The lack of vehicles in Joe and Lauren's household forced the LSDC to come up with creative solutions when gathering at the hospital that day. Lauren's little Nissan Versa wasn't ever going to satisfy big Joe's needs in getting around; at least his brother Johnny picked him up for work now, he'd informed them, but while their insurance claims for two leased vehicles were being processed, they had to find other ways of transporting their extended family, with Rachel, Logan and Emma included.
Rachel had her Modo membership through Al; that still allowed her to book vehicles once in a while, and luckily there were many to be found on Burnaby streets, even vans big enough to take everybody. Not everybody came to the hospital today, though; it wasn't conducive to large crowds or to joviality, not even in the waiting room, with its depressing assortment of toys to distract the children of distressed loved ones visiting patients in the ICU. Not even the TV hanging on the wall, showing a 24-hour news channel, was enough to convince the kids to sit around for longer than the usual visit to Al; longer, apparently, because Sunny was going to meet with Al's old girlfriend.
It had been arranged that Tej and Sunny would bring Harpreet and Ajit to Joe and Lauren's house to hang out with the rest of the kids. Emma, who normally accompanied Rachel on her trips to see Al, couldn't pass up the opportunity to visit with the Parhar kids, whom she saw less often than Naomi and Tosh, who shared a house with her. Logan promised to be the responsible eldest child and keep an eye on them, so the adults felt confident leaving all the kids at home, which was probably for the best. They'd most likely be discussing adult things today, and they didn't expect any breakthroughs from Al, so Emma wouldn't miss not going to the hospital.
Tej and Sunny took Joe and Lauren in their van, because Rachel had already borrowed the Versa, promising not to get in an accident and invalidate a third insurance claim, so she could pick up Al's mother in Coquitlam and bring her to the hospital too.
When they converged at the waiting room for the ICU, Rachel was holding an overlarge tote bag over her shoulder. Tej and Lauren remarked on it right away (the men never noticed bags and purses, nor could they understand why they needed so many of them.)
"It looks like the beach bag you sent Emma with that time I took them to the beach, and you had it at Harrison Hot Springs, too," Tej said, and then joked, "It's a bit cold to be going there now."
Rachel put a finger to her lips and leaned in. She said, sotto voce, "There's a special passenger in this bag, one we don't want the hospital staff to know about, because I don't think they'd let him in here." Al's mom nodded in confirmation. Apparently, she was in on this too.
"Him?" Lauren asked.
Rachel opened the bag just enough for them to see inside. Lauren squealed in delight. Tej smiled when she saw the large cat inside staring up at them, unimpressed.
Rachel shushed them again and closed the bag. "We're going to see if Samson's presence will help wake him up. I've seen testimonials online of the health benefits of bringing people's pets to visit them in the hospital. At this point I'm willing to try anything."
When Agnes rounded the corner and found them in the waiting room, she hung back for a moment, overwhelmed by how many of them there were, including people she didn't see on Monday. The sight of Joe in particular made her hesitate, he was so large.
When Mrs. Mackenzie saw her, she brightened and said, "Oh, my goodness! Agnes! I heard you were back in town."
Agnes recognized her and sagged in relief. "Hello, Mrs. Mackenzie. It's been a long time."
"It has. What brings you back from... the Okanagan, was it?"
"Yes," she said sheepishly. "I'm afraid the story's a little too long to share with you now, but I was going to meet with Mr. Parhar here to discuss it." She noticed Rachel and said, "Thank you for leaving me the message on Wednesday. That's another reason I'm here; I'm hopeful there'll be more progress."
Rachel smiled and said, "Want a front row seat for our little experiment?"
Agnes' brow furrowed. "Experiment?"
Rachel opened her bag again and beckoned Agnes to look. "Oh!" Agnes said. "Hello, handsome."
She reached her hand inside, probably for Samson to sniff, and then Tej could tell she was stroking him. "Is he Al's?" she asked.
"Yes, but he's been staying with me while they've been staying with Joe and Lauren, there," Al's mom said, gesturing to them.
Agnes looked at Rachel. "You're all living together?"
"For now," Joe said, offering his hand. "We haven't been introduced. I'm Joe DiTomaso, Lauren's husband."
Agnes shook his hand and said, "Dare I ask the circumstances necessitating this?"
"Our house burned down," Rachel said.
"Oh! I'm so sorry to hear that."
Rachel waved it off. "We have a new one lined up, but Al's situation put the move on hold."
"About that," Sunny said. "Have you closed, yet?"
"Yes, as a matter of fact," Tej said, surprised. "I'm their agent, remember?"
"Why do you ask?" Rachel asked.
"I'll tell you later," Sunny said. "Why don't you try your experiment, first?"
Rachel frowned but did as he suggested. "Mrs. Mackenzie and Agnes, why don't we three go in first?"
As they went through the door to Al's room, Tej turned to Sunny and said, "Why are you asking about Rachel's new place?"
Sunny beckoned them all in and said, "Okay, this may be a hard ask for Rachel, and for you and Lauren too, Joe, but Agnes and her kids might need a place to hide from her husband for a while; she's staying with her parents at the moment and he knows where that is. She might be able to pay rent, but not a lot because her work's sporadic."
Joe whistled low and said, "Well, we'd already offered to renovate our basement so Rachel and the kids could stay until Al was out of the woods, but I don't know if Rachel will pay it forward and let her husband's ex-girlfriend stay at her new place."
"If it's to help her escape an abusive husband, I'm sure she'd do it," Lauren said as she shifted on her crutches.
"I haven't sat down with Agnes and established the details yet, so I don't know yet the reason she's on the run," Sunny said.
"I agree with Joe, this is a big ask," Tej said. "I think you'd be putting Rachel in a difficult position by asking."
"If we all talked with her, maybe we can make it so Rachel makes the decision to offer it herself," Lauren said.
"That's a little manipulative of you," Tej said, stunned.
"And I'm not comfortable having you all listening in on a lawyer-client conversation," Sunny said. "If she agrees, then fine, but I'm not the one who's going to ask her."
"If any of us asks her, we're going to look nosy," Lauren said.
Before they could discuss it further, Mrs. Mackenzie burst out the door and shouted, "He's awake! He's awake!" just as Samson scampered out of the room and got them all in trouble as the nurses at the nursing station split themselves between hurrying into Al's room and chasing after the cat.
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Now, to see Al's past and present colliding with his last episode, and see how he first met Agnes, click on "Continue reading."