[Georgia 03] Fallen

wrong spaces.
    Sara pulled her robe tight as she opened the door. Instead of her neighbor, she found Faith Mitchell.
    “I’m sorry to barge in on you.” Faith pushed her way into the apartment. She was wearing a bulky navy blue jacket with the hood pulled over her head. Dark sunglasses obscured half her face. Her jeans and Chuck Taylors completed the ensemble. She looked like a PTA mom’s idea of a cat burglar.
    Sara could only ask, “How did you get in?”
    “I told your neighbor I was a cop and he let me in.”
    “Great,” Sara mumbled, wondering how long it would take for everyone in the building to think she was being arrested. “What’s going on?”
    Faith took off the sunglasses. There were five tiny bruises circling her face. “I need you to call Will for me.” She went to the window and looked down at the parking lot. “I thought about this all night. I can’t do it alone. I don’t think I’m capable.” She shielded her eyes with her hand, though the sun had yet to come up. “They don’t know I’m here. Ginger fell asleep. Taylor left last night. I sneaked out. Through the back yard. I took Roz Levy’s car. I know they’ve tapped my phones. They’re watching me. They can’t know that I’m doing this. They can’t know that I talked to anybody.”
    She was a poster child for hypoglycemia. Sara suggested, “Why don’t you sit down?”
    Faith kept her perch over the parking lot. “I sent my children away. They’re with my brother. He’s never even changed a diaper. This is too much responsibility for Jeremy.”
    “Okay. Let’s talk about it. Come over here and sit down with me.”
    “I have to get her back, Sara. I don’t care what it takes. What I have to do.”
    Her mother. Will had told Sara about his trip to Coastal State Prison, his conversation with Roger Ling. “Faith, sit down.”
    “I can’t sit or I’ll never get up again. I need Will. Can you please just call him?”
    “I’ll get him for you. I promise, but you have to sit down.” Sara guided her over to the stool by the kitchen counter. “Did you eat breakfast?”
    She shook her head. “My stomach’s too upset.”
    “How’s your blood sugar?”
    She stopped shaking her head. Her guilty expression was answer enough.
    Sara made her voice firm. “Faith, I’m not going to do anything until we get your numbers in order. Do you understand me?”
    Faith didn’t argue, perhaps because part of her knew that she needed help. She felt around in her jacket pockets and pulled out a handful of hard candy that she dropped on the counter. Next came a large gun, then her wallet, a set of keys with a gold cursive L on the chain, and finally, her blood-testing kit.
    Sara scrolled through the tester’s memory, checking the stats. Faith had obviously been playing candy roulette for the last two days. It was a common trick among diabetics, using candy to fight the lows, gritting out the highs. It was a good way to get through a difficult period, but it was an even better way to end up in a coma. “I should take you to the hospital right now.” Sara gripped the monitor in her hand. “Do you have your insulin?”
    Faith dug into her pockets again and put four disposable insulin pens on the counter. She started babbling. “I got them from the pharmacy this morning. I didn’t know how much to take. They showed me, but I’ve never used them before and they’re so expensive I didn’t want to mess up. My ketones are okay. I used a strip last night and this morning. I should probably get a pump.”
    “An insulin pump wouldn’t be a bad idea.” Sara slid a testing strip into the monitor. “Did you eat supper last night?”
    “Sort of.”
    “I’ll take that as a no,” Sara mumbled. “What about snacks? Anything?”
    Faith leaned her head in her hand. “I can’t think straight with Jeremy and Emma gone. Zeke called this morning. He says they’re settled in but I can tell he’s annoyed. He’s never been good around kids.”
    Sara took Faith’s finger and lined up the lancet. “We are going to have a long talk when this is over about your noncompliance. I know that saying right now is stressful for you is an incredible understatement, but your diabetes isn’t something you can magically put on hold. Your vision, your circulation, your motor skills …” Sara didn’t finish the sentence. She’d lectured so many diabetics about this same issue that she felt like she was reading from a script. “You have to