“You stay with me,” he ordered. “You can’t sleep now. Babe? Do you hear me?”
Casey let out a sigh. Said weakly, “I hear you.”
He exchanged glances with Colleen. She nodded and pressed harder on the accelerator. “Sing to me,” he said.
“Sing?” Casey’s voice was small and wispy. “What should I sing?”
Without thinking about it, Colleen began singing in her clear, sweet alto, a song they’d learned as young girls in Sunday School at the local Baptist church Mama had dragged them to every Sunday morning:
When the trumpet of the Lord shall sound, and time shall be no more,
And the morning breaks, eternal, bright and fair;
When the saved of earth shall gather over on the other shore,
And the roll is called up yonder, I’ll be there.
At the chorus, her sister joined in, her voice weak, but in tune. Colleen glanced at the speedometer and jacked up her speed again. She’d always known that one day, all that early Baptist training would come in handy for something. When she reached the highway, she shot toward town at the speed of light. If there were any cops, all the better. They could use a police escort. She took the last corner so quickly, the tires squealed. Still singing, they pulled into the hospital parking lot. Rob opened his door and, with his wife in his arms, raced to the emergency entrance. By the time she parked the car and ran in behind him, her sister was already on a gurney, several nurses standing around with worried faces, a white-coated doctor leaning over her.
“She’s lost a ton of blood,” she heard Rob say. “This happened once before, about fifteen years ago.”
“Who’s her primary?” the doctor said.
“Dr. Klein. But Deb Levasseur’s her OB/GYN.”
“Get Deb on the phone,” he told the nurse, “then call Surgery and have a room prepped. See if Dr. Ellington’s available. If he isn’t, then keep calling until you find another surgeon. We don’t have time to waste.”
Casey reached up a hand and touched her husband’s face. He pressed a kiss to her palm. “My heart,” he said, closing her fingers over it, “in your hand. I’ll be right here waiting when you come back.”
And she was gone, whisked away through a set of doors marked STAFF ONLY. They stood listening to the wheels of the gurney rattling until the sound grew faint and disappeared. Then they turned and looked at each other, neither of them sure what to do now. Rob’s pants were covered with blood, still wet and sticky, making him look like the victim in some low-budget horror movie. His face was chalk-white, and he was visibly trembling.
“Sit,” she told him, “before we lose you, too.” She grabbed his elbow, steered him toward a nearby seat, and shoved him into it. “Thank God you managed to hold it together until she was out of sight.”
Eyes closed, he slumped on his tailbone, those long legs stretched out before him. “If ever in my life I needed a drink, it would be now.”
“Sorry, but you’re stuck with hospital coffee. And unless you’re a masochist, you’re better off going without.” At the Admissions window, the nurse was waving a clipboard. Colleen strode across the room and took it from her. She returned to Rob and put it in his hands. “We have paperwork to do, my friend.”
He opened his eyes and slid to an upright position. Picked up the pen she gave him. Read the first question and made a fumbling attempt to write an answer. But his hand was shaking so hard, he couldn’t write legibly. Even when he wasn’t shaking, Rob’s handwriting was illegible. Under duress, it didn’t even resemble the English language. “Give it to me,” she said. With her brow wrinkled in concentration, she filled in her sister’s name, address, date of birth. “Social security number,” she read aloud. “Do you know that?”
He shrugged, ran the fingers of both hands through his hair.
“Okay. Primary physician is Dr. Klein. OB/GYN is Levasseur. Any known allergies?”
“Jesus, Mary and Joseph!” he exploded. “They already have this stuff somewhere. She’s been coming here for years.”
“Presenting problem,” she read, and wrote uterine hemorrhage/miscarriage. “Here.” She shoved it back into his hands. “Sign and date it at the bottom.”
His signature was indecipherable, but then, probably so were the signatures of half the doctors on staff. She took the clipboard back to the nurse, said, “This is the best we can do,” and returned to her brother-in-law.
They sat silently, side by side, each of them alone with their thoughts. She didn’t dare to let him know how frightened she was, for fear that he’d lose it completely. She’d never seen so much blood come out of a human being. If anything happened to Casey, she’d probably stop breathing. All those years they’d been estranged, all the time they’d wasted. And for what? Casey’d had a right to live her life, out from under their father’s thumb. Her sister hadn’t owed her anything. It wasn’t Casey’s fault that she’d screwed up her own life so bad.
“For the first time,” he said, “I understand how Danny must’ve felt.”
She turned her head, waited for him to continue.
“They were in the middle of a knock-down, drag-out fight. She was screaming at him. That woman has quite a set of lungs on her when occasion warrants it.” He spoke the words almost proudly. The man was so besotted with her sister that if Casey robbed a bank, he’d probably be right there taking pictures to commemorate the occasion. “One minute she was fine. The next minute, she was sitting on the kitchen floor with blood streaming out of her. I was the one who called 911.” He snorted. “Danny didn’t even know she was pregnant.”
“But you did.”
“We told each other everything. And Danny was so wrapped up in his own stuff that sometimes he just looked right through her. He was the one who rode in the ambulance with her. I was the one who got left behind to mop the blood off the floor.”
She reached across both their chair arms and took his hand. “You loved her even then, didn’t you?”
“I did. I don’t think I realized how much. We were just kids, y’know?”
“She’s going to be fine.”
“Yeah.” He let out a hard breath. “What if she’s not?”
“Casey wouldn’t leave you. My sister is a rock. She’d never leave you and Emma and Paige.”
“You know what they say about a woman being the heart of a home? In her case, it’s really true. She’s like superglue. She holds us together with her love.”
She squeezed her brother-in-law’s hand. “Oh, I suspect you have a little input in that area.”
“Nah. I’m just window dressing. She’s the nucleus we all orbit around.”
The door to the outside world swung open, and her sister-in-law Trish blew through it. She looked around the waiting room, saw them, and made a beeline for Rob. “Oh, honey,” she said, enveloping him in a hug. “I’m so sorry. Is Casey okay?”
Colleen made her escape while she could, followed the corridor until she found a restroom. Inside, she stood in front of the mirror, hands braced against the counter. She’d aged twenty years since this morning. What if this was her fault? What if the accident had somehow mortally wounded Casey’s unborn child? If she was responsible for this heartache, she would never forgive herself. And if Casey died, life without her would be unimaginable.
Tears stung her eyelids. Colleen turned on the faucet, splashed cold water on her face. She was blotting it with a paper towel when somebody came through the door. She stiffened at the approach of footsteps. Instead of continuing on to one of the stalls, they stopped behind her, and a hand touched her shoulder. Colleen opened her eyes and met Trish’s in the mirror. “Are you okay?” her brother’s wife said.
Colleen shook her head no, turned, and let Trish fold her into her arms. “It’s all right,” Trish said. “Cry it out, sweetheart. You’ll feel better.”
The floodgates opened, and she cried and cried on Trish’s shoulder, cried until her eyes felt dry and dusty in their sockets. “This is all my faul
t,” she said, when there was no more crying left to do. “We went off the road last night, and we hit so hard, and we were arguing and I wasn’t paying attention.”
Trish brushed the damp hair away from Colleen’s face and gripped her firmly by the shoulders. “You listen to me. This kind of thing happens. This isn’t her first miscarriage. She may have some physical problem that makes it hard for her to carry a baby to term. The fetus may have been defective. There’s no reason to think it had anything to do with your accident. We’ll probably never know why it happened, so it’s pointless to lay blame.”
“But what if she dies?”
Trish touched her cheek, swiped at a tear. “Oh, honey, she won’t die. She may look frail, but Casey’s strong as an ox. She’ll outlive us all.”
“I thought you hated me.”
“I never hated you. I thought you took advantage of my brother when he was hurting. Casey had just dumped him, and he was nursing his wounds, and there you were, and…well, we both know the rest. I didn’t mean to be spiteful. I’ve always loved you. I just forgot for a while. But when I heard you and Casey singing, it brought back so many memories, of what life was like when we were all kids, bouncing in and out of each other’s houses. Of your amazing mother. Of you and Casey, two beautiful little girls, singing like angels in matching outfits. You were so close back then. Two peas in a pod. And I realized I should have forgiven you for marrying my brother a long, long time ago. So I guess my question to you is, can you forgive me?”
“I was hurt. You were like a big sister to me until I married Jesse, and then I felt so rejected.”
“You’ll never know how sorry I am for that.”
Like the shining thing it was, hope sprang to life inside her chest. “You don’t think it’s too late for a fresh start?”
“I think as long as we’re both upright and breathing, it’s never too late for a fresh start.”
***
When they returned from the bathroom, the surgeon was talking to her brother-in-law, who looked immensely relieved. The doctor nodded, clapped Rob on the shoulder, and hurried off. “Well?” Trish said as they approached.
“She’s in Recovery. It got a little scary for a while. She lost so much blood.” His voice thickened, and he cleared his throat. “But she’s stable. They’re keeping her overnight. We can see her in an hour or so.”
The tight band of fear constricting Colleen’s chest loosened. “Did he offer any opinion as to why this happened?”
“He didn’t know. I asked him if it might’ve had anything to do with the accident. He said probably not. If there’d been severe enough trauma to cause miscarriage, it probably would’ve happened right away. He thinks the fact that it happened less than twenty-four hours after the car went off the road is probably just coincidence.”
Trish squeezed her hand. “What about future pregnancies?”
“This shouldn’t affect them. But he advised waiting a year before we try again. Casey won’t like that.”
“Well,” Trish said, “it takes two to tango. I guess that means it’s up to you.”
“Believe me, we won’t be taking any chances. I don’t intend for her to go through this again. And I’m not sure I’d survive it again.” He took a deep breath. “Now that the worst is over, I’d kill for a decent cup of coffee. And I have to call Paige. I imagine she’s worried to death. That wasn’t a pleasant scene this morning.”
“I can run to Dunk’s,” Colleen said. “Pick up coffee and a box of doughnuts.” She eyed him and added, “Swing by the house and get you a change of clothes.”
“That would be great. I’m staying the night at the hospital. If you want to take the car home and pick us up in the morning, it’s fine with me.”
“Thanks for the offer, but I’m calling Mikey and letting him know I won’t be home tonight. I’m staying here with my sister.”
Mikey
He was napping when she rapped on the window, and he awoke abruptly, disoriented until he saw her face peering at him through the glass. His heart drumming so loud he could hear it in his ears, Mikey reached across the seat and unlocked the passenger door. He’d been sitting here for an hour, engine idling while he waited for midnight to arrive, half-afraid she’d back out and wouldn’t show. But here she was, looking so beautiful in the red parka that she took his breath away. Paige MacKenzie. The woman he was about to marry.
Paige opened the door, set her guitar case on the torn blue vinyl that he’d patched with electrical tape. He picked up the case and placed it in the storage compartment behind the bench seat. Her suitcase followed, and he tucked it neatly beside his duffel bag. She climbed up into the cab and silently pulled the door shut behind her. “Hi,” he whispered.
She dropped her hood and shook out her blond curls. “Hi,” she whispered back.
“You have everything?”
“I have you,” she said. “None of the rest of it matters.”
“Come here.” She slid across blue vinyl until her thigh brushed his, and he leaned over and kissed her, hard and possessively. She leaned back against the crook of his arm and gazed at him from beneath long, thick lashes. “You got away okay?” he said.
“Dad and Casey went to bed early. She’s exhausted.”
“Mom told me about the baby. That really bites. I know how much she loves kids. She okay?”
“It hit her hard. And Dad…I know he’s shook up. I was there when it happened. He was so scared for her. He loves her so much.”
He nudged her cheek with his nose. “You sure you’re okay with this? Because if you’re not, now’s the time to say so.”
“I think you need to shut up and drive, before Dad’s supersonic radar goes off and he comes looking for us.”
***
They were really doing this. His heart rate didn’t slow to normal until he crossed the Piscataqua River Bridge into New Hampshire. Then he relaxed and opened the Beast up, cruising at a precise 7 mph over the posted speed limit. There were places he’d seen, out west, where the road went on in a hazy line forever, and nobody cared how fast you drove. But here, in New England, that seven over was pretty much standard operating procedure. Sure, the cops could ticket you for going 66 in a 65. But generally, as long as there was nothing else to arouse suspicion, they left you alone if you stayed below that 7 mph cap.
As he drove through the night, sharing the road with truckers and other nocturnal creatures, the tires beat an insistent rhythm against the pavement, the mantra inside his head repeating with that rhythm: I’m getting married. Getting married. Getting married. It was still hard to believe that Paige had accepted his proposal. Exciting, but also scary, because now he was responsible for her, and he took that responsibility seriously. Every time headlights lit the cab of his truck, he glanced down at her, cat-napping against his shoulder, her blond curls in glorious disarray. She’d been unnaturally silent ever since they left. Leaving Leroy behind had to be devastating. Even worse was leaving behind her baby sister. She doted on Emma the same way he did on Beth. But it was different for him; he’d already been living away from home for almost a year. Paige had only been with her dad since she was fifteen. They’d barely had time to get to know each other. It was an extraordinary thing she was doing, giving up all of that to be with him.
He drove all night and half the morning, his hand clasped tightly with Paige’s while she stared silently out the window at snow-covered fields and old farmhouses with the weekly wash flapping on the line. Outside of Buffalo, he finally pulled into the parking lot of a seedy motel. He gave the desk clerk a song-and-dance about being newlyweds on their way home to visit the family. He wasn’t sure the woman bought it; she eyed them hard over the rims of her glasses. But he had an honest face, and Paige smiled brilliantly throughout the transaction, so in the end, the woman photocopied his driver’s license and handed him a key.
“Room 14,” she said. “Around the back. No smoking, no partying. Checkout time’s ten a.m.”
Inst
ead of going directly to their room, they found a place nearby that served breakfast all day. “We have to be frugal,” he told her as they perused the sticky menu. “Use our money carefully. Gas is expensive, and the truck’s on its last legs. We’ll probably have to buy a new one once we get settled.” So they both ordered the $1.99 special: fried eggs, greasy bacon, and burnt toast, washed down with stale coffee. The food was awful, but it was filling, and all that really mattered to him, all that really mattered to either of them, was being together.
While they ate, they talked about their future, about the trip, about their planned stop in Vegas to get married. One of Mikey’s friends knew a guy who knew a guy, and for fifty bucks, he’d managed to obtain a fake I.D. that magically changed her age from seventeen to nineteen. The guy had done a good enough job so that nobody would question its validity.
“I think if we drive at night and sleep during the day, there’ll be less chance for them to find us.” He spread jelly on his toast, hoping to make it palatable. “Assuming they actually look for us.”
“My dad will be looking. He’s probably freaking out by now.”
“After we’re married,” he said, “once we get to California, you should probably call him.”
She absently dragged a spoon through her cup of coffee while she stared out the window. “The timing of this is just so bad,” she said. “With Casey’s miscarriage and all.”
“You’re feeling a little guilty.”
“I’m feeling a lot guilty. Their stress level was already through the roof. Dad must be at red alert by now.”
He studied her eyes, clear and honest, a beautiful shade of MacKenzie green. “Yeah,” he admitted, surprising himself. “Me, too. But it couldn’t be helped. It’s not like I had a choice. I have to be there when I have to be there.”
She set down the spoon and lay a hand atop his. “I’m sure they’re upset, but it’s too late to worry about it now. What’s done is done. We’ll deal with the fallout later.”
Redemption Road: Jackson Falls Book 5 (Jackson Falls Series) Page 21
