The Mill River Redemption

by Darcie Chan

  “Well, here’s a surprise,” she said as she let him in. “I was almost ready to turn off the lights.”

  “Hi, Aunt Ivy,” he told her as he handed her the stack. “Mom said I could bring these to you if I didn’t stay too long.”

  “You know you’re always welcome to stay as long as you like,” Ivy said. “Where’d you get these? They look pretty old.”

  “There are some boxes in our house with your name on them. They’re all full of old books. Mom says they’re your rejects. I’ve been going through them anyway, and these are the ones I’m finished with. I didn’t know whether you wanted them back.”

  “Well, I’ll be,” Ivy said. “I don’t even remember when I packed up those boxes. It must’ve been years ago. I used to give your grandma worn-out copies to read to your mom and your aunt. Maybe I’ll see if I can donate these somewhere. You say you read these already?”

  “Yep. I read pretty fast.” Alex was looking at the packed shelves in the Kids’ Corner. “You sure have a lot of books for kids.”

  “Always have,” she said. “Reading’s so important, especially for young kids, and I’ve always thought that the younger you learn, the better. I love seeing ’em light up when they come in here and pull a new book off the shelf.”

  “Why didn’t you ever get married and have any kids of your own?”

  “Oh.” Alex’s question caught her off guard. “Well, I guess … the truth is, I almost got married. I had a fiancé once. His name was Tom. He was the one who came here with me, to Mill River, and helped me open this place. We were going to settle down and start a family, live happily ever after, you know? But at some point, I realized I didn’t love him. I’d fallen in love with someone else … someone who loved me in return but wasn’t in a position to marry me.”

  “Who were you in love with?”

  “Oh, it was so long ago, it doesn’t matter anymore. I never stopped wanting kids, though. It just wasn’t meant to work out for me.”

  “I think you would’ve been a great mom.”

  “You know, in a way, I feel like I had a second chance at it when your grandma came here with your mom and aunt Emily. I think … thought … of your grandma as my own daughter. I loved her like that, and your mom and your aunt Emily have always been like my own grandchildren. And you—you’re like a great-grandson to me, even though you’re technically my great-great-nephew.”

  She could see Alex was pleased with her reply, as a blush spread across his pale cheeks and he smiled down at his shoes. “Thanks,” he said. He turned toward the door but then hesitated. “Aunt Ivy?”

  “Hmm?”

  “If I ask you something else, would you promise to answer it without telling me that it’s something I shouldn’t hear until I’m older?”

  Ivy looked into Alex’s huge blue eyes and wondered what question he would possibly want to ask now. “Well, I can’t say for sure unless I knew what the question was. You don’t mean to ask … um, well, I mean, you already know how babies are made, don’t you?

  Alex giggled. “Yes, I already know that. Mom told me about that a loooong time ago.”

  Ivy relaxed and laughed with him. “Well, that’s really the only question I was worried about. So, shoot.”

  “Okay. Why do Mom and Aunt Emily hate each other?”

  Ivy felt the smile disappear from her face as she realized that what Alex had just asked would be far more difficult to handle than even the birds and the bees.

  “Something happened a long time ago, but neither one of them will tell me what,” Alex added in a soft voice. “I’m not a baby, Aunt Ivy. I’m old enough to know.”

  She sat down on one of the larger beanbags, struggling with what and how much she should say. She remembered the advice she’d given Josie years before when her niece had been trying to help Rose and Emily understand their father’s death. “Tell ’em the truth in terms that they can understand,” she’d said to Josie. Now, as she looked down at the precious little boy before her, she realized that the advice was still sound. “Oh, honey,” she said to him, “it was just the most heartbreaking thing.”

  CHAPTER 28

  2001

  IN THE FRONT SEAT OF HER MOTHER’S CAR, ROSE CAME TO. Her head was throbbing, and she could feel cold air meeting wetness along the side of her face. The only sources of light were the headlights shining into a thicket of trees and the dim glowing of a few of the gauges in the dashboard. Most of the windshield was gone, as was the window on her side, except for a few pieces of glass that clung haphazardly to the frame.

  Rose realized that her body was positioned at a strange angle, almost sideways, actually, and that the passenger’s side of the car was slightly lower than the driver’s side. The ceiling was lower, too—she could feel the hair atop her head brushing against it as she moved. She tried to reach up and touch her face, but the pain that shot through her left arm when she moved was excruciating.

  It was all coming back now—Andy’s surprise visit to Mill River, picking him up outside the train station, stopping for roses before they left Rutland. Rose turned her head toward the passenger’s seat.

  “Andy?” She squinted, but she could only make out the silhouette of the back of Andy’s head resting against the passenger’s side door. His face was obscured by the large bouquet of flowers he’d been holding.

  “Andy?” Rose asked again. She turned slightly in her seat, which brought a new stab of pain in her midsection. Carefully, she stretched out her right hand to touch Andy’s arm. Using what little strength she had, she grabbed his shoulder and tried to rouse him, but he didn’t respond.

  “Oh, my God. Oh, my God.” Rose fought against a rising panic. Flashes of memory began to invade her mind—the fleeting image of a deer jumping out in front of the car, a desperate jerk of the steering wheel, the sensation of being airborne, of crashing and rolling down, down, and then nothing. She leaned her shoulder against her door and reached her right arm across her body to pull on the handle as best she could, but it wouldn’t open.

  “Help,” she whispered as tears slid down her face. Her voice was raspy and barely audible. “Help me, help us, please,” she managed to say a little louder. She could hear the occasional car drive past on the highway, but the drone of the engine always faded away as quickly as it approached.

  Andy was still and silent beside her.

  “Andy!” Rose said. Ignoring the pain, she reached out again. “Andy, can you hear me? Please wake up.” Her fingers found Andy’s forearm, then his wrist. There was no pulse, only quiet, unmoving warmth.

  Rose struggled to keep her eyes open. She didn’t know what time it was or how long she had been in the car, but the pain in her abdomen was worsening, and it hurt to breathe. At some point, she opened her eyes and stared at the trees through the broken windshield. They had begun to give off alternating bursts of red and blue light. How strange, she thought before her eyes closed again.

  EMILY SAT AT HER MOTHER’S DINING ROOM TABLE. HER AUNT IVY sat beside her, while her mother paced nervously in the kitchen. The lasagna for their dinner remained on the stovetop, cooled and uneaten. It was after nine o’clock, and Rose still hadn’t returned with Andy.

  “Something’s wrong. They must’ve had car trouble, a flat tire or something,” Josie said as she swept back into the dining room. “Ivy, do you think we should go for a drive to see if we—”

  She was interrupted by the doorbell.

  “Oh, finally!” Josie said, and Emily breathed a sigh of relief. She turned toward the door as her mother rushed to open it, but she was surprised to see Ruth Fitzgerald step into the foyer, followed by her husband, who was wearing his police uniform.

  “What is it? What happened?” Josie asked immediately, and Emily and Ivy both came to stand with her.

  “Jo, there’s been an accident,” Ruth said. “Fitz was out on patrol and found your car down an embankment off Route 103.”

  “Rose—” her mother said, but Ruth immediately grabbed her
hands and interrupted her.

  “Now, you listen. Rose has been hurt, but she’s alive and already on her way to the emergency room. We came to drive you to the hospital. Get your coat.”

  “What about Andy?” Emily asked. “Rose went to pick him up. Was there someone in the car with her?” She looked back and forth between Ruth and Fitz’s faces as she started to tremble. “Was there?”

  Emily shuddered as Ruth’s face crumpled and Fitz cleared his throat. “He was there, Emily,” Fitz said in a quiet, gruff voice. “I’m so sorry to have to tell you this, but he didn’t make it. The paramedics tried to revive him at the scene, but he was already gone by the time we found the car.”

  Emily felt her legs give way as hands reached out to steady her.

  The rest of the night became a surreal jumble of tears and hugs and hushed conversations. They gathered in the hospital waiting room, praying and hoping that Rose would pull through. A surgeon finally appeared to give them an update shortly after two in the morning.

  “Your daughter is out of surgery,” he said as he looked her mother in the eye. “She had a ruptured spleen, which caused quite a bit of internal bleeding, but we were able to get it under control. She also has a concussion, a broken arm, and three broken ribs, as well as some superficial cuts and bruises. It’ll take her a while to heal, but we think she’ll pull through. She was very lucky the police found her when they did.”

  “Oh, thank God, and thank you, Doctor,” Josie said. “When can we see her?”

  “She’s in the recovery room now, and she’ll be moved to the ICU as soon as she’s fully awake from the anesthesia, probably within an hour or two. You’ll be able to visit her there, but only for a few minutes at a time. I’ll have a nurse alert you as soon as she’s been moved.”

  Exhausted, Emily sank into a chair. The relief she felt at hearing Rose would survive was overpowered by the raw grief of knowing that Andy was gone. She didn’t know what to do. She couldn’t imagine her life without him.

  “Emily?” A familiar voice startled her, and she looked up to see that an older couple with tear-streaked faces had entered the waiting room. Her brain slowly processed their identities. They were Mike and Melissa Coulter—Andy’s father and mother. She’d met them before, over the New Year’s holiday right after Andy had come to Mill River to meet her own family. Emily stood up and fell into a joint embrace with both of them.

  “We’ve just come from the morgue,” Mike whispered. “We got in the car and drove up here as soon as we got a call about the accident, but he … we had to identify him for the authorities.”

  “They told us about your sister, that she was here,” Melissa said, “and we wanted to come see if she was all right.”

  “She’s had surgery,” Emily managed to say, “but the doctor thinks she’ll be okay.”

  “Thank goodness for that,” Melissa said. “That’s wonderful news, a real blessing,” and Andy’s father nodded in agreement.

  “I’m so sorry. I don’t know how this happened,” Emily said. “I didn’t even know Andy was coming up here to see me.”

  Melissa looked up at her husband as tears fell freely from her eyes. Mike nodded again and lifted a small paper bag. With an unsteady hand, Andy’s mother reached into the bag and removed a small, velvet box.

  Emily felt an arm slide around her waist, and she turned to see her own mother standing beside her. Ivy came up on her other side, but neither said anything as they waited for Andy’s mother to speak.

  “They gave us … his personal things,” she told them as she looked at the bag and choked back a sob. “His wallet and keys and such. This was in his coat pocket … the reason he was coming to surprise you. We think you should have it. Andy would have wanted you to have it.”

  Melissa pressed the box into her hand.

  Emily looked down, afraid to lift the lid and already suspecting what it contained, but Andy’s parents were still standing before her, waiting. She grasped the top of the box and gently pried it open. Before new tears completely obscured her vision, she caught a glimpse of a stunning diamond engagement ring shining against the velvet.

  EMILY STOOD ON THE SECOND-FLOOR LANDING, WATCHING AS Rose leaned on their mother’s arm as they made their way slowly up the stairs. It had been two weeks since the accident and a week since she’d traveled to Rhode Island for Andy’s funeral, and now her sister had finally been discharged from the hospital.

  Rose walked with halting steps into the bedroom they’d once shared and exhaled as she lowered herself onto her old bed. There was a cast on her left arm and a healing gash that ran from her eyebrow down the left side of her face. She looked thin and pale, and she still couldn’t stand, sit, or lie down without wincing.

  “Do you want anything to eat?” Josie asked. “I could make you a sandwich or some soup.”

  “No, nothing right now, Mom,” Rose said. “I just want to rest.”

  “How about a soda or just some ice water? You need to keep your fluid levels up,” Josie said.

  Rose sighed. “Fine, you could bring me a Coke.”

  “Good. I’ll be right back,” she said. “Em, why don’t you help her get changed into something more comfortable?”

  “Sure, Mom,” Emily said. As Rose reclined against a wall of pillows their mother had arranged on the bed, Emily went to Rose’s suitcase and unzipped it.

  “There should be a clean set of pajamas in there, gray, with pink flowers,” Rose said with her eyes closed.

  Emily spotted the pajamas folded under a few other pieces of clothing. As she pulled them out, she saw a small glass bottle protruding from the clothes stacked beneath the pajamas, and she removed it as well.

  “What’s this?” Emily asked, holding up the half-empty bottle of rum.

  As Rose ignored her question and lay against the pillows, Emily couldn’t help but remember the image of Andy’s body resting in his satin-lined coffin. It was the thing about going to his funeral that she had dreaded most—although the shock of being introduced to other mourners by Andy’s parents as his fiancée had been equally difficult—because she knew it would be her last time seeing him. That memory would be seared into her mind forever.

  The funeral home staff had managed to make him look presentable, but there had still been subtle clues to the massive head trauma Andy had suffered during the crash. His hair hadn’t quite looked right, as it had been styled to hide the swelling. And, the pancake makeup on his face had been applied in a thick layer, no doubt to hide bruising. Being restrained by his seat belt hadn’t protected Andy when the car had rolled and crushed the roof.

  For days while Rose had been in the hospital, she had drifted through the hours, crying, sleeping when she could, waking suddenly from nightmares and unrelenting anxiety. It hadn’t helped to hear her sister’s semiconscious vocalizations, most of which alternated between screams of “No! No!” and pleas for forgiveness. When her condition had stabilized, Rose had explained to all of them what had happened, or at least, what she claimed to remember, but Emily was still left with a desperate craving to know more about Andy’s last moments on earth.

  She also had one question in particular for her sister. It was a question that she had asked herself and dreaded asking her sister, a question to which she knew the answer even as she tried to convince herself that she was wrong. She’d been hesitant to have any sort of lengthy conversation with Rose while she’d been in the hospital, but now that Rose was home and on the mend, she had time and opportunity.

  “Rose?” Emily asked. She sat down on the edge of Rose’s bed, and her sister opened her eyes and looked at her. “I know you told us what happened earlier, but … I’m having a really hard time.” Emily’s voice became raspy with emotion. “Is there anything else, about the accident … or Andy …?”

  Rose sighed. “I told you everything,” she said. “We stopped at Hawley’s before leaving Rutland, and we were on 103 heading down to Mill River. We were just making small talk. I didn’t reall
y know him that well, you know, but he was super-excited about what he had planned. A deer ran out in front us, and it was there before I could slow down or anything. I swerved to try to avoid hitting it, and the last thing I remember was the car going over the guardrail.” Rose’s voice was trembling as she finished the summary. “Em, I don’t know what else to say. I’m so sorry. So sorry.” She was crying now, and her gaze shifted to the rum bottle that Emily still held in her hands.

  Emily squinted at Rose through her own tears. “I need to ask you something else, and I need you to tell me the truth,” Emily said. “You were taking a nap that day, before Mom asked you to go get Andy. Had you been drinking?”

  “No, I wasn’t driving drunk that day. They tested my blood alcohol level in the hospital, you know. It was perfectly normal.”

  “Alcohol clears from the bloodstream over time. You weren’t found right away, not for a couple hours after you left here. What I asked you was whether you’d been drinking before you left the house.”

  Rose opened her mouth and closed it, and Emily cut her off before she could utter the lie that her expression foretold.

  “Do you realize that if you’d been sober, you might have handled the car differently, maybe kept control of it, and that Andy might still be here with me?” Emily wrapped her arms around herself. She could feel her emotions slipping and spiraling out of control.

  “My blood alcohol was normal,” Rose argued. “It’s proof that I was fine to drive. It was just a fucking horrible accident, all right?”

  Emily put her hands on her forehead and slid them up over her hair. “You’re lying. To me, your sister. Can’t you even tell me the truth? God, I don’t know how I didn’t see it before, what you really are,” she said, shaking her head. “I’ve always been there for you, always. Covered for you while you were out running wild, read your sorry letters, listened to you slobber on the phone, and tried to support you while you made one stupid decision after the next. Would you have done the same for me? I can’t imagine it. And now, you don’t even have the decency to admit what really happened. I’m the one you’re supposed to be closer to than anyone, but you can’t even be honest with me.” She wiped her eyes. “Do you remember what you told me that day you left home? I do. You said that even though we’d be living apart, nothing would come between us. Well, you know what? That was complete bullshit.” Sobbing, she threw the half-empty rum bottle against the wall.