slowly. "I told you to stay with Daddy."
"He won't talk," she moaned.
Crystal was right behind the woman and stepped up into the recreational vehicle. We gathered at the door. A man in his mid-forties was slumped over the steering wheel. His forehead was against the top of the wheel and his face was turned toward us, his eyes closed, his mouth twisted. I thought he
looked kind of blue, especially about the lips. Their other little girl, only about five or six,
was curled up on the sofa.
"George!" the woman cried. "Oh God, oh my
God."
Crystal felt his wrist for a pulse and then turned
to me.
"Brooke, get up here and help me get him
prone," she ordered. I stepped up and the woman
stepped back. She hu ed her daughter Denise to her. It
simply amazed me how efficient and competent
Crystal could appear, even to complete strangers. George was a rather big man, probably at least
six feet one and easily more than two hundred pounds.
We struggled and I looked to Raven, who came in
quickly and helped. Among the three of us we were
able to slide him off the seat and lay him gently on his
back.
Crystal went to work immediately. Even Raven,
Butterfly and I were surprised and impressed. I never knew she was capable of performing CPR. She knelt by his side and placed her right hand on his forehead and her left under his chin. I gazed at his face. He was a good-looking man with some gray at his temples. Crystal glanced up at me with concern and then she listened for his breathing. Without hesitation, she pinched his nose and brought her mouth to his. She
gave two full breaths and I saw his chest rise. Butterfly moved closer to Raven, who put her
arm around her.
"Is he dead?" the woman whimpered. Crystal put her fingertips on his Adam's apple
and slid them into the groove next to his windpipe.
She felt for a pulse.
"Is he? Oh my God, George!"
Crystal gazed up at me again, looking more sad
than nervous now. I could see it in her eyes, which
had become reflections of mine and of Raven's and of
Butterfly's. We had all lost our fathers. None of us
wanted to witness this.
"I think he's in cardiac arrest," Crystal said. She opened his shirt and put her hands at the
center of his chest, one hand on top of the other. "We have to get him to a hospital emergency
room, quickly."
"I can't drive this thing," the woman moaned. "I
don't want to move him," Crystal said to me.
"Brooke?"
I looked at the dashboard and nodded. Then I
went to the seat and started the engine.
Meanwhile, Crystal began pumping the man's
chest, counting up to fifteen and then blowing in two
more breaths before pumping again.
The older girl cried harder. Butterfly went to
her and tried to console her while the woman went to
her younger daughter, who looked like she was in
shock. Raven joined her and they all watched Crystal
work.
"I have no idea where I'm going," I muttered. I
drove until I saw a convenience store on a corner and
pulled up. "I'll find out where the closest hospital is," I
told them and ran out. There was only one customer in
the store and a short, gray- haired man with a dark
mustache at the counter. "We need a hospital
quickly," I cried.
"Hospital. Go down here two miles, make a
left, go five and when you come to the light, make a
right. About a mile in you'll start to see the signs.
What's wrong?" he asked.
"Heart attack," I said and charged out and into the vehicle. It wasn't hard to drive, but I hadn't taken the time to adjust the seat and my feet barely reached
he brakes. I tried fixing it as I drove off.
"How's he doing?" I asked.
"I think there's a pulse, but it's very weak,"
Crystal said. "Is it far?"
"No."
It was more difficult steering this vehicle than
the station wagon, and I almost missed the turn because I was going too fast. The tires squealed. My
heart pounded. I thought we would turn over or blow
a tire.
"Sorry," I said. A compact vehicle was right
ahead of me, crawling along. I pressed on the horn in
hope the driver would just pull over, but she didn't
react so I had to wait for a chance to pass. As soon as
I thought it was safe I pulled out and around the
compact car. I had no idea what sort of power the
recreational vehicle had and its acceleration was slow.
A car was approaching. Neither of us had anywhere to
go. I mumbled a prayer, kept my foot down and then
swung into the right lane just at the last moment. The
other driver sounded his horn angrily.
"Sorry," I-muttered.
I'm sure it was only minutes before we turned into the hospital driveway, but because of the tension, it seemed longer. I followed the signs that indicated EMERGENCY and we pulled up as closely as we
could to the doors. Then I hopped out and ran inside. Two nurses were chatting by a desk. On their
right a man sat holding his arm. He looked like he was
in great pain, but no one seemed to notice or care. "I have a man having a heart attack!" I
screamed.
The nurses stopped talking. An orderly stepped
out of an examination room and the three of them
headed for me.
"Where?"
"Outside in the recreational vehicle," I said.
"Please, hurry. My friend has been giving him CPR
but she doesn't know if it's working."
Another orderly appeared. They grabbed a
stretcher and they all went out to the vehicle.
Moments later, they were wheeling him into the
hospital, with all of us trailing behind.
"Don't worry," Raven said to the woman. "He's
going to be all right now."
"Oh dear," she said. Her two daughters remained under her arms, the younger one still in a
daze, the older one wiping her bloodshot eyes. "Who can identify him?" the older of the two
nurses asked. She went behind the counter. "I can," the woman said. "He's my husband,
George, George Forbas, I'm Caroline Forbas." The nurse smiled as if she were a hotel agent
filling out a form for a hotel stay instead of a hospital
emergency room.
"I need you to fill as much of this out as you
can," she said.
Caroline looked frantically toward the room in
which her husband George had been taken. A young
doctor came running down the hallway and slipped in
quickly. He was followed by another nurse and
another orderly.
"I'll take care of Sophie," Raven said, referring
to the younger daughter. "Come on, Sophie, let's sit
over there and look at the magazines."
She took her hand and the little girl followed
Raven to the seats. Butterfly trailed along.
"Go sit with Sophie, Denise," Caroline said.
Reluctantly, Denise left her side. Crystal and I
remained with Caroline. "Thank you, girls," she said
gratefully. "Thank you, thank you."
"It's all right," Crystal said. "You don't have to
thank us."
Caroline looked at the nurse.
"I can't th
ink."
"Does she have to do this now?" I asked. "She might as well let the doctor examine her
husband and this is something to do in the meantime,"
she replied dryly. "You can take it over there," she
said pointing to a chair with a desk beside it. "Take
your time, Mrs. Forbas."
Caroline sat down with the paper work and I
walked over to Crystal, who looked more scared than
I'd ever seen her.
"What's wrong?" I asked quietly, not wanting to
draw attention.
"I remember when my foster parents were
killed," she said. "I was at a friend's house. We were
studying for a math exam and someone called on the
telephone. I don't remember who called, but my
friend's mother came to the door of her room and said,
'Crystal, there's been a terrible accident. Do you know
your Uncle Stuart's number in Albany?'
"'I'm sure it's in my father's Rolodex,' I said. 'I'll
go look it up.' We lived right next door," she
explained. "I remember I ran out of that house not
even thinking about the consequences. It never
occurred to me that they were both dead, you see. I was young enough at the time still to think of death as something alien, reserved for the aged, but not
something that strikes people close to you." I nodded, listening as I watched Raven work
miracles with Sophie while Butterfly sat by talking
softly to Denise, keeping her from crying. It occurred
to me that we were all as terrified as they were.
Crystal hardly ever talked about her past like this and
certainly not with such nervous energy. Every once in
a while, Raven would stop and look over at Caroline
and her lips would tremble. She would take a deep
breath, too. Butterfly's eyes met mine a number of
times, searching for the same reassurance.
We had lost enough parents. It was impossible
to simply sit by and watch someone else approach the
same sort of doorway to sorrow.
"I ran back to my friend's house with the telephone number and gave it to her mother," Crystal
continued. "I saw the strange way she was looking at
me, but I still didn't ask any questions. Instead, I stood
by and listened as she called my father's brother. 'Stuart,' she said, 'This is Vera Raymond,
Thelma's friend next door. Yes. Yes, I'm fine. Stuart,
there's been a terrible accident. A car accident. Karl
and Thelma . . Both of them have been killed. I'm so sorry,' she said. 'Yes, it happened a few hours ago. A drunk driver in a pickup truck. I'm sorry,' she repeated," Crystal said. "I have it all committed to memory. I often relive it through horrible flashbacks. Sometimes, it just takes the ringing of a phone and I
see the whole episode," she explained.
"Anyway, that's when and how I first heard
they were dead. For a moment it was like
eavesdropping on someone else's life. I still didn't
fully comprehend, Brooke. I listened attentively to
every word. I heard her say, 'Yes, she's with us. What
do you want to do?' She listened, nodded and then she
turned and looked at me as if he was telling her
something about me that she never knew. Of course,
she knew I had been adopted, so that wasn't it,"
Crystal said quickly. "I don't know what he said, but
she looked at me and nodded. 'I understand,' she said,
'but what do you want to do in the interim, Stuart?
Really?' she followed. 'All right. I'll find out and take
care of it,' she said. 'I'm sorry.'
"Then she hung up and explained that my parents had been killed and my uncle wasn't coming to
take me to his home. He had told her to call the Child
Protection Services. Later that afternoon, they came
for me and I was back in the system," Crystal said. "I attended the funeral," she told me, "but after
that, I never saw any of those relatives again." "I'm so
sorry, Crystal."
She shrugged.
"I was lucky in a way. My life, as hard as it is
to imagine, would probably have been worse if I had
gone to live with people who really didn't want me." Caroline rose and brought the papers back to
the desk.
"Why is it taking so long?" she asked the nurse,
who just took the papers and turned to file them and
enter information into a computer.
Caroline looked to us and we went to her side.
The doctor finally stepped out of the emergency
examination room. The nurse behind the desk gave
him Caroline's paper work. He looked at it, nodded
and then turned to Caroline.
"You are Mrs. Forbas?"
"Yes, how is he? Is he alive?" she asked
quickly.
"He's stable now, Mrs. Forbas. He's on his way
up to the cardiac care unit. We'll wait for the specialist
to examine him and give us a full diagnosis. Who
performed the CPR?"
"She did," Caroline said, nodding at Crystal. "You did real well, Miss," he said. "There's no doubt in my mind you saved his life. You should be very
proud of yourself. Where did you learn it?"
"Health class," Crystal said.
He laughed at her matter-of-fact, modest tone.
"Well, you're proof of why students should pay
attention. Tell your teacher."
We watched them wheel George out of the
examination room, the oxygen mask over his face.
Caroline rushed to his side. She turned back as they
headed for the elevator.
"Can you stay with the girls a little longer?" she
asked us.
"Yes, of course," I said.
We watched her disappear with her husband
and the orderly in the elevator and then we sat with
Raven and Butterfly and entertained Denise and little
Sophie.
The rain began again. We didn't notice it until
the wind started blowing it against the windows. The
girls, tired from their emotional ordeal, had fallen
asleep, Sophie, the little one, with her head in Raven's
lap. We were all somewhat exhausted and groggy.
Butterfly dozed on and off and Raven lay back with
her eyes closed, her fingers clamped on her forehead. Only Crystal made productive use of the time
catching up on past issues of Time magazine. None of us took much note of the two
policemen who stood by the nurse's desk talking
softly, but when the elevator doors opened and
Caroline appeared, the nurse nodded at her and the
policemen approached her. They spoke for a moment
and then they walked over to us.
"Thanks for waiting, girls, and taking care of
Denise and Sophie. The nurse upstairs was kind
enough to call the sheriff's department for me because
I can't drive that R.V. and we have to get to a motel.
Officer Donald will take you back to your car. I don't
know how I can thank you. Can you give me your
address," she asked Crystal, "so I can send you
something later?"
"There's no need for that," Crystal replied
quickly. "How is Mr. Forbas doing?"
"He's resting very comfortably. They think he'll
be fine. Of course, his lifestyle is going to change. No
more smoking for one thing."
"I told Daddy to stop smoking," Denise said.
"We learned about it in school."
"Yes dear," she said stroking her daughter's
face affectionately. "Well, now he's going to listen to
you." "I'll get you to the motel," one of the policemen
said. "Dave?"
"Girls, come along with me," the taller policeman said.
Raven shot me a very nervous look, but Crystal
never batted an eyelash. We all said good-bye to the
girls. Raven and Butterfly hugged Sophie, who was
sad to see them go. Then, without any more comment,
we followed the sheriff's deputy out of the emergency
room to his patrol car.
"Three of you can get into the rear," he said.
"Don't be nervous about sitting behind a cage and
having no handles on the doors. We usually put
suspects back there," he added with a smile
Raven widened her eyes with anxiety. Crystal
took Butterfly's hand and opened the door. I was the
one left to sit in the front with the policeman. "So you guys did a real good deed," he said,
getting behind the wheel. "This is a nice thing to see.
It restores my faith in young people. Most of the time,
I have them in my car for a lot worse reasons." He
laughed, started the engine, and pulled out of the
hospital parking lot. "You the driver?" he asked,
nodding at me.
"Yes sir," I said.
He made a turn and drove slowly.
"So you're all from New York?" he continued. I turned and looked at Crystal. Had any of us
said that? She pursed her lips and narrowed her eyes
into slits of suspicion.
"Yes," I said cautiously.
"A long way from home, aren't you?" he asked. "We're on our way to visit relatives," I
answered.
"A huh," he said.
He made another turn and sped up. I couldn't be
sure because I was so nervous and excited at the time,
but it seemed to me he was going in a different
direction from the direction in which we had come. "When we got the call from the hospital, I was
patrolling in the vicinity where you had left your
vehicle. I saw your license plates," he added, leaning
toward me and then making another turn. "That's how
I know you're all from New York."
"Oh." I smiled and looked back at Crystal, but
she didn't seem relieved. She stared ahead, her face
full of anticipation.
He made another turn, taking us past a more
populated area. Soon we saw stores, gas stations, shops, and then he drove down a hill, leaving the
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