Promises to Keep

by Susan Crandall

  “An accident. Messed up his knee and took him out of the field. Then he fell in lo-ove—” Molly batted her eyelashes and gave the word as much prepubescent drawl she could muster. “Now he lives in Mississippi with a wife, a brother-in-law and the biggest bloodhound you’ve ever seen.”

  “You sound like you don’t believe in lo-ove.”

  “My current circumstance makes my belief in love a moot point.”

  He glanced at the baby he was carrying; he obviously understood her comment. “No love . . . before?”

  She gave an exaggerated huff. “I thought we covered that territory already. My stand remains the same: None of your business.”

  He looked apologetic. “Sorry. Male curiosity.”

  “You want to know if I fall into bed with just anyone? Scouting out your chances?” she said with a flippancy she didn’t feel.

  He appeared aghast. “Damn, woman, I said I was sorry. I’m just trying to make conversation.” Then he added, “And we were talking about love, not sex.”

  She raised her hands in the air. “I guess I’m overly sensitive tonight—people around here aren’t used to my . . . situation, yet.”

  Realization shone in his eyes. “Not quite like Boston.”

  “That was the whole reason I moved. I just forgot some things about small towns.”

  He smiled. “You’re one of theirs. They’ll forgive you.” Then he directed his attention back to the plaques. “Let’s see here . . . I’ll bet this is the one with your name: ‘Valedictorian.’” He read down the list. “Bingo!”

  “Enough of that.” Molly nudged him forward with a mingling of pride and embarrassment in her chest.

  When they stepped outside into the dark evening, it was raining. Molly threw a protective blanket over Nicholas. “My car’s just over there.” She pointed to the first row in the lot.

  They trotted side by side to the Jetta, standing water in the parking lot splashing knee-high with every step. She opened the back door for him to put Nicholas in.

  He ducked inside, then she heard his muffled voice say, “How in the heck does this thing work?”

  She ran around to the other side and opened the back door. Kneeling on the seat, she fastened the baby securely in place. “There. Looks more complicated than it is.” She leaned over, pulled away the damp blanket and gave Nicholas a noisy smooch on his cheek. “Sweet boy. Didn’t get wet at all, did you?”

  Then she asked, “Where’s your car parked? I can drive you to it.”

  He looked a little sheepish in the light from the dome of the car. “It’s on the square.”

  She gave a disbelieving tilt of her head. “The square?”

  “I wanted to get a feel for the neighborhoods, so I parked there and walked. I didn’t know it was going to rain.”

  “You’d better get in then. You’ll be drowned by the time you get to the square.”

  “I should be a macho man and decline,” he said, throwing her words back at her with a grin, “but I hate wet socks. So. . . .” He got out of the back and climbed in the front passenger seat.

  As soon as the car doors were closed, the windows began to fog over. Molly started the car and turned the heat up and the defroster on. “This kind of weather makes me want hot apple cider.”

  Dean nodded with a boyish grin on his face. “My mom made the best hot cider. It was Grandma’s recipe, she had an orchard upstate.” Then he added with a hint of mystery in his voice, “It uses a very important secret ingredient.”

  “Ooh, what is it?”

  He looked shocked that she would ask. “It’s secret.”

  She chuckled, “You don’t even know yourself.”

  “Oh, but I do.” After a second, he said, in a voice filled with reminiscence, “I haven’t had hot cider for years.” He made a little smacking sound with his lips. “Tell you what, if you go by the grocery store, I’ll buy the stuff and make it for us.”

  Before she even thought about it, she said, “And I’ll make oatmeal cookies.” She nearly moaned, “Hot cider and oatmeal cookies.”

  “Deal. But you can’t go into the store with me, that’d give away the secret ingredient. If you need anything for the cookies, I’ll get it.”

  It sounded like so much fun that Molly refused to let her usual pragmatism interfere. “Deal.”

  The windshield was finally clear. She turned on the wipers, put the car in drive and headed out of the lot. It was one of those gloomy fall nights that gobbled up headlight beams and made roads unpredictably slick. The rain was knocking the few remaining leaves off the trees. They fell limply through the light of the streetlamps into dark puddles, making it seem that much colder outside. She shivered and could almost taste the cider already.

  Molly said, “We’ll swing by the grocery first, that way I can let you off at the door. Then we’ll get your car.” She cast a glance at him; he had a strong jaw, and lean cheeks that looked even leaner in the odd light coming through the rain-streaked glass. He was an easy man to look at.

  She said, “I should warn you, I don’t have any furniture. I have a big empty fireplace and no logs. It’ll just be you, me and the kitchen table.”

  “What more do we need?” Then he asked, “You do have a stove?”

  She laughed. “Yes, it’s not quite that bleak at our house.”

  “Okay, then.”

  The rain increased as they drove toward Kingston’s Market. Molly stopped to let Dean off at the store entrance. When he opened his car door, she thought she heard the same single violin she’d heard the other night.

  From the look on Dean’s face, he heard it too.

  “How can that music carry through the rain?” he asked.

  “Must have to do with the hills.” She had no idea if that was true, but there didn’t seem to be any other explanation for that faint music overriding the pelting rain.

  He held her gaze for a moment. His face was taut with seriousness. “Maybe it’s because it’s not really of this earth,” he said eerily.

  “Oh, shut up and get out of the car.”

  He was laughing as he did.

  He could laugh all he wanted; that music was creeping her out. In her entire childhood, as much as she’d wanted to hear the legendary music, she never had. Now, two days in a row, she’d heard it floating around. Weird.

  Dean emerged a few minutes later with a brown paper bag and a plastic gallon jug of cider. When he opened the car door, Molly listened intently, but didn’t hear any hint of the mystery melody.

  He kept the bag on his lap and set the jug between his feet on the floor of the car. “Prepare those taste buds for a treat.”

  “You’re sounding pretty cocky there, Chef Coletta.”

  “Well, I don’t like to brag. . . .”

  “So I see.” She drove out of the lot and headed back toward the center of town.

  The wind picked up, driving the rain in sheets. The windshield wipers were having a hard time keeping up with the downpour. Molly kept cautiously below the speed limit.

  About halfway to town, an SUV raced up behind her, then swung out, passing her on the left.

  She clucked her tongue. “If I had a dollar for every stitch I put in an SUV owner who thought four-wheel-drive made them invincible, I’d have my student loans paid off.”

  She’d no sooner gotten the words out when the brakelights flared and the SUV swerved, skidding off into a shallow ditch on the right.

  “Watch it!” Dean needlessly shouted.

  She hit the brakes and saw what made the truck swerve in the first place. Her car came to a stop only a handful of yards before the bicycle that lay in the road. An orange triangular flag stuck straight up on its flexible plastic shaft. The front wheel was still spinning, its yellow reflector a racing circle in the headlights.

  She turned on the hazard flashers and jumped out of the car, leaving the driver’s door open. “I have flares in the trunk,” she shouted before she sprinted toward the bicycle.

  Dean was
amazed that her reactions were quicker than his. He was still buckled in his seatbelt and she was out and running. He glanced at the car seat in the back. He didn’t like the idea of leaving this car in the driving lane with the baby in it.

  He looked out the windshield. Molly was on her knees on the left side of the road.

  He quickly got out and ran around to the driver’s seat. He moved the Jetta to the shoulder, then got the flares out of the trunk and put them several yards behind them on the road.

  A man got out of the SUV and ran toward Dean.

  “I didn’t see him! I swear! This rain. . . .”

  Dean shouted, “Did you call for help?”

  “What?” The man appeared dazed, but unhurt.

  “A cell phone! Call nine-one-one!”

  “Yes. My wife’s in the car—she’s calling.”

  Dean looked back at the Jetta with Nicholas sleeping inside, then to Molly ten yards away, moving with frantic desperation beside the bicycler. The bicycler wasn’t moving at all.

  Dean swiped the rain out of his eyes. “Take one of those flares and make sure you flag any car coming this way. We don’t want anyone else run over.”

  “Right,” the man said, then he hurried to the first flare that Dean had set in the road.

  Dean sprinted to Molly with another flare in his hand. He dropped it on the edge of the road beside her.

  “I need some light!” she shouted. “Plastic case in the trunk.”

  He ran back and was relieved the baby wasn’t crying when he opened the car door and checked. He popped the trunk and grabbed the kit. When he reached Molly again, he dropped to one knee and opened the case. Once he found the flashlight, he shone it on the victim’s face. He was surprised when it was a grizzly old man and not a kid. Rain matted his long wiry gray hair where it stuck out from under a knit watch cap. His eyes were closed. His jaw jutted at a grotesque angle. And there was a lot of blood.

  Molly was doing something in his mouth. She didn’t stop when she said, “His leg. Check his leg. I think he has a fracture that broke the skin. I need to know how much he’s bleeding. But don’t touch it without gloves!”

  Dean shifted, ran the light beam down each of the man’s legs. On the right thigh a jagged, bloody bone protruded through the torn pant leg. The grisly sight stole his breath momentarily. He tried to detach himself, to think of it clinically, assess the damage. He moved quickly, his war zone instincts finally up to full speed.

  “It’s a femur fracture. Through the skin. Can’t tell about the blood, too much rain,” he said.

  “Jaw’s broken, I need to keep his airway open,” Molly said. “Put on some gloves. Take the heel of your hand and apply pressure at the top of his broken leg—groin area. Then try to feel with your other hand if warmth is still flooding under his leg.”

  Dean did as she said, all the while unable to vanquish the picture of his own blood puddling on that hotel floor.

  “I don’t know if I’m helping.” He could be missing the artery by a mile for all he knew. When he tried to probe under the man’s leg to feel for a warm flow of blood, the rain and the pavement were so cold, nothing felt warm.

  “Just keep the pressure there. Has anyone called for help?”

  “Yes.”

  Then he heard her curse. “Lost his pulse.” She shouted, “You know CPR?”

  “Yeah.”

  “I need you to do chest compressions. It’s going to take both my hands to keep the airway open.”

  “What about the leg?”

  “Leave it! In the kit, a plastic pouch, hand me the RescueBreather—flat plastic sheet with a valve in it.”

  Dean handed it over, then took his position on the other side of the man ready to give compressions.

  She put on the mouth barrier and gave the man two breaths. Dean felt the chest rise under his waiting palms. Then she counted his compressions.

  With both of his hands occupied, the rain ran unchecked into his eyes. He really couldn’t see, but he was working by feel anyway.

  They’d gone through the breath/compression rotation fourteen times when Dean finally heard a siren.

  “Stop.” Molly checked for a pulse. Just as she had the last two times, she shook her head and they resumed CPR.

  When the paramedics arrived, Dean quickly moved out of the way. He was surprised when Molly did too. She removed the resuscitation barrier, identified herself as a doctor and shouted some medical jargon at them as she stepped back. Then she looked at the blood on her hands—her ungloved hands.

  At that moment, the magnitude of what she’d just done struck Dean. It hit him in the pit of his rolling stomach. In this age of biohazards and latex gloves, Molly had opened a man’s airway with no protection. The guy looked like a bum—who knew what diseases he was carrying? Molly could see it just as easily as Dean had. Still, she hadn’t hesitated when she saw what needed to be done. Her selflessness awed him. But it also made him afraid for her.

  He watched the properly protected paramedics go to work. He stepped closer to Molly. “Aren’t you more qualified than them?”

  She shook her head. “Not for trauma at a scene like this. I usually have more help . . . more equipment.” She stared with her arms crossed over her stomach as the trauma team worked.

  After a moment, she reached into the paramedic’s kit and pulled out a bottle. Dean watched as she squirted a solution over her hands and rubbed them vigorously together. Then she looked at him.

  He held up his still gloved hands. Then he removed the gloves, tossing them next to the medics for proper disposal.

  Two county sheriff’s cars arrived with lights and sirens. Molly didn’t take her eyes away from the rescuers working on the man.

  Dean went over to talk to the police and check on the baby, who by some miracle was still sleeping.

  When he returned he asked, “Why aren’t they loading him up and getting him to a hospital?”

  “They have to get him stabilized enough to move him.”

  Suddenly, the feet of the man on the ground started thumping against the ground, even the one at the end of the horribly broken leg.

  Molly leaned forward, ready to shout something, when one of the paramedics injected something into the man. She backed up. Whatever it was seemed to stop the seizure.

  Dean put an arm around her shoulder.

  She turned toward him. “He’s not going to make it.” There was true regret in her eyes.

  As Dean looked at her face, he saw a dark streak of blood mixed with the rain. He unbuttoned his soaked shirt and took the tail to wipe her cheeks. She stood there like a child in the rain and let him do it. Last he gently dabbed her lips.

  “That’s it!”

  Molly jumped at the paramedic’s words.

  The rescuer sat back on his haunches. He looked at Molly. “He’s gone.”

  She stood stiffly for a moment, her head bobbing slightly in affirmation. Then she closed her eyes. For a second Dean thought she was going to topple over, he put his hands on her shoulders. She let out a long quivering breath, then opened her eyes and said, “Dammit.”

  Then she leaned into him for a moment. His arms went around her as the rain continued to drench them. He pressed his lips against her wet hair and she trembled slightly.

  Suddenly, her head snapped up. “Nicholas!” She broke free and sprinted to the car.

  Dean was right behind her. “I’ve been checking on him.”

  Molly yanked open the back door and climbed next to the baby. Now she was shaking violently. “I can’t believe I did that—I just left him.”

  “You left him with me,” Dean said.

  She didn’t seem to hear. The self-incriminating look on her wet face appeared even more heartbreaking in the garish parade of blue and red lights that pulsed across it. Her hand hovered over the baby’s sleeping head, a touchless caress. She was careful not to let water from her saturated coat sleeve drip on him.

  Dean stood in the rain beside the open door
for a minute, watching her.

  Then she looked at Dean. “Will you drive?”

  He closed the door, then made sure the police had all of the contact information they needed. One of the deputies told Dean they couldn’t leave the scene yet.

  “That woman just put herself at risk trying to save that man.” Dean pointed to the Jetta. “She’s drenched and freezing and has a baby in the car. I’m taking her home. You know where to find her if you need anything else.”

  He didn’t wait for a rebuttal.

  Mickey looked at her watch. It was going on thirty minutes since her mother had promised for the fourth time that she’d be right there. The crowd was thinning. The volunteers were beginning the clean up. Mom was back to talking to Mr. Mitchell again. Drew had long since left with his crew for a night of sneaking beer in the Boswells’ basement.

  There was no sense in prodding her mother again, that would just lead to a lecture once they got home about how Mickey had no social skills, and how utterly embarrassed her mother had been over Mickey’s rudeness. If it weren’t raining cats and dogs outside, she’d just walk home. It would be great to have a car of her own. She was saving her babysitting money, but she knew it’d probably never go for a car. College tuition was going to be much more important; the car would only offer short escapes, college would be the real thing.

  As long as she was going to be stuck here while her mother exercised her social skills, Mickey decided she might as well make herself useful. She started helping stack unused chairs so the floor could be mopped. Riley was doing the same thing, but on the other side of the cafeteria. With the room between them, Mickey felt she should be fairly safe from catching another dose of the cold shoulder. But it was hard not to look at him. She missed their friendship—it had actually been better before she met him, then she hadn’t known what she was missing.

  Why did guys have to be such jerks?

  Riley, of course, hadn’t cast a single glance her way, even when she started stacking chairs. He did, however, make plenty of eye contact with Codi Craig, who had perched herself, legs crossed, on the table where the cash had been taken. She swung her foot and leaned back on one arm, giving everyone a better view of her navel ring—which was forbidden to see the light of day during school hours. Apparently the principal, Mrs. Beaver, didn’t have the authority to enforce the dress code at a public dinner.