by Darcie Chan
Before that, his mother had been more normal. She’d usually been up and cheerful when he arrived home from school, eagerly asking him about his day. Back then, she cracked jokes and hosted a ladies’ book club and sometimes even cooked him dinner herself.
What if I find the key? It would fix everything, he thought. We could all go back to New York together when Dad gets here, and Mom would become her old self again.
As he stood looking down at her, wishing that she would suddenly wake up and come outside with him, another, more unpleasant, thought found its way through his disappointment. What if I’m wrong? If he succeeded in getting her up and the key wasn’t in the tree, she’d be angry and disappointed. No, he decided, it’s better to look for it by myself. Quickly, he slipped out the back door and over to the large oak. His aunt’s car wasn’t parked along the curb, so he really was on his own.
For a few minutes, he circled the trunk, looking it up and down as far as he could see, but there was no knothole in view. He thought for a moment and then went back inside his house. When he came out, he carried the binoculars his aunt had given him. Again, he walked around the base of the tree, this time stepping back so that he could inspect the higher parts of the trunk through his binoculars. He stopped just before he walked into the tire swing, but avoiding a collision wasn’t the reason for his sudden halt.
He had spotted a small, dark knothole perhaps five feet above the branch supporting the swing.
“Help you obtain it,” Alex mused.
What did he need to obtain the key, if it was in the knothole? Alex lowered the binoculars and looked past the tree toward his aunt Emily’s garage. There was a ladder in there, the one she’d used to put up the tire swing. And, a ladder was something that he and his mother hadn’t found in their own house. He walked over to his aunt’s garage. The overhead door was down and closed, but there was a small door into the garage on the side. He reached for the doorknob and turned it.
The door opened.
The aluminum ladder was resting against a wall. It was heavier than he thought it would be, but he was able to tip it sideways against his body and drag it through the door. Once he had it beneath the oak, he laid it in the grass and tried to pull the rails apart. The joints in the spreaders were stiff, though, and only by pushing against them with his foot was he able to straighten them.
With the ladder now opened all the way, he grabbed one side of it and pulled it upright. Next, he dragged the ladder so that it was positioned under the limb supporting the tire swing and far enough from the tree’s trunk and roots to be on even ground. Alex leaned some of his weight against the ladder to test its steadiness, and he smiled when it remained firmly in place. Finally, he removed the binoculars from around his neck, left them propped against the base of the tree trunk, and began to climb.
Alex had never been up on a ladder before, and he found his heart beating faster and faster with each step he left behind. The limb was a few feet above the cap of the ladder. He would have to step on the top step, and then on the cap, the very top of the ladder, to climb onto it, but from his current height, he could already touch the limb and use it to steady himself as he ascended. Carefully, he stretched his hands out to the limb and placed one foot on the top step. On the count of three, he stepped up, on the top step and then cap, before quickly swinging a leg up and over the limb.
Once astride it, Alex paused to catch his breath and think through his next move. He would have to stand up on the limb in order to reach the knothole. Facing the tree trunk, he scooted forward until it was less than an arm’s length from his body. With his hands gripping the limb and trying not to look down, he brought one knee up onto the limb and then the other. Slowly, he reached out to the trunk for balance, put one leg in front of him with his foot flat on the limb, and raised himself into a standing position.
It was an amazing feeling, balancing untethered on his perch. He had never been up so high without being inside a building or a structure of some kind. His senses were heightened. He could see clear up and down the street. His ears could pinpoint the location of cicadas in the branches above him, and with the energy coursing through his body, it seemed as if he could almost leap onto the rooftops of the houses in the neighborhood. But, he reminded himself, he had gotten up here to do something much more important.
Now, the knothole was just above his head. He couldn’t quite see into it, but he could easily get a hand in. Alex took a deep breath and reached into the hole.
His fingertips felt the hard, prickly tips of twigs, the brittle edges of dried leaves, and then something softer. He closed his hand around the softness and pulled out a small tuft of fur. He startled and fell against the trunk, thinking at first that he’d grabbed some living thing, and the fur slipped from his hand and landed silently on the grass below. Did I stick my hand in a squirrel’s nest?
Alex stood still for a few minutes to calm himself. Hoping whatever had made its home in the hole wasn’t still in there, he reached in again. This time, he felt something smooth with a distinct edge. A Ziploc bag, he thought, as he carefully grasped it and lifted it from the knothole.
It was a sandwich-size plastic bag. As he held it up before his eyes, he was almost afraid to believe what he was seeing. Inside the clear plastic was a gold locket—the one he remembered his grandmother always wearing—with a small silver key also strung on the chain.
“Yeeeaaaah!” he yelled, but the sound of his joy was muted by the rush of oak leaves building to a crescendo in a burst of summer wind. For just a moment, he was on the Wonder Wheel again, flying with his mother on top of the world.
Although he was giddy with excitement and eager to show her what he’d found, Alex realized that he had to be careful about climbing down. He would need both hands to get back on the ladder, but he was wearing a T-shirt and knit shorts, neither of which had a pocket. He thought about dropping the locket and key down to the lawn, but he couldn’t bring himself to let go of them. Carefully, he sat back down to straddle the limb and removed the necklace from the Baggie. The chain was just long enough that he could slip it over his head.
Now that the key was safe, he released the plastic bag into the breeze and scooted backward on the limb until he could see the top of the ladder. For some reason, it seemed to be much further below the limb than it had on the way up. Alex leaned forward until the front of his shirt touched bark. Slowly, keeping most of his weight on his stomach, he slid his left leg back over the limb and allowed his right leg to drop down until he felt his toe make contact with the ladder.
With the ball of his foot squarely on the cap of the ladder, he raised himself from the limb and transferred his weight to it. So far, so good, he thought. Next, he tried to bring his left leg back over the limb and down, but the rubber-soled heel of his tennis shoe caught on the bark. That slight hitch was enough to throw him off balance. He lurched backward and felt the ladder tip, felt himself falling backward. He clutched at the limb, scratching the bark with his fingernails. The hands that sought something, anything to grab on to closed around nothing at all.
CARRYING THE BASKET SHE’D ASSEMBLED FOR ROSE, DAISY trudged along toward Maple Street. It had turned out to be heavier than she’d expected, especially now that she’d been lugging it for several blocks. When she reached the corner outside the bakery-café, she stopped, setting down the basket and thinking how thankful she was for the occasional breeze that cooled her face and tousled her hair.
“Daisy? Do you need help?”
Claudia Simon came up beside her and pointed down at the basket. “That looks heavy. Let me give you a hand.”
“Oh, Miss Claudia, would you? I’m just taking it around the block, up to Miss Rose’s house, but it’s harder than I thought it’d be.”
“No problem. I was just on my way to Ruth’s to get coffee, but I can easily swing by after we drop this off.” Claudia took one side of the basket’s handle, and Daisy grabbed the other. “So, what’s this for? Is it a gift?”
“Sort of. It’s to apologize, for what happened at her mother’s wake. I … I spilled her mother’s ashes.” She looked down at her shoes, watching as her feet moved over the concrete squares of the sidewalk.
“Oh, right. I heard what happened. But Daisy, it was an accident. Surely Rose understands that. And, I’ve also heard that Rose has a terrible temper. Maybe it’s not such a good idea for you to approach her again.”
Daisy shook her head. “I know Miss Rose is still pretty angry with me, but what happened is my fault. To tell you the truth, Miss Claudia, I don’t think she wants to forgive me. I don’t think she likes me very much. But, I feel bad about what happened, and I’m going to try one more time to make up for it. If this doesn’t work, I’ll at least be happy that I tried my best, and I won’t worry anymore about what she thinks of me.”
“That’s very wise, Daisy.” Daisy looked at Claudia and was surprised to see the corners of her mouth turned up in a wistful smile. “I wish I didn’t worry so much about what people think about me. Certain people, anyway.”
“You just have to learn to be happy with yourself, Miss Claudia. I’m a little different than most people. You know, with the way I can make potions and such. It took me a long time to accept that, and to realize that if you love yourself just the way you are, what other people think of you doesn’t matter much. And now, I’m happy most of the time.” Daisy grinned as they rounded the corner onto Rose’s block.
When she and Claudia first spotted an overturned ladder beneath the oak tree in front of the DiSanti sisters’ houses, Daisy thought nothing of it. As they came closer, though, she saw the form of a boy splayed out along one side of it. He was lying on his back with a leg bent beneath his body. His face was turned away from her, but she could see a pair of glasses resting on his cheek, still hooked behind one of his ears.
It was Miss Rose’s son, Alex.
Daisy and Claudia dropped the basket on the sidewalk and ran to him. While Claudia felt for a pulse and checked to see whether he was breathing, Daisy touched the little boy’s cheek, then his shoulder, but she didn’t know whether they were strong enough to move him or if they should even try.
“Alex?” Daisy said as a feeling of panic rose up into her throat, but the boy remained motionless.
“He’s alive,” Claudia said, “but we need to get help, and I don’t have my phone with me.”
Daisy stood up and looked around. Emily’s house was quiet and her car was gone, but Rose’s black BMW was parked along the curb. She raced to her front door.
“Miss Rose! Miss Rose!” she screamed. She rang the doorbell and pounded on the front door as hard as she could. “Miss Rose, come quick, it’s Alex! He’s hurt, Miss Rose!”
When the door finally opened, Rose looked as if she had been sound asleep. “What?” she snapped. “What do you mean, Alex is hurt?”
“He’s on the ground over there,” Daisy said as she pointed. “There, under the tree. Miss Claudia and I found him lying there—” she started to say, but Rose pushed past her and ran toward the oak.
“Alex? Oh, God, Alex!” She knelt down by her son, touching his face, his hair. “Baby, wake up. Wake up, Alex.” Suddenly, her head snapped up. “Call an ambulance!” she yelled. “Get over to Ivy’s and call 9-1-1!”
Daisy nodded and took off again. She reached the front porch of The Bookstop just as Ivy and Father O’Brien were coming outside.
“We need … ambulance,” she gasped, breathing heavily. “Miss Rose’s little boy … under the tree.”
Father O’Brien took one look at her and then glanced across the street to where Claudia and Rose were on their knees in the grass. “Go to them,” he said to her and Ivy. “I’ll call for help.”
IN THE HUGE CENTRAL ROOM OF THE MCALLISTER MANSION, Emily was working on refinishing the wood floors. All the furniture and carpets had been moved into the adjacent rooms, leaving only a vast open space. She’d rented a power sander and was just about done with a first pass over the floor. She still had to finish the edges of the room and buff and vacuum the bare wood, but she planned to start on those steps in the morning.
Emily switched off the sander and was surprised to hear a siren. She went to the window and looked down just in time to see an ambulance coming up Main Street. Sirens were rare in Mill River. Her heart rose into her throat as she watched the ambulance turn from Main Street and drive a few blocks before turning again, this time onto Maple Street. She gathered up her things and ran outside. The ambulance had slowed by The Bookstop, and she was terrified it had been called for Ivy.
As her own hatchback was finally out at Russell’s for much-needed repairs, she had been using Ruth’s car to get to and from the marble mansion. Now, she drove the borrowed car back into town as quickly as she dared. When she turned onto Maple Street herself, she was shocked to see the ambulance, with lights still flashing, parked not outside The Bookstop, but in front of her own house. Her aunt Ivy, Father O’Brien, Claudia Simon, and Daisy, along with a few other people, were clustered on the sidewalk watching a stretcher being loaded into the back. She couldn’t see who was on the stretcher, but her mouth opened in shock as she watched her sister climb in after it. There would be only one reason Rose would voluntarily get into an ambulance.
Alex.
Emily parked the car and jumped out, but the ambulance pulled away before she reached the bystanders. “I saw it coming over here while I was working at the McAllister house. What happened?” she asked as she came up beside her great-aunt.
“Nobody’s sure, but we think Alex fell out of that tree.” Ivy rubbed her eyes, and Emily saw that tears were working their way down the crevices on her face. “Daisy and Claudia happened to be coming by and found him in the grass, unconscious. He still wasn’t awake when they left with him.”
“They’re taking him to Rutland Regional?”
“Probably,” Ivy said. “I know things have been difficult between you and Rose, but she’s totally alone right now. Given the situation, I think we should all go to the hospital, too.”
Father O’Brien nodded his agreement.
Claudia seemed to take this suggestion as her cue to leave. She embraced Emily and Ivy and urged them to call her if there was anything she could do to help.
As Claudia made her way down the sidewalk, Emily watched Ivy talking quietly with Father O’Brien. She was anxious and afraid. Of course she understood that her great-aunt would find his company comforting at a time like this, but she didn’t at all like thinking about a priest in a hospital. Too often, it was an image of last rites and imminent death, and she couldn’t bear the thought of losing her nephew. Still, neither her fear nor her discomfort would stop her from going with them.
“All right,” she said finally. “My car’s in the shop, but if we can take your car, Aunt Ivy, I’ll drive.”
“Actually, if you can drop me by the parish house on the way, I’ll drive separately in my truck,” Father O’Brien said. “It might be better to have more than one vehicle.”
On any other day, Emily might have tried to discourage the elderly priest from getting behind the wheel, but today she only nodded.
“Let me get my keys and purse,” Ivy said. “It’ll just take a minute.” She hurried back across the street.
Daisy was standing, listening to the plans being made and holding a large basket of vegetables and preserves. “I was bringing this to Miss Rose,” she explained as she caught sight of Emily’s curious look. “Miss Claudia was helping me carry it. I wanted to try to apologize one last time.”
“That’s so kind of you, Daisy. Your being here just at the right time probably saved Alex, you know.” Daisy blushed, causing the reddish birthmark that curled up onto her cheek to become a little less noticeable. “I wonder if you’d be willing to do me a huge favor? I haven’t fed Gus or taken him for his evening walk yet, and I have no idea how long I’ll be at the hospital. Could you take care of Gus for me until I’m back?”
“Oh
, Miss Emily, I’d be happy to.” Daisy’s teary eyes lit up. “He could even stay with me. I just know Smudgie would love to have company, too!”
Emily ran into her house. She threw a few cans of dog food into a plastic grocery sack, put Gus on his leash, and hurried back outside. “Here he is,” she said as she handed the food and leash to Daisy. Gus wagged his tail and whined, eager for attention.
“Don’t you worry, Miss Emily. I’ll take good care of him for as long as you need me to. It’ll be like a doggie daycare!” Daisy reached out to stroke his head. “I hope little Alex is okay,” she added.
“Me too, Daisy, and thank you again, so much,” Emily said, just as Ivy came huffing across the street with her purse on her arm. “After we drop off Father O’Brien, we’ll give you and Gus a ride to your place so you don’t have to lug that basket all the way back.”
On the short drive to Rutland, she didn’t say much, preferring to remain silent while Ivy wondered aloud what had possessed Alex to climb up into the oak tree. Emily was terrified for her nephew and plagued by a sense of déjà vu as they approached the hospital. It was the same feeling of dread she’d had when Andy had died and Rose had been the one who was hurt. Just as it did back then, the drive seemed to take forever, as if time were moving backward in an attempt to shield them from the agony ahead.
At the hospital, they walked together into the emergency entrance and then the waiting room, the place where her world had fallen apart so long ago. As she looked at the rows of identical chairs, the dull industrial carpeting, and the stacks of worn magazines, Emily struggled to push away the memories that came flooding back. Now isn’t the time, she told herself. We’re here for Alex. You need to stay positive for him.
