by N. A. Cash
I swiftly moved behind him, where the roots of the tendrils were anchored to the earth. “You should have stopped when you had the chance,” I whispered in his ear. “Now I will destroy you and everything you hold dear, just like you did to me.”
I reached out and touched the roughness of the roots that encompassed his body. As I lightly tapped one part, it began to tighten, squeezing his abdomen. I heard a slight “oof” as air left his body. I played my fingers up to the roots encircling his torso. They too began to tighten around him, making the breaths that left him come out in short, labored bursts. “Stop! Please!” he begged with a short wheeze.
It almost sounded like a plea. I paused for a moment, almost feeling sorry for him, until I caught a flicker of the flame that was my house in the background. “Why should I!” I shouted. “You’ve done nothing but hurt me!”
I was about to touch the roots surrounding his neck and end his miserable life when a powerful force jerked me back, like someone had tied a string around my waist and yanked. I fell hard to the ground, my breath knocked out of me. My limbs crumpled. My right ankle twisted with a pop, and a sharp pain jolt through my leg. I closed my eyes, trying hard not to scream in agony.
With my eyes closed, I could hear the faint sound of footsteps on the grass. The sound of the steps ended next to me. Panic filled me. Oh no! He can’t still be alive.
I slowly opened my eyes and, with a sense of dread, expected to see the hunched-over figure with white hair. Instead, a tall, strong man stood over me. I blinked repeatedly to stop the dancing spots from obscuring my vision. When I finally did focus, the man’s face came gradually into view. I upright bolted into a sitting position, despite the pain, and screamed.
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
The gentle face of my father stared down at me. Except, he didn’t look like the man that I held in my fondest memories. Although most of him appeared the same, he appeared much older, with a head full of grey hair. He stood slightly hunched over, although he still held his back straight with a gentlemanly dignity that only he could muster. What surprised me most was the blackness of his pupils. The father that I remembered had beautiful hazel eyes. This man had eyes the color of a starless night. Much like…
I stared past him to the root-covered figure standing motionless in the background. My eyes flickered back and forth from Owen to the man I knew to be my father. Watching my face, he reached down towards me. I scrambled backwards as quickly as I could. “No,” I whispered. “It can’t be you.”
A look of compassion filled his face. “Karma” he said gently, hand still outstretched. “It is me.”
He took a step forward. When I could see his eyes again, I saw the calm, comforting, brown eyes of my father, the eyes I remembered looking into so many times as a girl. My own eyes misted with tears as I stared into his. “It’s okay, my love.”
He reached over and slipped a hand underneath my arm. His touch felt warm as he helped me to my feet. I placed all of my weight on my good foot and used him as support for the twisted ankle. When I felt stable, both mentally and physically, I shifted my body so I could look directly at him. I struggled to organize my foggy thoughts. “How?” I asked. “Why?”
He pointed at Owen, who appeared to have stopped breathing. “I’ll explain everything, my dear, but first, we have to fix this. You have to let him out.” His voice was calm, yet firm.
I glanced at Owen and then back at him. I felt the rising anxiety reaching my throat, about to close it again. “No. He tried to kill me. He burned down my house!”
He remained calm, steady. “You have to do it, sweetie.”
I felt the tears burning in the back of my eyes. “Why?!” I shouted.
“Because he’s my son.”
“Your what?!”
In that moment, I felt like my world was crashing around me. A wave of dizziness threatened to overtake me. I tried calm down, but an overwhelming surge of emotions swarmed around my head like a disturbed nest of angry hornets. I pushed him away and lurched back, stepping clumsily on my bad ankle. I let out a small scream as pain shot through my leg again. Before I could fall, my father’s strong hands caught my wrists and pulled me against him. As he steadied me, I felt my heartbeats thump against my chest, my brain unable to comprehend anything that was going on. My tears broke the surface, and I began to sob hysterically.
He held me like that until my weeping stopped. I breathed in small gasps of air. Eventually, I began to feel a bit calmer. When he thought it safe to look at me, he held me at arm’s length. When he spoke, it was in a whisper. “Please, Karma. He’s barely breathing. Do this for me.”
The sadness in his eyes moved me so much that I limped over to Owen. I placed a hand under his nose and felt his breathing coming faint and shallow. I closed my eyes and tapped the upper roots. At my touch, they shriveled away, slowly unwinding themselves from around his body. I opened my eyes and watched them dissolve, releasing him. He lay fully prostrate on the ground when the last root vanished.
I stood over him, watching his chest rise and fall fitfully. My father stood silently next to me. In the dying embers of the flames, I studied Owen’s face. With it relaxed—not sneering or filled with rage—I could now see the resemblance between him and my father—between him and me. We both had our father’s full cheekbones. I had the almond-shaped slits of my mother’s eyes, and he had the fullness of our father’s eyes. We both shared a high forehead and full lips. My skin was a shade darker, reflecting my mother’s skin tone; his reflected the paleness of my father’s complexion. We both had similar hair texture—mine medium length, dark and curly; his with a slightly straighter texture, more waves than curls.
I heard my father clear his throat as if to speak. I couldn’t look at him so I stood staring at Owen. “We can’t stay here,” he said, his voice not commanding but tinged with a sense of urgency nonetheless. He needs a hospital.”
“I…can’t.”
It was all I could say before I felt the familiar wave of tears returning. He reached out and lightly touched my shoulder. He turned towards me. I faced him but couldn’t look him in the eye. I stared at the ground instead.
“You need a hospital also, to examine that.” He pointed at my ankle, which started to swell. “Let me drive you both.”
He slipped a finger under my chin, tilting my head so that my eyes met his. “I promise, I won’t leave you this time,” he said softly.
My tears felt hot against the coolness of the night. He pulled me to him, once again and hugged me fiercely. As he did, I felt all resistance flow away. I put all of my weight on him as my strength faded. He held me firmly and rocked me, stroking my hair. We stayed that way until I was all cried out. Finally, I pulled away from him and I stared down at Owen. “What if he wakes up and tries to hurt me again?”
“He won’t. I’ll make sure of that,” he said, matter-of-fact.
I stood, thinking about this. I decided it was worth the risk. In my heart, though, I swore that if he did, indeed, try to hurt me again, it would be his absolute last time, family or not.
“Okay,” I said, resigned, “Let’s go.”
I took one last sad look at the burnt outline of my house. Few of the walls stood but a lot of it had been reduced to ashes. I could see a few pieces of furniture still smoldering. I wanted to stay to see if anything remained, but a slight shift to my twisted ankle send pain shooting through my leg. I needed a hospital.
My father bent down, lifting Owen with one arm. He looked even heavier as dead weight, but my father appeared to lift him effortlessly. “Stay here,” my father commanded. “I’m coming back for you. I don’t want you to walk on that ankle.”
Resigned, I stayed put as I watched my father half walk, half drag Owen to my car. He put Owen in the passenger’s seat and strapped him to a seated position with the seatbelt. Owen’s head lolled to one side.
My father came back to me and slipped my right arm over his shoulder. He then walked me slowly to the back se
at of the car and gently helped me inside. When he was sure that I was securely in, he jumped into the driver’s side and started up the car. I couldn’t see if he had a key of his own or if it was left in the ignition. He reversed in a semi-circle and pulled out down the long driveway. I turned and gazed at my smoldering house until it faded out of sight.
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
None of us spoke during the uneventful drive to the hospital. Owen’s head rolled from side to side as the car swerved and turned. I spent most of the time looking out of the window, my mind blank, too tired to conjure any thoughts or even try to make sense of what was happening.
We pulled up in the front of the emergency exit, and almost immediately, before my father had a chance to turn the car off, a couple of men and a woman in scrubs ran out to us. My father opened his door and pointed to the passenger side. They rolled the gurney over to that side and gingerly removed Owen. My father told the female nurse that I needed a wheelchair. She rushed inside and, within a few seconds, returned with a wheelchair and helped me into it.
We followed the men, who had already placed an oxygen mask on Owen’s face and were checking his pulse as they were rolling him indoors. I saw my father get back into the car. I began to panic and was about to call out to him when the female nurse beat me to it. “Sir!” she called. “We need information!”
He stopped to look reassuringly at me. “I’m only moving the car to the parking lot. I’ll be right back. I promise.”
As he drove away, the nurse wheeled me inside.
We moved through an emergency room filled with people with varied maladies. We moved quickly along a corridor and into an elevator. The nurse barely spoke as we rode up to the third floor. When the doors opened, we moved into another room segmented into tiny rooms separated by green curtains. She rolled me into one of the rooms with an examination bed covered by a stiff piece of white paper, an instrument tray, cabinets filled with medical instruments and equipment, and a blood pressure monitoring machine posted on the wall.
“Okay,” the nurse finally said. “Let’s get you up here.”
She helped me up onto the examination bed. As I sat, the paper crumpled and crunched. She rolled the wheelchair out into the hallway and returned. I got a chance to get a good look at her under the fluorescent bulbs. She was young, pretty, and petite, with a mass of brown hair stuffed in a loose bun. Her delicate face was smooth, except for the dark circles and worn lines underneath her eyes. She looked like she hadn’t slept in days. The badge attached to the chest of her baby blue scrubs “A. Miller”.
She pulled the clipboard from the foot of the bed and pulled a pen from one of her pants pockets. “Okay,” she said wearily, “I’m Nurse Angie. I’m just going to get some basic information from you, and then the doctor will come in to do a full examination.” She clicked the pen. Almost to herself, she grumbled, “When they can come. It’s so busy now.” She gave me a weary smile. “I’m sorry, I tend to mumble sometimes.”
“It’s okay.” My voice sounded hollow.
“So, let’s begin with your name and problem. In that order.”
“Karma Patel. I think I might have sprained or broken my ankle. I’m not sure.” She looked at my swollen ankle that now turned a slight purplish color.
“Wow, yes, it certainly does look that way.” She paused to write, then looked up at me again. “Tell me how it happened.”
“I fell.” It was all I could think of. I didn’t want to go into any details, because I figured that would only lead to more questions than necessary. She scribbled onto the paper and glanced up, her face showing lines of curiosity.
“You fell.” Naked skepticism was evident in her voice.
I held her gaze. “Yes. I fell.”
She lowered the clipboard and her eyes and tapped her pen rhythmically against her chin, all the while looking at my ankle. “Are you sure?”
I studied her, wondering what she was implying. She saw the look on my face and seemed compelled to explain. “Now, I know what you say, but I see this far more often than you could imagine. Many ladies come into here claiming to ‘fall’…” air quotes “…when really they were pushed or shoved.”
“No, no, it wasn’t anything like that.”
She studied me. “Well, you do have grass stains on your pants, and you smell like smoke. Plus, you came in with one unconscious guy who smells like smoke, and another guy who seemed in a right old hurry to get out of here.”
My eyes widened and heart thumped. Where was my father? Did he leave again? I turned away quickly to hide my surprise and the disappointment I felt after. She reached out and touched my arm. Her concern led me to give an explanation. “I saw a building on fire in my neighborhood and ran to see if anyone needed help. That’s where I saw that guy I came in with lying on the ground outside. When I tried to pull him somewhere safe, I must have tripped and fallen. I had my cell phone, so after I called 9-1-1, I called my father, and he came and got us.” I spoke quickly and sat on my clammy hands, while my mind raced for this story, hoping I could provide enough of an explanation to clear up her doubts. “I live far away from here, so I guess my father got to us before the fire truck did.”
Apparently, my tale sounded believable. Nurse Angie looked at me compassionately. “Okay. I didn’t mean to pry,” she said. “It’s just that we have to ask these questions to make sure, you know? I mean, if you are in danger, I can’t help you unless you want to be helped.”
“I’m fine, really. No one’s hurting me. I just fell. I sometimes can be clumsy.”
She peered at me skeptically again. Nonetheless, she relented. “Okay,” she said. “If you say. I’ll go call the doctor now.”
She turned and placed the clipboard back at the foot of the bed and walked out, leaving the curtains slightly ajar. Exhausted, I slumped back onto the bed.
I hadn’t realized that I had fallen asleep until I heard the curtains open. I opened my eyes to see the face of my father peering in through the doorway. When he saw me, he came in, closing the curtains. I felt my heart lift. He came over, stood by the bed, and held my hand. His touch felt warm. He regarded me with concern, his eyebrows furrowed. “Are you okay?” he asked.
“I’m okay.” I said meekly.
He touched my forehead. “I’m so sorry, Karma,” he said, barely above a whisper. “I know I have a whole lot of explaining to do, but we can’t talk here.”
Right then, though, my thoughts were elsewhere. “Where’s Owen?” I asked. “Is he okay?” I wasn’t really concerned about his health, I really just wanted to know my threat level.
“They say he’s going to be fine. I just spoke with one of the doctors that brought him in. They have to do some procedure to help him to breathe better again. Apparently one of his lungs almost collapsed.”
My father appeared calm; I didn’t feel a sense of judgment from him. He merely smiled. “I know you had to do what you thought was best,” he said in a near-whisper, just in case someone might be close enough to overhear. “We all had to at some point in time, so don’t feel bad about it. Like I said, the doctors are sure he’s going to be okay.”
The curtains opened, and an elderly man with a kind, pudgy face peeked in, staring at us behind a pair of gold glasses resting on a tiny upturned nose. When he saw us, he waddled in, running a small hand over his grey hair. He had a stethoscope around his neck and wore white coat opened over a blue-and-white-striped shirt. His brown slacks looked a size too big, even for his stout body; they hung in a wide arc, the cuffs brushing his shiny brown shoes. He smiled slightly, his tiny eyes darting back and forth between my father and me. “Hello,” he said.
My father took the lead. He reached out, and he and the doctor shook hands. “Hello. I’m Karma’s father, Alex Peyton.”
“I’m Dr. Heeld. I’m sorry I took so long to come in. It’s a madhouse out there.” His tiny lips smiled reassuringly. “So, Nurse Angie told me that you might have broken your ankle?”
I stretched
out my leg for him to see. “Yes, sir.”
He squinted as he looked down at my foot. He then pulled out an extension shelf from under the bed where I sat and asked me to elevate my leg. When I did so, he touched, and poked, and prodded. I squealed when his touch was too painful to bear.
He finally looked up at us both. “Well, it certainly does look a bit twisted but not broken,” he decreed. “I’ll confirm when we get the x-rays back. You probably won’t have to stay overnight, but I do need to do a couple of tests, and bandage that up for you, and probably give you some medicine for pain. Does that sound okay?”
Both my father and I nodded.
“Okay, then” Dr Heeld said in a chirper voice. “I’ll get Nurse Angie to take you down to x-ray, and then we’ll get you back up and running.”
With that, he was gone.
I suddenly realized that all of this time, my father had held my hand firmly in his. He turned and gave my hand a reassuring squeeze. His eyes, now brown, were filled with sadness; his face looked tired and worn. “Everything’s going to be okay,” he assured me. “I’m going to go get some coffee and wait until you’re done.”
He paused, like he wanted to say something more but decided against it. He turned to leave and was about to let go of my hand when I squeezed his to stop him. “Pap,” I started off slowly. “There’s so much I want to know, need to know. There’s so much I want to tell you. So much has happened…”
My voice trailed off as memories of the past few days flooded my mind. A wave of exhaustion washed over me. I leaned against the pillows and closed my eyes. My father drew me close and held me tightly. “I know, honey,” he sighed, his nose buried in my hair. “We’ll have time. I won’t leave you again, I promise.”
I inhaled him in, smelling the odor of smoke and an underlying scent of sweet forest. He pulled me away and looked into my eyes. He seemed hopeful. “Why don’t you come and stay with me for a short while until we can get your house fixed?”
