"Franklin, what's wrong?" I asked, feeling his forehead. His skin felt hot and he was shaking slightly.
"My side is killing me," he said, placing a hand on his right side.
"Oh, good lord," I said. "Honey, we have to get you to the hospital." Pulling my cell from the pocket of my jeans, I tried Merrill's numbers first—there were two of them. I got voice mail both times. Then I tried calling Charles. Same thing—voice mail. "Franklin, I hope you know where the hospital is," I told him, and lifting him easily in my arms, carried him toward the garage.
Merrill has a pegboard inside the garage where all the car keys are neatly labeled and hung. Figuring the Cadillac was the least expensive thing to replace if I wrecked it, I settled Franklin into the passenger seat. I had no experience whatsoever with driving on the left side of the road, so I got my trial by fire that night. I'm sure all those people honking and offering rude gestures meant well.
Franklin was giving me directions as best he could but I could tell he was in terrible pain. "Just hang on, honey, okay?" I kept telling him while trying to negotiate left turns. To me, all of it was backward. When we pulled into the emergency room drive, I raced inside and placed compulsion on the first person in scrubs I could find. They brought out a wheel chair and we got Franklin settled into it and on his way inside. Thank goodness, Franklin had his wallet with him; I didn't even know his last name, which turned out to be Wright. He even had an insurance card since he was listed as a U.S. citizen. The nurse must have suspected the same thing I did because they took him in right away. Sure enough, it was his appendix.
The waiting room was as cold and cheerless as it could possibly be as I sat there, waiting for the surgeon to come and tell me how Frank was doing. "It wasn't abscessed or perforated, although that wouldn't have held true much longer," the doctor informed me when he appeared several hours later. "You got him here at a good time. We'll probably keep Mr. Wright for a couple of days; he's in good shape for someone his age."
"Thank God," I sighed. "Thank you, doctor, I was really worried."
He smiled at me. "No worries," the smile turned into a grin. "You could have coffee with me later, to show your appreciation."
"Well, we'll see about that," I said, putting him off. Just what I needed—an amorous human physician.
I was allowed to visit Franklin in his room a while after that, but he was asleep still, after coming out of recovery. Stroking his forehead a little, I dropped a kiss on his cheek and whispered quietly that I had to leave. It was nearing five in the morning and I wouldn't get home before daybreak if I didn't go soon. "Someone will be here later," I informed the nurse as I was leaving.
"We'll take good care of him," she promised. I gave her my thanks and headed toward the car.
Traffic had slowed down quite a bit; I was in that dead space just before the morning rush began and I left the London area behind before it really started up. My memory is much better now than it used to be—I found my way home, discovering that I'd left the garage door open when I'd driven the car out earlier. After checking the entire house, I left yet another message for Merrill. This time I explained what had happened and where Franklin was, adding that I'd done the best I could. I also told him that the Cadillac was in one piece. I'm sure that was a minor miracle, considering my state of mind and my inexperienced driving on the wrong side of the road. A note for Lena was the last thing I did, writing down Franklin's room number along with the name of the hospital and leaving it for her on the kitchen island. I was a wreck when I went to bed at dawn.
Lena was in the kitchen when I hurried downstairs Friday evening. "Master Merrill is on his way to the hospital, Miss Lissa," she said. "I went to see Franklin as soon as I got your note," she added, her pretty, brown eyes worried. "They told me he was doing fine but how can you tell?"
Lena was a worrier, it appeared. "He'll be all right, I think," I reassured her. "The doctor was very nice and seemed quite competent." I didn't say what I really wanted—why hadn't Merrill waited for me to wake so I could visit Franklin, too? Now I was stuck there at the house. No way did I want to call Merrill on his cell phone just so I could whine about being left behind. I'd just go to the roof and pout instead.
I thought about Franklin and about Don while I sat dejectedly on Merrill's roof. The six-month anniversary of Don's death had come and gone; we were into August already. Franklin also came into my thoughts often, so I sent up a little prayer for him. Does anybody listen to the prayers of vampires? I had no way of knowing. Merrill floated up and joined me on the roof about an hour before dawn, sitting down beside me with a sigh. I didn't say anything as he settled himself in a comfortable position.
"Franklin's fine," he said right away. "I should have waited for you I know, little vampire," he waved away the words that threatened to spill from my lips. "He asked about you first thing and I felt ashamed of myself. If you hadn't gotten him to the hospital as quickly as you did, things might have turned out much worse. The surgeon said his appendix was on its way toward perforation and that might have caused peritonitis."
"I know," I said. "I had an uncle who died of that during World War II. The good news is that I didn't wreck the Cadillac. Not that I didn't try, inadvertently. All those people who honked and screamed obscenities did it in the nicest way possible."
Merrill chuckled and placed an arm around me. "Gavin said you asked about a vampire manual once. You could have taken the online course for all this and done just fine I think, but rules are rules."
"Yeah, well," I grumbled, deliberately holding back my opinion of vampire rules.
"Franklin may be home when you rise, Lissa. He'll need care for a few weeks. You may help with that if you want."
"Of course I want to," I grumped. "I don't have much else to do."
"I know," Merrill said. "We may have to do something about that. And we have to keep Franklin entertained too, while he's recuperating."
"We should get him an MP-3 player," I said. "He loves soundtracks and swing bands. Audio books, too, you know. All that stuff could be downloaded onto an MP-3 and Frank could read and listen without having to get up and change CDs, which is what he does now."
Merrill stared at me as if I'd grown another head for a moment. "Well, we'll see about getting him one, then. I trust you know how to work it?"