely. “You should have left it where you found it.”