Disguised Blessing

by Georgia Bockoven

  “I don’t even know where we’re going.” He swung his legs over the side of the bed.

  “To the store to meet the boat.”

  The tone of the alarm changed from a summons for the firefighters to the siren on a piece of emergency equipment. Catherine stopped to listen more closely. “Something’s wrong. The boat couldn’t be at the store already. Why are the firefighters leaving?”

  She threw his shirt at him and raced back through the house, this time going out the front door, where she could get a better look at the road. Flashing red lights reflected off houses and trees as the fire engine made its way along the narrow, twisting road. She whipped around to look at the lake. The boat was still there, slowly moving across the water as if time were as abundant as the pollen.

  Could they see the flashing red lights from the boat? Did they understand the men on the fire equipment had received the wrong information and hadn’t waited for them at the store? She mentally reached out to the driver of the boat, begging him to pay attention. Only then did she realize the reason the boat appeared to be going so slow: It wasn’t headed for the store, it was coming in her direction. It had been all along.

  She reached for the porch railing to steady herself. Tom joined her, still buttoning his shirt. She pointed to the boat. “They’re coming here. It’s Lynda. They’re bringing her home.”

  Tom looked at the boat and the fire engine. “They’re meeting here,” he said. “We’re twenty minutes closer to town.”

  Grateful for his calm reasoning, she put her hand on his arm and admitted, “That didn’t even occur to me.”

  “Standing around trying to guess what happened is crazy. I’m going to call the Winslows. Where’s their number?”

  “There’s a local phone book for the lake residents in the drawer under the microwave.”

  “You should have thought of this yourself, Catherine,” he gently chided. “Somehow I thought you’d be better in a crisis.”

  His words stung, not so much from their accusation as from his lack of understanding. “Find out if Lynda is with them on the boat.”

  He came back to the doorway. “And if she isn’t?”

  “I want to talk to her.”

  Alone, she listened to the siren and boat motor grow louder and realized she was cold, not only on the surface, but bone-deep. She hugged herself and stared at the running lights across the black lake. In the distance she heard the faint wail of a second siren. They must have called for an ambulance to meet them. Was it standard practice? Precaution? Or was it necessity?

  She didn’t wait well. She was a do-something kind of person.

  Tom came back just as Catherine decided to go after him. “Well?”

  Instead of saying anything, he reached to take her in his arms. She backed away. She wasn’t a child who needed a hug. She was a mother in need of answers. “What did you find out?”

  Foolishly, he reached for her again. She knocked his arm away. “Goddamn it, tell me what happened.”

  “What’s the matter with you? I’m only trying to help.”

  “Then tell me.”

  “You were right,” he snapped. “Lynda’s the one who was burned.”

  She stood perfectly still, her arms at her sides, her hands curled into tight fists. “How bad?”

  “They don’t know for sure. Someone said they thought they saw the tie on her sweater catch on the barbecue grate. It caught fire before she could get it free and she panicked. When she couldn’t get the sweater off, she ran. Brian chased her and managed to get the fire out—but not before she was burned.

  “According to the kid who was telling me this, Lynda’s in a lot of pain. Which was why they didn’t wait for the firemen to come to them. My guess is that she’ll probably have to go to the hospital to get checked out.”

  “It wasn’t her sweater,” she said numbly. “It was mine. I made her wear it. You heard me. I told her she had to take it.” Lightheaded with worry, she started shaking, just a slight trembling at first, and then violently. She put her hand against the side of the house to keep from falling. “It’s my fault.”

  “It’s not even that cold. She really didn’t need a sweater.”

  Instead of feeding her guilt, Tom’s words made Catherine realize she didn’t have time for the luxury of indulging in self-doubt or pity. The seeds were planted. The feelings would take root and grow later.

  When he looked at her she didn’t see the expected sorrow or concern in his eyes, she saw fear. She immediately assumed he was holding something back. But that wasn’t Tom’s style. He never protected her that way.

  Peripherally, it came to her that the boat motor had slowed. They were approaching the dock. She took off without saying anything more. He could follow or stay; at that moment, she didn’t care.

  Catherine had expected Peter or Julianne Winslow to be driving. Instead it was one of the kids from the party, someone she didn’t recognize. It took a second to sort through the other worried faces in the open bow boat, all of them teenagers, before she spotted Brian in the back. He had Lynda cradled in his arms, her face tucked against his neck, her body covered with a blanket.

  Catherine reached for the line one of the boys threw but Tom got to it first. She’d been so focused on Lynda, she hadn’t realized he’d joined her.

  The motor stopped, leaving the sirens to synchronize in an urgent rhythm, their shrill sound echoing off the surrounding mountains, fueling the sense of urgency.

  Of the half dozen kids in the boat, only one looked at Catherine: Brian. She tried to swallow the lump of fear in her throat and almost choked on its size.

  Flashing red lights slashed through the moonless night. First the fire engine and then the ambulance pulled into the driveway. Tom anchored the line, then clasped extended hands. Catherine found herself surrounded by young people whose immediate job had come to an end and who now had no idea what to do with themselves. Tom directed them off of the dock and up to the house. Only Brian and Lynda remained on the boat, isolated, abandoned.

  Look at me. Say something, Catherine silently commanded her daughter. Let me see that you are all right. Give me this one thing to hang on to.

  “She’s in a lot of pain,” Brian said. “I don’t think we should move her until the ambulance gets here.”

  Catherine nodded, yielding to his request, grateful for the caring tone in his voice. In the background she heard rescue equipment being unloaded and the low sounds of men talking to each other. Help was only seconds away. She should wait; she’d be in the way if she got in the boat now. But she couldn’t wait. She had to let Lynda know she was there.

  She stepped into the boat and knelt beside Brian. He and Lynda were soaked. His face was white, his lips blue, his teeth chattering.

  “I read somewhere that cold water stops a burn from going deeper,” he said, responding to her confused look. “I carried her into the lake. It was the best I could do.” He looked at Catherine, a desperate need in his eyes.

  She didn’t understand his need, but her heart went out to him. “Thank you,” was all she could think to say. She gently touched her daughter’s hair. A long strand broke off and crumbled to coarse dust in her hand. An acrid smell she refused to let her mind identify filled her nostrils.

  “I’m here, sweetheart,” she whispered, afraid to trust her voice with anything more. Lynda needed to believe Catherine was in control and that she was safe.

  Finally Lynda lifted her head, gasping at the effort. “I’m sorry, Mommy. I’m so sorry.” She caught her breath. “Help me. Please help me. I hurt so bad.”

  A powerful spotlight stole the night and created a tunnel for the rescuers to follow. Lynda blinked and turned away. The boat rocked. Catherine heard voices and felt someone take her arms and lift her onto the dock where a man wearing a firefighter’s helmet and yellow canvas jacket questioned her, quietly but persistently. She answered automatically, giving names and addresses by rote.

  She stopped listening when she
heard Lynda scream. The sound cut through Catherine like acid through cloth, leaving a jagged, gaping hole that terror rushed to fill.

  “Be careful,” she begged them. “Please…be careful.”

  “Why don’t you come to the house with me?” the man with the clipboard said. “They’re going to take her out of the boat in a minute and we’ll just be in the way.”

  What was wrong with him? How could he even suggest such a thing? What if Lynda wanted her and she wasn’t there? “I can’t leave.” She looked past him to her daughter. “She might need me.”

  “Is there someone who can drive you to the hospital?”

  “My fiancé.” She looked for Tom. He should have been easy to spot in the hushed, anxious crowd standing around the house, but she couldn’t see him. “Which hospital?”

  “Barton Memorial. They’ll want to stabilize her there before lifeflight takes her to Sacramento.”

  “Lifeflight?” The word hit like a fist. Lifeflight was something they talked about on the news, a last-ditch effort to save someone grievously injured in an accident. How could it have anything to do with her daughter? Frantic, Catherine searched the faces of the men taking Lynda from the boat, looking for a sign that they believed their job hopeless.

  “I’m sorry—I didn’t mean to scare you. Lifeflight is what we use to transport people who need more care than we can give them. Your daughter needs to be in a burn unit and we don’t have one here.”

  “What about Reno? Isn’t it closer?”

  “By air, it’s about the same.” He guided her out of the way of the arriving rescue workers. “Besides, there’s that new Shriner’s hospital in Sacramento.”

  Lynda screamed again when she was taken from the boat and placed on the gurney. “They’re putting her on her back—that’s where she was burned. Someone should tell—”

  “As soon as the morphine takes effect, she won’t feel the pain.”

  “But what about her back? Shouldn’t they—”

  “They have to keep her airway open and they can’t do it if she’s on her stomach.”

  “Her airway?”

  “It’s just a precaution.”

  Two firefighters stood at each end of the gurney and guided it off the dock and up the hill. Lynda rolled her head from side to side, looking for a familiar face. “Mommy? Where are you?”

  Catherine ran after them, calling, “I’m right here.” She made it to Lynda’s side and reached for her hand. “I’m coming with you.” She looked to one of the men in white for confirmation.

  “Are you the mother?”

  “Yes.”

  “You’ll have to ride in the front—and there’s only room for one.”

  Again, Catherine looked for Tom. She found him standing on the porch talking to a firefighter. “I’ll be right back,” she told Lynda. To the man in white she said, “Don’t leave without me.”

  She ran to Tom and grabbed his arm to get his attention. “I’m going to the hospital with Lynda. Get my purse and meet me there with the car.”

  “Now?” He glanced around at the assembled people as if he were the host of a party and couldn’t leave.

  “Yes—now.” Instantly she went from being furious to contrite. He had no way of knowing Lynda was being flown to Sacramento and that they had to drive there to meet her. “Don’t forget my purse,” she said in a conciliatory tone. “I’ll need the insurance card.”

  “How do I get to the hospital?”

  The question dumbfounded her. Tom was a takecharge person. A man who gave orders, not took them. “I don’t know. Ask someone.”

  He said something more, but she was halfway to the ambulance and couldn’t hear him over the sound of the engine. She had her hand on the door handle when she realized Brian had come up beside her.

  He held out his hand and then turned it over. Lynda’s earrings filled his palm. “They were hot. I took them off so they couldn’t burn her anymore.”

  He looked lost and devastated. He needed reassurance, but she had none to give. She put the earrings in her pocket and then gave him a quick hug. “Thank you—for everything.”

  Two men, a firefighter and an ambulance attendant, climbed in back with Lynda. They worked with quiet efficiency in the cramped space, one cutting off her clothes, the other hanging an IV.

  “How is the pain now?” Catherine heard one of them ask.

  “Better,” Lynda murmured.

  “There aren’t any medals for bravery around here. I want you to tell me when it hurts so I can do something about it.”

  “I will.”

  The depth of relief in Lynda’s voice made Catherine flinch. Lynda never gave in to pain. She’d even refused aspirin when she’d broken a tooth and exposed the nerve.

  Catherine felt something in her hand and looked down at flecks of Lynda’s hair caught between her fingers. She rolled them in her palm until they turned into a fine powder.

  She tried, but couldn’t stop her tears. What was to become of her beautiful, carefree daughter?

  4

  RICK SAWYER SPOTTED THE ROILING BLACK SMOKE from the car fire six blocks away. He tapped his engineer’s arm and pointed. Steve McMahon nodded.

  “Looks like it’s been going for a while,” Rick said. The fire was in the middle of an apartment complex in the poorer section of their district, and was most likely set by someone covering a theft. Car fires with bodies inside were rarely set in public places.

  Steve slowed and hit the air horn as they neared an intersection, then swung the fire engine into the turn lane to go around the stopped traffic. Although bored with being at a slow firehouse, Rick liked his crew, especially his engineer. Steve knew his district and wasn’t a frustrated race car driver. He handled the fire engine with such finesse it could have been a sports car, and he had the uncanny knack of knowing precisely how Rick wanted to fight a fire from the moment they arrived on the scene.

  “Hey, Captain—look over there,” Paul Murdoch said over the intercom.

  Rick twisted in his seat to look out the back where the rookie pointed. Paul had spotted the fire. His grin of anticipation at responding to his first fire exposed every tooth in his mouth.

  “That’s it all right.” Rick gave him a thumbs-up signal and turned back around, shaking his head.

  Steve laughed. He’d heard the exchange through the headset that connected the cab to the rear-facing back seat. To Rick, he said, “You forget what it was like when you first came on until you get a rookie to remind you.”

  Rick had been with the Sacramento Fire Department for eighteen years and could remember his first fire as clearly as if it had happened his last shift. His baptism had been more memorable than most—a warehouse fire where he’d found a transient still alive when every rule of medicine said he should have been long dead. Nothing in the intervening years had come close to the horror he’d felt that night. Now the ones he remembered were the saves. The man whose heart had stopped beating, who brought a cake to the firehouse three weeks later; the five-year-old girl they’d pulled from the bottom of a swimming pool, whose mother now brought her to the firehouse every year on the day she was rescued to celebrate her rebirth day; the thirteen-year-old who wrote them a letter thanking them for rescuing his dog from a burning garage.

  Steve pulled into the apartment complex and around the back where they were greeted by an excited man waving his arms. The car was an Oldsmobile, a ‘74 or ‘75, lowered, with junk rims and small tires used for spares in a lot of new cars. Rick called dispatch and told them that there were no structures involved and that their engine could handle the call, then climbed out of the cab and went over to the man.

  “I got everybody out,” he said. “I told them they had to leave or they were going to be trapped inside when this thing blew and I couldn’t be responsible for getting to them if that happened. Figured it was my job being I’m the manager and all.”

  Rick checked to see that his firefighter, Janet Clausen, had taken the hose off the ri
g and that the rookie wasn’t standing around with his hands in his pockets. “There were people inside the car?”

  “No, inside the apartments. The car’s been here for weeks. Dumped one night with the insides gutted so it wasn’t no good to nobody. We called the cops. They said they’d come out but they never did.”

  “So you cleared the apartments?”

  “Got everybody over there.” He pointed to a group of men and women and kids, from toddlers to teens, intently watching the action from the sidewalk.

  “Thanks.” He shook the man’s hand. “We appreciate your help. It makes our job a lot easier.”

  The man lit up like a flashlight in a blackout. “Hey, no problem. I seen how these cars can go up when they start burning and I didn’t want no one hurt. I take care of the people who live here.”

  “I’ll be sure and put what you did in my report.” Gently, he maneuvered the man away from the engine. “Now I think it would be better if you stayed over there with the others and let us take care of this.”

  “Yeah, right.” He grinned. “Wouldn’t want to become no statistic after I went and saved everybody else.”

  They had the fire out, the stolen car report to the police department, and the hose reloaded, and were back at the station cooking dinner—barbecued chicken, potato salad, and green beans—within forty-five minutes.

  Paul looked up from dicing an onion for the salad. “Hey, Capt’n, mind if I ask a couple of questions about the fire?”

  “Ask as many as you want.” Rick added a couple of shakes of garlic powder to the mayonnaise mixture and set the bowl aside.

  “They taught us at the tower that burning cars don’t explode. And yet you told—”

  “Do they explode on television?”

  “Yeah, all the time. But—”

  “Then they explode in real life. You’re never going to convince anyone Hollywood got it wrong, so you might as well save your breath.”

  “So you were just shittin’ the guy?”

  “I was thanking him. He did what he did believing he could be blown up at any moment. No way was I going to take that away from him.”