Kaya Bluebird's Arc

Chapter 2 of 4

Kaya drove with one hand and kept the other on Joy's knee. Elleanor sat in the back with a plastic bowl in her lap. The clinic sat at the end of a short street, a tidy building with a striped awning and flower boxes under the windows. Kaya parked at the curb and got both sisters out. They did not make it to the door. Joy bent double beside a metal trash can on the sidewalk and threw up green bile and pieces of last night's toast. Elleanor took two steps toward her, gagged, and threw up into the same can. Kaya held Elleanor's hair and reached for Joy's shoulder at the same time. Her hands were not enough hands. "Inside," Kaya said. "Now. Both of you." "Not the exam room," Joy said. She wiped her mouth on her sleeve. "Not the man in the coat." "Lindy," Elleanor said. "Get Lindy." Kaya knew the name. Lindy Ginger was new in town, a healer with soft eyes who had taken a room at the back of the clinic. Joy had let her feel a bruised wrist last month without pulling away. That was rare. "Lindy," Kaya agreed. Inside, she asked at the desk and did not sit down. Lindy came out from the hall drying her hands on a towel. She looked at Joy against the wall and at Elleanor against Kaya's side and did not waste a word. "Back room," Lindy said. "Both of you." She walked them past the exam door Joy feared and into a smaller room with a cot and a chair. She had Joy lie down first. She pressed her fingers low on Joy's belly. Joy hissed and turned her face to the wall and threw up again into a basin Lindy had already set beside her. Lindy moved to Elleanor and pressed the same spots. Elleanor made a small sound and shut her eyes. Lindy stepped back. She looked at Kaya. "Flare," Lindy said. "Both of them. Joy's gastritis and colitis together. Elleanor has IBS and gastritis too. Mild nervous stomach on top." "Grief," Kaya said. "Yes." "What do I do." "Fluids. Rest. Small sips, not gulps. I'll start a line on Joy here. Elleanor can drink if she goes slow." Lindy paused. "No solids today. Broth tomorrow if it stays down." Kaya sat between the cot and the chair. She held Joy's hand on one side and Elleanor's on the other. Joy's fever was still hot under her fingers. Elleanor was shaking. "I thought food would fix it," Kaya said, quieter. "It won't," Lindy said. "Not this." Lindy set the line and left them the basin and a paper cup. Kaya watched the drip start. She had gotten them here. That much was done. Now she had to figure out how to carry two sick sisters home and keep them still, when neither of them had ever stayed still for her before.