Our son looked tired when he arrived, but he appeared to be a little less stressed out than before to see Alice in good spirits and moving so well. He told us that his date night with Angie had gone really well, and that she was looking into arrangements once Alice was able to leave the hospital. I was grateful for it. She’d helped Tina do the same thing when Bette had gotten ill, before she’d been restricted to the hospital. I knew it was hard for her, and I really appreciated her help. I knew that Alice did too. Charlie had been worried that Alice would feel bad knowing that Angelica couldn’t come to see her, but she seemed to understand completely.

Charlie left not too long after we’d arrived, saying that he really didn’t want to miss any more work but that we should call him if we needed anything, or if anything about Alice’s condition changed. I thought he was being a little overprotective, but he’d always been that way when it came to Alice, so I agreed. He hugged all of us and left, but before he’d gotten too far I heard him talking to someone. I couldn’t hear the other person’s voice, but not a minute later Kallie walked into the room, saying that she couldn’t stay long but that she’d wanted to at least stop by.

She gave her mom a kiss and told her some random things about school and how that was going, and Alice seemed somewhat bored until Kallie stopped and she had a chance to sign Gemma’s name. I laughed at this and Kallie did too, although she told us that there was really nothing going on. I rolled my eyes at this and saw Alice doing the same thing out of the corner of my eye, but Kallie didn’t give in and just said she’d stop back after work. She hugged all of us, including Shane and Jenny who were leaning against each other half asleep, and then she left. The room was pretty quiet after she’d gone, mostly because there really didn’t seem to be anything to say.

One of the orderlies came in after too long, and Shane and I helped him get Alice moved onto a wheeled gurney. It didn’t take too much; although she didn’t have much control over her movements and couldn’t move various parts very well, she wasn’t a dead weight and helped as much as she could. I was really happy about that, and the orderly seemed to be too. He said he’d wheel her down to x-ray so they could do some tests on her, and that after that the doctor would be in.