She pointed out his truck in the parking lot and then slammed the trunk lid shut as she rounded the back of the car. I walked over to the truck and let myself in while she started her car. She waited until I was nosing out of the parking lot before she put her car in gear and pulled onto the street ahead of me.

She drove him to the ER at the hospital where she worked. By that time Foley had settled down, perhaps recognizing the enormity of his sins. Even having his nose broken wasn’t going to be sufficient penance to redeem him in Daisy’s eyes. She put his name on the register, and when he was called she accompanied him into the examining room. I sat in the waiting room, leafing through a magazine while Foley was being worked on. After forty minutes, she came out and sank into the chair next to mine.

I said, “How’s it going?”

“He’ll be fine. They’ve called in an ear, nose, and throat specialist to reset his nose. The doctor’s also ordered a CAT scan since he suffered a brief loss of consciousness. They said they’d bring me in again when he’s back from radiology.”

“Will they keep him overnight?”

“Doesn’t look that way,” she said as she got up. “Let me see if I can find a pay phone and call the pastor. There’s no way I’m taking him home with me.” She took her purse and headed off down the hall. Less than five minutes later she was back. “Blessings on the man. He asked a few questions and then said he’d be waiting whenever Dad was released. The parish house is right next door to the church, and he says he’s welcome as a guest as long as he needs help. I don’t know where he’d be if it weren’t for that man.”

Friday night was apparently the equivalent of date night in the ER world, a popular occasion for accidents and mishaps, pain, suffering, and near-death experiences. A kid was brought in with a bean stuck up his nose. There was a woman hacking and feverish from a case of the flu, and a man with a sprained ankle swollen to elephantine proportions. A teen arrived holding his badly broken thumb, smashed by a car door and looking so mangled I nearly passed out.

Unfazed, Daisy pulled the clip out of her hair and gathered it in a tidy sheaf before she secured it again. Foley’s accusation about Jake’s affair with Violet seemed to hang in the air between us. “All I can say is thank god Tannie wasn’t there.”

“She’s bound to hear about it,” I said.

“You bet. My phone would be ringing off the hook if anybody knew she was there.”