The Light Through the Leaves

by Vanderah, Glendy

  A flashlight beam shined on them. They broke apart and watched Jasper jog toward them from the barn house. “Mom!” he called. He stopped and took in Keith’s presence for a second but didn’t wait to be introduced. “River . . . River and Raven have been in a car accident. We have to go to the hospital!”

  “Who told you this?”

  “Dad called me. He said Raven told the hospital to call him.”

  “Is River okay?”

  “I think it’s bad. He’s in the emergency room.”

  Keith insisted on driving. When they arrived at the stretch of Route 441 that crossed the prairie, they saw flashing lights on the other side of the road. Squad cars and a tow truck, police directing people around the scene of an accident.

  “Is that where they crashed?” Ellis asked.

  “I don’t know,” Jasper said. “I don’t see our car over there.”

  Keith dropped them off at the emergency room entrance and went to park the car.

  A doctor met Ellis and Jasper at the emergency room desk. “You’re the mother of River Bauhammer and Raven Lind?” she asked.

  “Yes. And this is their brother, Jasper. Did they both survive the accident?”

  “So far, yes. River’s situation is critical, but he’s stabilized.”

  “I want to see him!” Jasper said.

  “I know. But we’re working on him.”

  “Doing what?” Ellis asked.

  “The collision caused the car to roll over. It landed in water deep enough to submerge it.”

  Paynes Prairie. The accident they’d passed. Since the last big hurricane came inland, the water in the prairie had been deep.

  “Your daughter probably saved River’s life. He was unconscious, and she pulled him out of the car as it sank. But he wasn’t breathing. He was under for at least a minute, and he has a head injury.”

  “Oh my god,” Jasper said. Tears streamed down his cheeks.

  “Two bystanders were able to resuscitate him at the scene,” the doctor said. “That’s good. We don’t think he was without oxygen for more than a few minutes.”

  “Is he awake?” Ellis asked.

  “He’s in a coma. We’re trying to determine the extent of the brain injury.”

  “He’s breathing on his own?”

  “He is. Does he have substance abuse problems that you know of?”

  Ellis suspected he did, and Jasper confirmed.

  “His blood has a high percentage of alcohol. Also narcotics. Raven verified he’d drunk whiskey and used cocaine before the accident.”

  “Where is she?” Ellis asked. “Is she okay?”

  “I can’t say for sure. She’s a bit banged up, but she refuses to let us touch her. Literally. She says we’re going to put drugs in her and hook her up to machines that will kill her. Were you aware that she has this phobia?”

  “No, but I know where it came from,” Ellis said.

  “Some of that can come from shock,” the doctor said. “Maybe you two can convince her to let us give her a sedative and examine her injuries.”

  Ellis doubted that. Raven was one to hold fast to her beliefs. She’d gotten a double dose of that trait, one from nature, the other from nurture.

  The doctor took them to a room down the hall. Ellis hadn’t expected her daughter to look so bad. She was curled in a ball on the floor, leaning against a wall in the corner. She was barefoot, her damp hair and dress streaked with mud. Drying wetland plants hung all over her. She looked like a pitiful aquatic creature that had been hauled up in a net and thrown ashore.

  Raven removed her arms from her head when she heard them come in. She almost cried when she looked at Ellis, but her relief was overshadowed by her apparent mistrust of the doctor.

  “We’d like privacy,” Ellis told the doctor.

  The doctor nodded, closing the door as she left.

  Ellis couldn’t help it. A profound ache of maternal love she hadn’t known was still there propelled her toward this girl who would never call her Mother. She took Raven in her arms and pressed her to her chest. Raven sobbed against her.

  Jasper wrapped his arms around his sister from behind. “Thank you for saving River,” he said. “Thank you.”

  Jasper’s crying prompted Ellis’s tears. What a strange weeping lump of a family they were. Abbey, Lind, Bauhammer. Not one name in common. Not one experience shared for sixteen years. Suddenly knotted together more by pain than blood.

  “I want to see River!” Raven wept. “They won’t let me.”

  Ellis held her out in her arms. “They have to do tests.”

  “We have to watch what they do. They might kill him.”

  “We have to trust them. I know you were raised to be afraid of hospitals, but River needs treatment right now. We’ll see him soon.”

  “I’m so scared he’s going to die!” she said. “I tried to keep his head out of the water. I tried. But he went under. He wasn’t breathing when they took him out.”

  “You saved him,” Jasper said. “The doctor said you did.”

  “The people who breathed into him saved him,” she said.

  “They couldn’t have done that if he’d gone down with the car,” Jasper said.

  “I shouldn’t have let him drive,” she wept. “He was drinking. He used cocaine. I could tell he wasn’t right. But I thought if I watched him drive, nothing bad would happen.”

  Ellis thought of those many times she’d driven while under the influence of drugs. What a terrible risk she’d taken, and not only with her own life.

  She held Raven again. “None of this is your fault. Not one thing, do you understand?”

  A nurse came in. She wanted to take Raven’s blood pressure and temperature, but she refused. Ellis saw no signs that Raven was in immediate need of medical treatment. She had some bruises and scrapes, but it was her emotional distress that was worrisome. Ellis didn’t try to bully her into complying. She asked the nurse for clothing.

  Jasper left while Ellis helped Raven change into a pair of hospital scrubs. Ellis scanned her body for signs that she might need the X-rays and CAT scans the doctor had suggested. She didn’t see anything obvious, but when she mentioned the tests, Raven shook her head violently. She set a panicky gaze on the door, as if she were bracing to fly out.

  “Okay, we’ll wait and see how you are,” Ellis said in the most soothing voice she could muster. “Everything is okay. No one will hurt you.”

  Ellis wet paper towels and wiped the dirt off her face. “Keith drove us here,” she said. “Should I tell him to go home, or would you like to meet him?”

  “He came back?”

  “Yes, just before we found out about the accident.”

  “He came back for good?”

  “I think so.”

  She studied Ellis’s eyes. “You must be happy.”

  “I am. At least, I was.”

  “Where is he?”

  “In the waiting room. I need to let him know what’s going on.”

  “You’ll come right back?”

  “I will.”

  “You won’t want him to leave,” Raven said. “You can bring him in here.”

  Ellis found Keith and brought him into the examination room. Jasper and Raven were seated, Jasper’s arms enveloping his sister. It nearly made Ellis cry again.

  Raven stood to meet Keith. She shook his hand and said, “Nice to meet you, Mr. Gephardt.” Audrey Lind must have been a stickler for manners.

  They waited almost two hours before they were allowed to see River. He was still unconscious. His face was bruised and his head bandaged. He was attached to many machines—just what Raven feared—including a nasal cannula for supplemental oxygen. Jasper and Raven wept. Ellis was relieved he wasn’t on a respirator. She softly kissed River’s cheek, the first time since he was four years old.

  Two hours later, River was moved to a patient room in the ICU.

  An hour later, Jonah walked in.

  Other than his present look of ex
haustion and anxiety, he hadn’t changed much. He was still slim and fit. He had the expected age sags and lines in his face, white wisps in his dark hair. The most notable difference was something new about his eyes. At first, Ellis couldn’t grasp what it was. Then she understood. His gaze was layered. Beneath his usual bright, blue-eyed confidence was a depth of sadness she’d never seen before.

  “Dad!” Jasper said, running into his father’s arms.

  Jonah held him tight. Ellis still knew him well enough to see he was fighting tears.

  Jasper didn’t hold his back. “I’m sorry. It was my idea to come here. River didn’t want to. This is my fault!”

  “It’s not your fault,” Jonah said.

  “Didn’t you know they were in Florida?” Ellis asked him.

  “I thought they were at the Outer Banks,” he said.

  “I told them to tell you. I insisted on it.”

  “I’m sorry,” Jasper said. “We didn’t want to make you angry.”

  Jonah walked to the bed, gently laid his hand on River’s cheek. “I last talked to the doctor when my plane landed in Orlando. Any changes?”

  “No,” Ellis said. “They expect him to wake from the coma soon. The brain trauma was minor.”

  “She said he also took some water into his lungs.”

  “A small amount. That’s why he’s on oxygen and intravenous antibiotics.”

  Jonah turned to Raven, still wearing hospital scrubs. “You pulled him out of the car as it sank. The paramedics told the doctor you saved his life.”

  Raven said nothing. Ellis knew she believed the opposite.

  Jonah put his hands on her shoulders. “You are a smart, brave girl.” He took his daughter in his arms and pressed her to his heart. “Thank you. What a miracle you are.”

  She was crying when he let her go.

  Jonah and Ellis at last fully acknowledged each other. Sixteen years of pain, guilt, blame, and anger crammed into their gazes. And maybe a little bit of love. Jonah embraced her, and she hugged him back. The strangest part was how easily her body remembered his. The smell of him, the way he held her, the soft sound of his breath in her ear. A thousand memories ignited in her nerve endings in the few seconds their bodies touched.

  “Jonah, this is Keith Gephardt,” Ellis said.

  “Good to meet you, Keith,” Jonah said as he shook his hand.

  Keith had gotten a megadose of Ellis’s past in the six hours since he’d returned. But he bore it well. He told Jonah he was sorry about the accident and offered him something to eat.

  Jonah declined. He went to River and held his hand.

  Ellis sat next to Keith. “Try to sleep a little,” he said, tucking her to his chest.

  “You’re the one who needs it,” she said. “You have to be at work soon.”

  “I don’t. I told them I have a family emergency.”

  She pulled out from under his arm and looked into his eyes.

  “You’re my family,” he said quietly, “and that means so are your children.”

  She returned to the nest of his arms, leaned her head against his heart, and fell asleep listening to its soft, steady rhythm.

  According to the clock on the wall, she woke thirty-five minutes later. But the sleep renewed her as if she’d rested for hours. She craved coffee as she always did when she got up in the morning. She asked Keith if he wanted a cup, but he declined the offer.

  Jonah had left the room. Jasper was asleep in the recliner. Raven stood over River.

  “Any change?” Ellis asked her.

  Raven shook her head. She looked about to drop from exhaustion. Just hours before, she’d pulled a large man out of a sinking car. Ellis couldn’t imagine how she was still standing.

  “You need to sleep,” Ellis told her. “Would you like Keith to drive you home?”

  “No.”

  “There’s a couch out in the lounge. We could get you a pillow and blanket.”

  “I can’t sleep until River wakes up,” she said.

  “You’re making yourself sick,” Ellis said. “River wouldn’t want that.”

  She looked at River’s face. “What River wants is to wake up. But this place makes him not want to.”

  “He doesn’t know where he is,” Ellis said. “He’s unconscious.”

  Raven pressed her lips together, as if to keep her paranoid thoughts inside.

  Ellis went in search of coffee and found Jonah at the counter ordering a cup.

  “Keith seems like a good guy,” Jonah said as they walked back to the ICU. “How long have you been together?”

  “We’ve lived together for ten years.”

  “Wow, long time.”

  “What about you? Do you have a girlfriend?”

  He stopped walking and faced her.

  “What?” she asked.

  He kept looking at her in a strange way. “I haven’t told the boys yet . . .”

  “Are you getting married?”

  He looked around the lounge to make sure no one was listening. At that early hour, they were the only ones there. “I met someone seven months ago. He’s the love of my life.”

  Her exhaustion slowed her ability to process his words. She just stood there staring at him.

  He smiled wanly. “You look like you need to sit down.”

  She did. He sat across from her over a low table where they placed their coffee cups.

  “I’m sorry,” he said. “This wasn’t the right time or place to say that. I’m tired . . .”

  “For god’s sake, don’t apologize. I’m glad you told me. I’m really happy for you.”

  “You look surprised. I always thought you knew . . .”

  A hundred reasons why she should have known sharpened her clarity. “Are you bisexual?”

  “Gay.”

  “Do the boys know?”

  “You’re the first person I’ve told. Strange, isn’t it?” He looked away, worked hard to keep his tears back. But when he looked at her, his eyes were wet. “As I said, I’m tired. I’m not myself.”

  “Don’t say that! This is the truest I’ve ever seen you. It’s beautiful, Jonah.”

  “Ellis, my god . . . you were always the beautiful one . . . what I’ve done to you . . .” He put his face in his hands.

  “Jonah . . .”

  He looked up at her.

  “I understand why you had to deny it for so long. Your father. Your mother. That must have been torture.”

  “It was actual Hell. My father was one of the most vocal homophobes in the history of this country.”

  “And you knew when you were young?”

  “Like you said, I denied it. I thought my attraction to men in high school was some perverse teen rebellion against my parents’ beliefs. I told myself that into my twenties, but I never found a woman I could be with. Not until the night I met you at that party.”

  The Halloween party. Ellis dressed as a cloud, Jonah in the Zeus costume.

  “For the first time in my life, I was attracted to a woman. I can’t tell you what a relief it was. But it was so wrong. It was so goddamn wrong.”

  “What was?”

  More tears dripped. “When I first saw you at the party, I thought you were a man. You were the most beautiful man I’d ever seen.”

  “I’d cut off all my hair.”

  “Yes, and your body was hidden in the cloud.”

  “Then you found out I was a woman. I was a woman you could be attracted to.”

  “Forgive me. I know you can’t. I know it was wrong. But I did love you, Ellis. I really did. I’d never felt as much connection to anyone as I did with you.”

  Everything started coming into focus. He’d said he loved her too early in the relationship. He was needy, yet she clearly felt his emotional distance. He had trouble making love to her. That was how they’d gotten pregnant: one night she’d sacrificed protection to help along his fragile response.

  “Weren’t you at all attracted to Irene?” she asked.

 
; “Irene was . . . Jesus, Ellis, how can I tell you these things?”

  “Tell me. It’s better than keeping it inside.”

  “There was a man, another lawyer. I suspected he was gay. But I couldn’t go there. You know I couldn’t. You, the kids, my mother, Senator Bauhammer . . . the whole country, for god’s sake.”

  “So you went for your tennis instructor to try to kill your attraction to a man.”

  He nodded.

  “I guess I wasn’t looking at all like a beautiful man anymore—milk dripping out of my big boobs and all that.”

  Again, he nodded. “I thought having another baby would fix my problems, but it made it worse. You were such a beautiful mother. So gorgeous . . .”

  “But pretty much the opposite of what you’d first found attractive about me.”

  He picked up his coffee, but his hand shook too hard to take a sip. He had to put it down. “Shit,” he said and started crying again.

  “I mean it when I say I forgive you,” she said. “Believe it or not, I feel better now that I know. Irene really hurt when I found out, but now I get it.”

  “Do you get it?” he said with sudden vehemence. “You left Viola in the forest because you’d seen me with Irene. I’m the reason she was abducted. I’m the reason you resorted to drugs and booze. I’m the reason you left your sons. I’m the reason River is so screwed up.” He pointed toward the elevator. “He’s in that bed because of me. You took all the blame, but all along it was me!”

  “Jonah, come on—”

  “You know it’s true! I’ve wrecked all these lives! Sometimes I don’t think I can live with it! If I hadn’t found Ryan when I did—” He stood abruptly and walked to the other side of the lounge.

  Ellis went to him. “I’m glad you found someone to love. Loving Keith and being loved by him have been good for me. I hope you’ll have that with Ryan.”

  “I hide it from the boys,” he said bitterly. “I can’t tell my mother. I sneak off with him. How much good is that doing me?”

  “Then tell them.”

  “My mother? You know how she is. She lives in my house now, Ellis.”

  “So what? If she doesn’t like it, she has plenty of money to move out. You’ve been living a lie all these years for what? For your parents’ vile version of morality? Now that I know the truth, they’re the ones I blame for Viola’s abduction. It all goes back to them crushing the soul of a child.”