One Breath Away

by Heather Gudenkauf

  “Will, your daughter has just been in a horrible accident. Do you think she is really going to give a rat’s ass whether or not she’s spoken to you in the past fifteen years?” Will raised his eyebrows in surprise. Marlys rarely cursed. “No, she will not. She will just be so happy to know that her father cared enough to come to her in her time of need.”

  Will knew Marlys was right. In all honesty, he wanted to go and see Holly but was afraid of what he might find when he got there. Burns were terrible things. When he was stationed in Vietnam he had seen the charred remains of the Vietcong’s rampages on villages. The burned homes, the smoking corpses and, worse, the townspeople who did not die in the fires, the survivors who begged to be relieved of their pain. Will didn’t want to think about his only daughter enduring that kind of agony.

  “You haven’t seen Todd around here, have you?” Will asked Verna as he came to her side.

  She shook her head no. “What in the world is going on in there?”

  “Don’t know, but as soon as I can get to Chief McKinney I’m going to find out,” Will assured her.

  “How’s Holly doing?” Verna asked, not taking her eyes off the entrance of the school.

  “Same,” Will responded. He found this a safe answer that didn’t invite further questions. He didn’t have the energy to go into detail about Holly’s infections and treatments this morning. He just wanted to get his grandchildren out of the school and safely back to the farm. Then this evening they could call their mother and tell her of their adventure. He could imagine P.J.’s excitement, his words tumbling out so quickly that he would be hard to understand, and Augie would try to be so cool and nonchalant. “No big deal,” she would say.

  “Will, have you seen Ray around here?” Verna asked casually, but there was something in her voice that caused Will to look carefully at her face.

  “No, I haven’t seen Ray in weeks. Why, is there something wrong?”

  “You know that Darlene and Ray are separated?” Verna rubbed her gloved hands up and down her arms, trying to warm them. Darlene Cragg was Verna’s daughter. Her grandchildren, Beth and Natalie, were in the same classes as Augie and P.J.

  “Yeah, Jim mentioned it last time I saw him. How’s Darlene doing?” Will leaned forward on his toes, trying to see over the head of a man standing in front of him.

  “You’d think that she’d be doing much better now that she is out of that house.” Verna made an impatient noise with her tongue and shook her head. “But Ray is just making her life miserable. Doesn’t give her a moment’s peace and quiet. Always is calling her. One minute begging her to come back home to him, next minute cursing her out, saying he’s going get the girls from her if it’s the last thing he ever does.”

  Will looked around to see if anyone was listening to their conversation but everyone was focused on the school and Chief McKinney, who looked like he was about ready to give the crowd a tongue lashing. He bent his head close to Verna’s and whispered, “You thinking that Ray might have something to do with this?”

  “I don’t know. He is capable of terrible things.” Verna’s lower lip trembled and Will rocked back and forth on his heels in discomfort. He wished that Marlys was here to bolster her old friend. He had no words, encouraging or otherwise, to offer.

  “Looks like Chief McKinney is trying to come this way,” Will observed, glad for the diversion. “You really should tell him of your concerns about Ray.”

  Verna sniffed and passed a gloved hand over her eyes. “Looks like the chief has his hands full with the vigilantes over there.” Verna nodded toward the Vinson brothers and three others who felt the need to arm themselves. “Idiots,” Verna huffed under her breath. Again Will thought about the shotgun sitting on the front seat of his truck and, despite the cold wind, felt his face warm with self-reproach.

  Chapter 30:

  Meg

  “Meg, you and Aaron get started on the lockdown procedural list and I’ll take care of these yahoos.” He tilts his head toward the group of five or so armed farmers who now edge the police barrier.

  “Got it,” I say, already heading back to retrieve the detailed lockdown manual. I probably could get by without it; after the Columbine shootings I studied it until I knew it inside and out and then relearned it after the massacre at the Nickel Mines Amish School in Pennsylvania. Number one: assume command and control of the response. I look over at the chief. He’s giving an earful to the farmers with the shotguns and to the crowd who are all heavily dusted with snow. Check. Number two: control access to the school and designated off-site locations. Not quite. We need to get everyone who doesn’t need to be here off school grounds and to a neutral area that we can set up as the off-site evac location. A place where family members can go and seek information about their children, a spot where their children will be delivered to once they are safely out of the school. I have a feeling that if I don’t hand that job over to someone else very quickly I’ll be the one sitting at Lonnie’s Café, the predetermined off-site evacuation site, fielding questions from desperate parents. No way. I grab the lockdown protocol manual and make my way toward two of my fellow officers who have been called in to assist.

  “Hey, guys,” I say briskly. “The chief wants you, Braun, to head over to Lonnie’s to set up the off-site evac locale, and he wants you—” I look at Kevin Jarrow “—to direct families who show up here to go to Lonnie’s for any information.” They both look at me doubtfully. “Seriously. It’s in the manual.” I shake it at them.

  “What does Chief McKinney have you doing?” Jarrow asks.

  I sigh pathetically. “Media, I think.”

  “Ha!” Eric Braun says, slapping me on the arm. “Have fun with that.” The two leave me feeling better than they did a second ago.

  I spy Aaron attempting to calm a distraught mother who is trying to get past him and to the school. It’s a woman I recognize from Maria’s class. The mother of a little girl named Lucy. I don’t know details, but I know that Lucy is a little bit different from the other kids.

  “You’re Lucy’s mom, aren’t you?” I ask the crying woman.

  “Yes, yes! Do you know something?” She clutches at my jacket. “Is she okay?”

  “We don’t have any reason to believe any of the children are hurt. As we get more information, we’ll get the news to Lonnie’s, which will be the official information center until the kids come out.”

  “I’m not leaving here,” Lucy’s mother cries. “Lucy’s autistic and doesn’t like her schedule to be changed. Don’t you have a daughter in there?”

  I’m hoping my cool behavior will calm her down. “Actually, my daughter is in Lucy’s class. Third grade, Mrs. Oliver,” I add conversationally as I start walking away from the police tape and toward the parking lot. Already the chief has gotten rid of the rogue farmers and Jarrow is ushering the rest of the crowd back to their cars and to Lonnie’s. “See, everyone is heading over to the café. That’s where all updates will be shared. If I could, that’s where I would be heading to.” Lucy’s mom looks unsurely from me to the parking lot.

  “Aren’t you scared?” she asks, staring me straight in the eyes.

  “No,” I lie. “We’ve got this all under control. It will be over before you know it and Lucy will be fine.” I smile convincingly enough that she takes a few more steps toward her car. “Go to Lonnie’s, get some coffee and warm up.” I can feel Aaron’s gaze boring into me and I know that he’s going to skewer me for telling Lucy’s mom that all was well. Before she can leave and before Aaron can lay into me, I begin to jog away, calling out over my shoulder, “Hey, Aaron, here comes the media.” Sure enough, a Channel Three news van slides into the parking lot and a cameraman and a smartly dressed reporter leap out, the woman nearly slipping on the ice and falling on her ass. “The chief specifically asked that you set up the media response center to answer an
y questions.”

  “What?” Aaron asks in confusion.

  “The media. Point 3.3.4 (e) in the manual.” I toss him the booklet. “Thanks, I gotta run.”

  Chapter 31:

  Mrs. Oliver

  P. J. Thwaite is still staring at the gunman. His gaze is penetrating and unwavering. Finally, the man looked up from his phone and looked expectantly at the boy. “What?”

  “Have you ever been to Revelation, Arizona?” P.J. asked, his voice tentative, shaky with nerves.

  “No,” the man said shortly, and walked toward the window spreading the slats of the blinds apart gently so as to peek outside.

  “It’s right near Phoenix.” The man ignored P.J. Mrs. Oliver tried to once again catch P.J.’s eye, but he was determined not to look her way. “Have you ever met a Holly Baker?”

  “I’ve never been to that town, never met a Holly Baker. Sorry,” the man said distractedly.

  P.J. chewed on a fingernail thoughtfully. “You would remember if you saw her, she’s really pretty—”

  The man’s head snapped up. “What are you going on about?” he asked impatiently.

  “P.J., shush now,” Mrs. Oliver said sternly. P.J. glowered down at his desk and the man returned to peering out the window.

  In some ways P.J. reminded Mrs. Oliver of her own daughter, Georgiana. Sweet but headstrong. She wondered what her children were doing just then, what Cal was doing. She wondered if they knew what was happening here at school. Were her children driving through the snowstorm to get to her? She had been her children’s third-grade teacher in this very school. She remembered telling them that they needed to call her Mrs. Oliver while they were at school and could call her Mom at home. “That’s so weird,” an eight-year-old Georgiana declared. “Whoever heard of calling their mother Mrs.?” Still Mrs. Oliver insisted. To this day, Georgiana still addressed her as Mrs. Oliver, albeit affectionately. Now, she wondered if that was the right thing to have done. During the funeral service would Georgiana say something like Mrs. Oliver was a wonderful mother…? Mrs. Oliver shuddered at the thought.

  She wondered if Cal was standing outside with the students’ parents, demanding that the police tell them what was going on? Or was he blissfully unaware, sitting in his favorite chair solving his crossword puzzle and snapping off squares of a Hershey’s candy bar to nibble on? She hoped he didn’t know. Cal worried over things far too much. If he knew, he would try and dig out their driveway, and shoveling the heavy snow was no easy feat for a seventy-three-year-old man. Plus he wasn’t as sure-footed as he once was, and she feared he would slip on the ice or drive into a tree or worse. Since the first day they met, Cal was always coming to her rescue.

  Cal had come to the Ford house to fix their washing machine, which had died in the middle of a load of the elder Mr. Ford’s underthings. When Cal came into the house with his toolbox and his sheepish grin, she never imagined that the two of them would become fast friends and eventually husband and wife. She was just grateful for someone to talk to besides Mrs. Ford, who chattered endlessly on about her deceased son. Not that Evelyn didn’t like to hear about George’s childhood, she did, but it pinched at her heart. She much preferred to remember George in the privacy of her bedroom where she could pull out his high school graduation picture and lay it on her pillow next to her head. In the photo his hair was smoothed away from his forehead and he was wearing his only suit. His face was split into a huge, toothy smile and she could see the laughter in his eyes waiting to spill forward. Evelyn loved this picture of George while Mrs. Ford was partial to George’s military photo where he wore his dress uniform with its shiny brass buttons. Beneath his white hat with the black brim, his hair was cut bristle-brush short and it made his ears appear to stick out like the handles on a sugar bowl. His face was closed off and serious. Not like George at all, so Evelyn never let her eyes settle for any length of time on that photo.

  So when Cal Oliver came into the house and descended the creaky steps to the basement where the washing machine was located, Evelyn followed. “You can fix it, can’t you?” Evelyn asked, sitting atop the deep freezer.

  “Not sure just yet,” Cal said distractedly.

  “I hope you can,” Evelyn responded, looking down at her hands, chapped and reddened from washing items by hand.

  “Well, washing machines are kind of like people, they only have so much time on this earth. Some last longer than others.” When Evelyn didn’t laugh or comment on his little joke, Cal looked up and saw the stricken look on Evelyn’s face. “You okay?” he asked with concern.

  “Yes. But what if the washing machine was ambushed by a bunch of…of dirty underwear and died before its time? That just doesn’t seem fair.”

  Evelyn was waiting for Cal to raise his eyebrows and tell her to leave him alone and let him work, he was busy. But he didn’t. Instead, he said a curious thing. “I would say that the washing machine was valiant in its efforts. That it did what it was called to do, rid the world of the oppression of grime and dirt. I would say that while the washing machine expired much too soon, it did its duty so that other washing machines could safely perform their duties and live a long, long time.”

  “Oh,” was all that Evelyn could say. But she felt better. She spent the rest of the afternoon handing Cal his tools and they talked. Evelyn told Cal all about George and living with the Fords and Cal told her how due to a heart murmur he wasn’t allowed to join the military but his older brother was killed in Bihn Gia. He didn’t share many details, but from what she could gather, he felt a mix of guilt and relief at not being able to serve his country.

  There is the sudden sound of seventeen startled bodies jumping in their chairs at the shrill ring of the one-twenty dismissal bell. Mrs. Oliver edged toward the windows and looked through behind the blinds, out the classroom window and saw that the steely gray sky was becoming shadowed and heavy with snow. Behind her, she heard the brittle scrape of chair legs against the linoleum floor followed by the scuffling steps of one of her students.

  “It’s time to go,” Lucy said in the mechanical tone she has, standing at her teacher’s elbow. “It’s time to say our goodbyes.”

  Mrs. Oliver dared a glance at the man. How she wished she knew his name, had something to call him. In the police shows that Cal watched, the hostage negotiator always asked for a name, as if knowing the crazy person’s name would somehow prevent disaster. Usually it worked. She kept waiting for a policeman to shout out to them from behind a megaphone. We’ve got you surrounded, Bill (or Larry or Alphonse), come out with your hands up.

  “Go back and sit down,” the man told Lucy. “It’s not time to go yet.”

  Lucy started wringing her hands like she did whenever her carefully constructed schedule, complete with pictures and transition cards, was disrupted. “The bell rang, the bus is coming.” Lucy directed her words at Mrs. Oliver, sensing correctly that this man was no friend of hers and was definitely not a clock watcher.

  “Lucy, honey,” Mrs. Oliver said soothingly, “the buses are late today.” She almost wished that Mrs. Telford, Lucy’s paraprofessional who helped Lucy maneuver the ins and outs of classroom life, was here today, but she was on a cruise somewhere in the Caribbean.

  Lucy clasped her hands together more tightly until her fingernails were white and bloodless-looking. “The bus will leave, Mrs. Oliver,” she insisted.

  “Get her to go sit down,” the man commanded. “It shouldn’t be much longer now. Tell her she will be able to go home in a little while.”

  By this time Lucy had retreated back to her desk, lifted the hinged wooden top and pulled out a pile of books. “Time to get on the bus,” she said, like she did every day at this time, her words strangled with anxiety. “Goodbye and happy spring,” she added as she headed for the door.

  “Hey!” the man shouted. “Stop!” He leaped from his stool and r
oughly snagged Lucy by the hood of her sweatshirt.

  By the time Mrs. Oliver rose from her chair, her back protesting at the quick movement, the man was dragging Lucy back to her desk. “Let her go!” Mrs. Oliver shouted as she limped over to them. “You let her go right this instant!”

  “Listen,” the man snapped while he struggled with a writhing and twisting Lucy. “I don’t want anyone to get hurt any more than you do, but these kids need to stay still and shut up!”

  “Let her go!” Mrs. Oliver said, prying his fingers from the young girl. “She doesn’t like to be touched. Just let her go and let me talk to her. I can calm her down.”

  The man abruptly released his grip on Lucy and she collapsed in a small heap to the floor, crying. Mrs. Oliver carefully lowered herself to the ground, much like she had done forty-three years before after Bert Gorse had fallen from the tree, her joints popping and creaking with each movement. “Shhh, now, Lucy,” she whispered in the girl’s ear, being careful not to touch her. For reasons that were beyond Mrs. Oliver, Lucy reacted to unexpected touches like someone whose hand was held above a flame. “Shhh, it’s going to be okay. Just a change in schedule, no big deal. We’ve talked about this before.”

  “But the bell rang.” Lucy hiccuped. “The little hand said one and the big hand said four. Time to get on the bus.” Lucy, on her back, knees raised, began to pound her feet on the floor, slow and rhythmic at first, then faster, more insistent. The drubbing echoed through the room. Mrs. Oliver heard the crying and moaning of the other students. Lucy’s outbursts were disconcerting on a good day, but on a day when a man entered the classroom waving a gun, it was downright terrifying.

  “Stop it now, Lucy, you’re going to hurt yourself,” Mrs. Oliver said gently, and placed her hand on Lucy’s knees to try and stop the thrashing.

  “Little hand on the one, big hand on the four. Time. To. Go!” Lucy’s teeth were clenched and her eyes were screwed tightly shut, her heels hitting the floor with each word.