Amber awoke shortly before the morning segued into afternoon. She rolled out of bed and padded into the kitchen for some breakfast. She hoped Marisol made blueberry muffins. They were so divine! Marisol used the biggest and juiciest blueberries and made a crunchy streusel topping with brown sugar and a secret ingredient. So delicious! However, there were no fresh muffins, no fresh pastries, no special coffee brewing. Instead, there were some chocolate croissants in the bread box and some coffee leftover from the early morning, so Amber helped herself. This was odd. Marisol wasn’t in the kitchen. Her car keys were still on the pegboard on which she usually kept them. Amber then went to Marisol’s quarters and was horrified. Marisol was in bed. Her face was ashen and her forehead sweaty. She shivered in spite of layers of thick quilts on the bed. Most alarming, she had a deep, resounding, non-productive cough. 

“Señorita,” Marisol weakly murmured. “Don’t come in. I think I have the corona.”

Amber immediately left the room. She thought about calling Penn for advice, but she knew that she needed to get help for Marisol right away, and she called for an ambulance. When it arrived, the attendants told her she could not ride along. If Marisol did indeed have COVID-19, Amber could be putting herself at risk. 

An hour passed after the ambulance left with Marisol. Worried, she texted Penn. “Is Marisol in your emergency room?”

It took him a few agonizing minutes to answer. “Amber, I can’t tell you that. It would be a HIPAA violation.”

“Oh, please, Penn. Can’t you stretch the rules just once? For me?”

“I’m sorry,” he replied. “It would be unethical for me to confirm or deny that she is here. And I could get fired.”

Penn didn’t like to be evasive with Amber, and he wished he could tell her exactly what was happening. He came into work at 11:00 AM because the ER was short-staffed as usual. His first admissions were people with COVID, but they were stable and transferred to isolation rooms on the regular floors. The patient who came in around 1:00 PM was gravely ill. Penn’s heart sank when he recognized her as Marisol. She was a kind woman, always cordial to Amber and her friends. But it was no time for sentimentality. Her face looked gray, her lips were turning blue, and the oxygen saturation of her blood was poor. Penn put an oxygen mask on Marisol’s face and stayed beside her until one of the doctors could evaluate her. 

Meanwhile, Amber felt torn apart with worry. Marisol had not been just the family cook. Sometimes she was Amber’s only friend. When Amber was a little girl, she used to model her various outfits and show Marisol her different pageant routines. When she did well, Marisol gushed over her beautiful crowns and her many prizes. When she didn’t, Marisol was always there with a snickerdoodle and a sympathetic ear. Amber remembered the times when Marisol would let her help bake cookies and frost cakes. She was always patient with Amber and never lost her temper, not even the time Amber put salt into the cookie batter instead of sugar. When Amber started school, Marisol listened to her tearful stories of not fitting in and sometimes being bullied. In high school, Mr. Stanhope practically ordered Amber to be friends with Ellowyne Wilde, the daughter of one of his employees. Amber was socially awkward and sometimes alienated Ellowyne and her friends. Marisol always provided a shoulder on which Amber could cry, as well as a warm snickerdoodle. In fact, Marisol listened when no one else did. 

Amber curled up in the chaise lounge in her bedroom and wept.

Penn remained with Marisol. In short order, he started IV lines, hooked Marisol up to a cardiac monitor, and continued to check her vital signs. The doctor finally came in and asked Penn to set up the equipment to intubate her and hook her up to a ventilator. As she was performing the procedure, she commented that Marisol was an employee of one of the hospital’s VIPs, a Mr. Stanhope, who was a major donor. The doctor mentioned that Mr. Stanhope had provided much of the personal protective equipment that Penn and his colleagues used. Penn always suspected that Amber might have talked her father into making that donation.  Once Marisol was intubated, Penn took her to the ICU. 

He took a short break after he transferred Marisol. As he gulped an energy drink and wolfed down a cookie, Penn noticed a text from Amber. She wrote that the doctor had called her father and that she knew Marisol was in the ICU. She asked Penn if he took care of her but immediately apologized, saying that she knew he couldn’t tell her. He texted that he was sorry Marisol was sick, but he wished he could hold Amber and stroke her hair and tell her that everything was going to be okay. Damn COVID to Hell!

After Amber read Penn’s text, she went to the kitchen and grabbed some sugar, eggs, butter, and flour. 

To be continued…