Girl Unmoored by Jennifer Gooch Hummer

broken.
    “But they’re Casablancas,” I said.
    Mike looked up at me, surprised. “It was my fault. I didn’t see you until it was too late.”
    He must have seen my underwear. People who bang their heads into huge vases and fall down in their mini long-sleeved Lilly Pulitzer dresses have to show their underwear at some point along the way. I smoothed my dress down and watched Chad pull another bunch of Casablancas from the van.
    The Big Gulp was starting to feel good on my head.
    “Apron, why are you here?” Mike asked.
    “My grandmother.” I pointed to the church door. “She’s in there.”
    “Your grandmother?” Mike stood up fast. “Does Millie know?”
    “It just happened. Her head’s probably stopped by now.”
    Mike’s forehead squeezed together. Mrs. Weller and Grandma Bramhall had been friends since before Maine got electricity. In the distance, I heard a siren getting closer. “What are you talking about?” Mike asked, his blueberry eyes drilled straight into mine. “Does she need help?”
    “Coming through,” Chad panted behind us, struggling with another huge vase. Mike whipped his head around, his blond hair shimmering like the sun on top of Grandma Bramhall’s pool. “Whoa, Chad. Let me get that.”
    Chad handed him the vase, then wiped his sweaty forehead with his sleeve and headed back down toward the van again without saying thank you. The sirens kept getting closer.
    “Apron, does your grandmother need help ?” Mike asked again, but not waiting for an answer this time and walking by me with the flowers. Below in the parking lot, an ambulance pulled in and stopped right behind the Scent Appeal van. Chad had his hands on his ears when he ran out from behind the door and jumped up onto the path. Mike stopped and all three of us watched two men in dark blue clothes, one old and one medium-old, leap out of the ambulance, run to the back and pull out a gurney. The older one asked Chad something, but he shrugged and looked up at us.
    “The victim inside?” the same man asked when he got up to us, not even stopping for the answer, those wheels crunching over broken glass.
    “Yes,” I said. Then they were gone.
    “What is going on?” Chad yelled up to us, throwing his hands in the air.
    “Apron’s grandmother,” Mike yelled back, starting up the path again. I put the Big Gulp down by the baby Jesus’s chipped toe and followed him.

9
Fiat lux.
Let there be light.
    The church was darker than I remembered it. Mike looked around for a place to put the vase down, but there wasn’t one. M was sitting on the top step of the altar, her elbows on her knees and her face in her hands. Mr. and Mrs. Haffenreffer were sitting to the side of her. My dad, Nurse Silvia, Reverend Hunter, and the other nurse were spread out behind the paramedics, who were picking Grandma Bramhall up gently. I could see Grandma Bramhall’s eyes were open and one of the men was talking to her. Mike moved a few steps ahead and placed the vase down carefully on one of the pews. Chad stepped in behind us, breathing heavy.
    “Is she all right?” Mike asked.
    “I don’t know,” I said.
    “Isn’t that your dad?”
    I nodded.
    “He’s getting married?”
    “Uh-huh,” I said. But really, I didn’t want to talk about it, so I stepped away from them.
    Grandma Bramhall was in the gurney now, sitting up with a mask over her mouth. The older paramedic was talking to my dad, using his hand to tap on his own chest like a monkey. It made my dad look worried instead of mad. Then the other paramedic started rolling Grandma Bramhall toward us. Before she reached me, I saw her head shaking. It might have been a little slower than normal, but it was her same old shake all right.
    “Grandma Bramhall?” I leaned into her as she went by. “I’m so sorry.”
    She said something, except I couldn’t hear what under the mask.
    After she was out the door, the other paramedic and my dad walked past us. My dad looked over at me