by Willow Rose
“Oh, my God. Do you have the driver in custody?”
“Yes. She says she didn’t see anything. I mean, how hard could it be to see a police blockade and three officers guarding it?”
“Drunk driver?” I ask, while my heart pounds in my chest. Where is Paige while her mother is fighting for her life? I sure hope someone is taking care of her.
“We don’t know yet. She’s been taken to the station. Says she mistook the gas pedal for the brake. Tourist in a rental car.”
“Oh, my.”
One of the paramedics yells something and Chris disappears. He comes back towards me just as I am about to leave.
“You said you knew the daughter, right?”
“Yes,” I say. “Well I don’t know her. I know who she is.”
“The mother is asking for her. She doesn’t know where she is. Could you make sure she gets to the hospital?”
I nod. “Sure thing.”
Chris nods, blinks, and points his finger at me and pretends it’s a gun.
He’s such a cliché.
“What’s going on?” The sound of the voice coming from behind me makes me turn around with a gasp.
“Tom? What are you doing here?” I ask and hug him.
“I was down at the rec center when I heard something was going on downtown. Someone said people had been killed. What happened? What’s going on? Is that Nicky Stover?”
“Yes,” I say. “Someone ran into her. A tourist ran their car through the police blockade. You know her?”
“I know her daughter. She plays on my team.”
I grab his collar. “Then you have to help me find her.”
Chapter Fifty
April 2016
I have no idea where to start. With Tom next to me, I walk back onto Minutemen Causeway, which is now slowly getting emptied of people. I see many mothers dragging their kids away, but no Paige, no little girl all alone. We search the parking lot behind city hall where most people are getting inside their cars. We ask a few people if they have seen her, and one of them tells us she believes she saw Paige down by the high school, but she is not sure. We decide to walk in that direction.
“Who was she with?” Tom asks.
“She was walking with three other girls, also sixth graders from Roosevelt last time I saw her. They were all up front. Her mother was walking further in the back with other moms. I can’t believe it…I am in shock.”
I feel his hand on my shoulder to calm me down. “First, we find Paige. Then we freak out, all right?”
“Gosh, I am glad you’re here with me,” I say. “I would have completely freaked out by now. Thanks.”
He smiles. He is not the handsomest of men, but he is slowly growing on me. I am beginning to see a beauty in his eyes that I hadn’t seen before.
“Do you think she might have gone with those girls when all the panic started? Or maybe with some of their parents?” he asks. “Maybe one of the other moms took her home when they heard what happened?”
“Would you do that?” I ask, knowing he has adult children.
“No. Of course not,” he says. “I would take her to the hospital so she could be with her mother.”
“So, what if you don’t know what happened?” I ask, my eyes steadily searching, scrutinizing the area for any young girls. The few I spot are not Paige. We keep walking down Minutemen to see if maybe some are waiting down by the school or maybe they continued all the way to the country club, maybe a group of people up front didn’t hear what happened and just continued the walk?
“I would still try and get a hold of the girl’s mother somehow. Call her or look for her.”
“Did they have cell phones when your kids were young?” I ask with a grin.
“Very funny. I’m old, ha, ha,” he says.
“Sorry. It was just too tempting,” I say.
We meet some people walking the opposite way and I stop a man. “Do you know if there are any more people down that way?” I ask him. “We’re looking for a young girl around eleven-twelve years old.”
He shrugs. “There might be. We made it almost all the way down there before we heard what happened and decided to walk back. Terrible thing.”
“All right,” I say. “We’ll keep walking. Thank you.”
“You’re welcome.”
We pass the elementary school, then the high school, and meet a few people walking back, dragging their signs behind them. Somehow, the fish-kill doesn’t seem all that important anymore.
I think about Nicky Stover and wonder if she’ll survive being hit by that car. I get a chill, wondering how Paige will react to being told what happened, when her world will crumble. I realize I might have to be the one to tell her and I am not looking forward to that.
“It’s going to be fine,” he says, and puts an arm around me. I like how much he is paying attention to how I feel. Being in a new relationship is great.
“I know,” I say. “I just wish we would find her, you know? She needs to know what happened to her mom.”
Chapter Fifty-One
April 2016
It’s not until we reach the country club at the end of Minutemen Causeway that I realize something is very wrong. There is hardly anyone there, a few women are packing picnic tables back into a van and removing signs. When we ask them if they have seen four young girls and show them a picture of Paige, they shake their heads.
Now I am seriously worried.
“She’s not here either. What do we do?” I ask, my voice shaking.
Tom is biting his lip. “Could she have gone to the rec center? She is, after all, supposed to play in the game in a couple of hours.”
“But certainly she has heard about her mother by now?” I ask, while we walk back towards city hall. “Someone must have told her.”
“Maybe she went with some of her friends,” Tom says. “Let’s not panic here. They probably walked to the rec center…all of them together.”
I grab my cell phone and look at the display. My son is in fourth grade. I wonder who I know that might know the number of some of the sixth graders or their parents. I think of Marcia. Her daughter Rose is twelve. She’s in sixth grade. I call her up.
“Hi Mary. What’s up?” she says on the other end.
“Do you know Paige Stover?” I ask.
“Sure. She’s in Rose’s class, why?”
“Do you know if Paige has a cell phone? It’s important.”
“I’ll ask Rose. What’s going on, Mary? Your voice sounds so shaky it’s scaring me.”
“Sorry. There was an accident at the rally. Paige’s mom was hit by a car. I promised her that I would find Paige and help her get to the hospital.”
“Oh, my. I’ll ask Rose. One sec.”
Marcia disappears for a few seconds, then returns. “She just got a cell phone, according to Rose. I have the number. I’ll text it to you so you don’t have to write it down. Okay?”
“Perfect,” I say, and hang up.
Tom looks me in the eyes and plants both his hands on my shoulders. “I’m sure Paige is fine. I’m sure she already knows what happened and is at the hospital with her mother. You’re probably getting yourself all worked up over nothing.”
I nod as the phone in my hand vibrates and the number appears on my screen. I press it and wait for the tone.
“Hi…this is Paige Stover…”
“It goes directly to voicemail,” I say. “I’ll leave a message, just in case…Hi, this is Mary Mills. If you already know this, then you don’t have to listen to it, but I just want to make sure that you know that your mother has been taken to the hospital, after a car hit her at the rally. I have been looking for you and can’t find you anywhere, so if you hear this message, please be kind and shoot me a text or call me back so I know that you’ve gotten it. Okay. Thank you.”
I hang up. We walk in silence back past the high school, the elementary school, and past the place of the accident, where the police are still working the scene. The para
medics are all gone and so is the ambulance. I feel terrible when we walk past it. Detective Fisher catches up to us.
“Mary! Did you find the daughter?” he asks.
I shake my head. “I checked the parking lot behind city hall. We walked all the way to the end. No one there had seen her. I left a message on her cell phone. I take it you haven’t seen her either then? I was hoping…”
“No! She isn’t at the hospital either. Her mother has been asking for her excessively.”
My heart drops. I can’t believe this. “She’s not at the hospital either? But…but where is she then? Could she have gone home with someone?” I ask.
“Or maybe she’s at the rec center,” Tom repeats. “She does have a game there later today.”
“I think I’ll send a patrol out to look for her.”
“Check the rec center,” I say. “Or her friends. She was walking with three other girls from her school last time she was seen.”
Fisher nods and puts a phone to his ear. “Got it,” he says. “We’ll find her. Don’t worry. She can’t have gone far.”
Chapter Fifty-Two
April 2016
“How could you have messed this up?”
Boxer is yelling at his brother. They’re back at the house; Paige is sedated and they put her in the dog crate in the back. She won’t wake up for hours.
“I am sorry,” his brother says. “I looked everywhere like you told me. I saw them, and followed them. I found the women she was walking with, and then I saw her, but then the car went through that blockade and I lost sight of her. Everything was so chaotic. Everyone was screaming and running around. I searched and searched, but then all the police came running towards us and I had to get out of there. You told me to wait for the gunshot, but there wasn’t any. Only the car and then the panic. I did my best, Boxer, I really did. You must believe me.”
“The order specifically was for both mother and child. Not just the girl. Her mother as well. I can’t deliver her now. I can’t deliver half a package. If I can’t deliver, we won’t get paid. I can’t pay for mom’s treatment or pay off your debt. Do you understand what I’m saying? This was a big deal. This was supposed to bring in a lot of money.”
“I am sorry,” he repeats, but it’s not enough for Boxer. He doesn’t tolerate failure. It’s simply not acceptable.
Boxer sits down and runs a hand through his hair. He closes his eyes and thinks of something calming. It usually helps him. But he can’t seem to calm his thoughts down. Behind closed eyelids all he can see are images of war. People running for their lives. Him as just a young kid in his twenties, armed with a machine gun, pointing it at a child wearing a vest packed with explosives and a detonator in her hand.
“What do I do?” he hears himself yelling to his commander in charge.
“Shoot! Damn it! Shoot her before she detonates the thing and blows us all to pieces!”
“But she’s just a kid!”
“Don’t trust her. Don’t even trust a kid. It’s her or us, soldier. They train them for this shit. Shoot her. It’s an order.”
And then it happens. Boxer hesitates just long enough for the kid to lift her grip on the detonator and explode herself to pieces, taking Boxer’s best friend who was standing closer than Boxer, to the grave with her.
Don’t even trust a kid.
Boxer is pulled out from this memory by his brother speaking. “I can’t believe I messed up so bad. I am so sorry. So, what do you want to do next?”
Boxer opens his eyes and looks at his brother. His beloved brother who has saved his life more than once, before he became a wreck, before the drinking, before the gambling.
“It’s okay,” he says, when he suddenly notices Paige’s cell phone that he has taken from her vibrating in the basket on the table, where he places all their phones when he takes them.
He walks up and sees she has a voicemail. He presses the button and listens to the message. As he hears the words meant for her, he feels the rage once again expanding inside of him so fast it feels like he is going to burst.
When the message is over, Boxer throws the phone against the wall. The screen cracks and the phone falls to the ground. He grabs all the phones in the basket and throws them in the trash can.
“What?” his brother asks. “What is it?”
“Her mother is in the hospital. That’s why you couldn’t find her,” he says. “It turns out she was actually the one who was hit by the car. If she’s in the hospital, it’ll be hard for us to get to her.”
“Uh-oh, so what do we do now?”
Boxer sits down heavily on the couch. “I don’t know,” he says. “I have to think. I have to come up with something. And quick.”
Chapter Fifty-Three
April 1975
A few days later, Long loses her appetite. She simply stops eating, and no matter how hard Danh tries to stuff rice and cola into her, she refuses. Soon, she grows weak and small and is burning up.
Danh sits with her in his arms all day and all night, trying to hide her from people, and especially from the captain. Every now and then he tries to wake her up; tears rolling across his face, he asks her if she wants to play princesses and pirates again.
“If you don’t wake up, the monster will take you, the sea monster will come for you and drag you away to the cave underwater where it keeps all its princesses, you know that, Long. You must wake up, your majesty. Please, wake up,” Danh pleads, tears rolling rapidly from his eyes.
After two days, Bao starts to notice something is wrong. He stares at Danh, holding Long.
“Put her down,” he says.
Danh shakes his head defiantly. “No.”
“Yes, Danh. Put her down. People are starting to talk.”
Danh looks at Long’s small and fragile face. Her skin is so pale, her eyes are closed, and small droplets of sweat make her forehead shiny.
“No. I can’t. She’s sleeping,” he says. His heart is hurting. He keeps hoping, telling himself repeatedly that she’s not sick, she’s just tired, so very tired and feeble from the long trip.
If only she would eat or drink something. If just I could get her to drink some cola.
Bao approaches them, he reaches down and touches her head. The look in his eyes terrifies Danh to the core.
“She’s burning up,” he says with a loud whisper. “She’s sick, Danh. She’s very sick.”
He shakes his head. He doesn’t want to believe it, he refuses to. Not his Long. He has seen what happens to those down in the bottom of the boat. They wither and then when they start to smell, they’re thrown overboard. They have even thrown some overboard that weren’t even dead yet. To stop this disease from spreading, they have to do it as prevention. No one has been sick on the deck yet. Not until now. There is no telling how they’ll react.
“No. No. She’s just resting,” Danh says, and pulls her away from Bao.
He covers her face with part of his jacket that he wrapped her in when she first said she was freezing. At first, he couldn’t stand how she was trembling, but now he misses it. The feeling of holding a lifeless body in his arms fills him with despair.
“What’s going on over here?”
“Look what you did,” Danh hisses. “You woke their suspicion.”
A man who has been staring at them for days finally leaves and walks to the captain. Seconds later, the captain stands in front of them flanked by two men, his gold chain necklace dangling in front of Danh’s face as he bends down.
“She sick?” he asks. “They tell me she has the disease.”
Danh shakes his head rapidly. “No. No. She’s just tired, that’s all. Weak from not getting enough food and water. She can’t eat the rice, she says, tastes terrible when cooked in cola.”
“Let me look at her,” the captain says. “Move the jacket so I can see her face.”
Danh is sweating. He is shaking in fear as he pulls back the jacket and her face is visible. The captain pulls back with a startled loo
k. He doesn’t speak; he walks backwards a few more steps, turns around, and walks away.
Still shaking, Danh pulls the jacket back to cover her face. Long is still so pretty, so delicate. Bao sinks down next to him on the deck, simply whimpering in fear till the captain returns.
“You have to go,” he says. “She’s too great of a risk.”
“NO!” Bao says and jumps up. “You can’t do that. You can’t do that to us.”
The captain shakes his head. “People are getting scared. She’ll infect us all and then we’ll be dead too. You have to go. All of you. You have all been exposed to it now. We have a small boat. It has oars. You can row.”
“But…but…we’ll die!”
“This is a good offer,” the captain says. “Everyone else around here wanted to just throw you all overboard, but I give you this boat. You take it. It’s a good offer. Boat or no boat, you’re going in the water.”
Chapter Fifty-Four
April 2016
I say goodbye to Tom, who needs to be back at the basketball tournament. I go home, and feed my dad some very late lunch, still with a worried and heavy heart. I had been right in my hunch that something bad was going to happen, I just didn’t know that it would be this.
After lunch, I call up Salter. I miss hearing his voice.
“Hi, Mom, what up?”
What up? Is that how we speak now?
I decide to ignore it. “I just wanted to hear your voice. How are you?”
“I’m good.”
“Did you hear about what happened at the rally today?”
“Yeah, Cayden texted me. He was there with his dad. Some tourist ran into the crowd?”
“Yes. Crazy thing. A woman was hit and is in the hospital now. She has a daughter, Paige Stover, you know her?”
“I know who she is. She’s in sixth grade at my school. Plays basketball.”
“Yes, that’s her. I feel so bad for her.”
“Me too.”
