by Sally John
A younger woman might have kicked out the windshield. Jill did not volunteer. It would mean hiking up to the highway—and who knew how far that was?—and waiting there instead of here. Her entire body ached from being thrown about.
And besides, Marty knew where they were. Unglued as she had been, Viv read him the coordinates from the GPS. Even if the bus were not visible from the highway, he knew their exact location and would have immediately notified Sweetwater Springs emergency.
Jack was . . . far away.
Jill closed her eyes. What was she going to do without Agnes?
* * *
They found them.
Once the driver’s door was wrangled open, Skip was the first one through, a distraught father, not a volunteer EMT. Ty came on his heels, followed by two others, medics and firemen with equipment, unprofessional worry on every face. They all knew Jill and Viv.
And then, wonder of wonders, Daisy climbed in, tears streaming down her face.
“Daisy!” Ty nearly barked. “Wait outside.”
“These are my babies. Get out of my way.”
He stepped down into the stairwell.
Skip and Daisy took turns clinging to Viv and Jill.
“I’m fine, Mom. I’m fine.”
“Look at that goose egg on your head, child.”
“Let them take care of Viv. Something’s broken. Her wrist or her arm. Move over, Pops. I’m fine.”
Everyone talked at once. From outside came digging noises and shouts. A helicopter whomped overhead. Sirens joined in. Marty showed up, barging in like a bull.
Jill wasn’t so sure the scene felt like a rescue. She preferred the earlier peace of waiting.
Ty stepped over her and sat in the window seat beside her. “You Wagner sisters and your splashy exits from Sweetwater.” He took her wrist in his glove-covered hands.
“Viv needs help.”
“No worries. We got her covered.” He nodded toward her sister. “See? IV is already going. We’ll get her out first, soon as the exit’s cleared, and up to the ambulance. How you doing?”
The willow green eyes blurred. Her voice refused to work. Her body shook as if she’d been dunked in Lake Michigan on a January morning.
“Not so hot, huh? You’re the second one out. How’d you hit your head?”
She gave up and let the tears fall. She let them soak Ty’s navy blue T-shirt, let her face rest against the shoulder that had been there for her in the past.
Chapter 37
Chicago
Jack did not reach Jill until many hours later.
He called Connor to let him know. After his son’s distress over not knowing about Jack’s accident, he needed to keep their son in the loop. He was skiing in Idaho with Emma and her parents and offered to leave. Jack told him there was nothing to do yet.
Late that evening, Marty phoned him from a San Diego hospital. Viv was in surgery for a broken wrist. All six seniors were being held for observation. The bus was going to be towed to Sweetwater Springs as soon as they dug it out and taken to Skip’s former garage to determine whether it could be repaired.
And Jill?
Back at Skip and Daisy’s.
Skip and Daisy’s? After spending over a week there already?
Marty reminded him the accident happened near Sweetwater. That sense of being ignorant had filled him again.
She answered their house phone. “Hello?”
“Jill!” He exhaled a long breath of relief. “Are you all right?”
“I’m good.”
“I’ve been trying to reach you for hours. Marty said you were there but the line’s been busy. You didn’t answer your cell.”
“I was talking with Connor. He was checking on Grandpops, the famous Sweetwater EMT, and found me. Maybe he can find my phone too. It must be on the bus, which is still knee-deep in rock and dirt.”
The way she was running off at the mouth she must have been shaken up. “You’re really okay?”
“You’re really worried.”
“Of course I’m really worried. Why wouldn’t I be sick with worry? You’re riding in a bus that goes off a cliff in the middle of nowhere and a woman gets killed.”
“Jack, relax. I’m fine. Well, except for this bump on my forehead. I guess I fell down and broke my crown too. I didn’t know Jill broke her crown, did you? Here I always thought it was only Jack.”
“How could that happen? Marty said everybody had seat belts on because Viv insisted on it.”
“She does that. But Agnes got up . . . Oh, that’s another story. Anyway, I undid my belt to help her and then . . . then I don’t know. We went off the side of the road and bounced around and my whole body bounced around.”
“Were you knocked unconscious?”
“Do people remember that sort of thing? I don’t remember it.”
Déjà vu. “Jill! You need tests. You should be in a hospital. You may have a concussion. Internal bleeding. All kinds of things! Why aren’t you at the hospital with everyone else?”
“The ambulances had to transport Agnes and Viv. Poor Viv. Her wrist was broken. Did you know that? She had to lie there on that bus for hours with a broken bone. And—and where was I?”
“Are you on pain meds?”
“Yes.”
“You’re a little loopier than normal.”
She giggled.
He grinned. Jill had a silly side that produced the same effect. “So if you’re on meds, you’ve seen a doctor. Right?”
“Righto.”
“But you didn’t go with the others to San Diego?”
“No. There was a van, but the Casitas Pack and all their luggage filled it up. Mom and Pops came, did you hear? But they were absolutely no help. Hold on, Jack. Sorry, Mom. I meant medicalwise. Your hugs were a huge help.”
Jack rolled his eyes.
“Anyway,” she said, “Ty said I could just go home with them if I promised to stop by the ER. Which I did, Dr. Galloway. And Pops will wake me up in the night. Meanwhile Mom keeps feeding me and tucking blankets around me on the couch. She makes the best hot cocoa.”
“Ty?”
“Tyler Wilkins. He’s the one who bought Pops’s place, remember?”
The high school boyfriend. Standoffish guy.
“He’s an EMT too.” She yawned.
“Jill, how are you really? Please talk to me.”
“You want me to talk?”
Jack winced. Yesterday he would have said no. “Yes. Tell me what happened with Agnes.”
She sniffed. “Oh, Jack, I’ve never met such a warm, wise woman. I want to be like her when I grow up.”
He smiled. Jill was always meeting women she wanted to emulate, as if she herself weren’t a model of warmth and wisdom. “What made Agnes so special?”
And then she talked for a long time.
“I’m so sorry, Jill.”
“Thank you for listening. Mom and Pops are getting tired of hearing it.”
“I’m sure they’re not. You’re in good hands. Do you have any idea when you’ll be home?”
“Uh, no. I haven’t thought about that at all.”
“Of course not. Okay. Well, you need some recovery time. Connor won’t be here for a while, so don’t worry about it. Do you need me out there?”
She didn’t reply.
And he knew he had flubbed. Somehow, something he had said offended her.
He waited for her instruction.
A tide of resentment grew and then he berated himself. Circumstances were not typical. She was under incredible stress, on meds, thousands of miles from home. Perhaps he wasn’t in the doghouse.
At last she said, “No. No thanks. I don’t need you. Thanks for calling. I should go. Mom’s favorite cop show is starting and she wants me to watch it with her.”
“Sure. Talk to you later.”
“Bye. Love you.” The line went dead.
“Love you,” he said to his kitchen.
What was going on? The last thin
g on earth he would have imagined Jill doing was extending her time in Sweetwater and watching television with Daisy.
But she had bumped her head.
He bumped his head and wanted a divorce.
She said she did not need him. Did she mean she did not need him to go out there?
Or that she did not need him . . . at all?
Chapter 38
Sweetwater Springs
“Jillian.” Daisy spoke harshly from the recliner. “Why didn’t you tell your husband to come out here and get you?”
“Your show’s on. Unmute the volume.” Jill rearranged the pillow under her head on the couch.
“You are still the most stubborn girl I have ever met.” Daisy turned on the volume, increasing it as she continued to talk over the program, explaining the story line to Jill.
During the first commercial break, Daisy scooted to the kitchen and nuked popcorn for them. At the next pause she fetched Jill’s pain medication. Another time she retucked the comforter around her, murmuring about what a special person Agnes was.
Deep inside, Jill mourned the loss of her new friend. She would carry the woman in her heart forever. She had a gazillion new lessons gleaned that she could share. The most significant one was how Agnes brought about a healing between Jill and Daisy.
Agnes would want her to soak in this time.
And so Jill soaked it in. She was lulled into a most wondrous mommy moment. She had known daddy times, but this side of her mother soothed like warm oil, softening old protective calluses.
When the show ended, Daisy sat on the edge of the couch. Jill looked at a wizened face that would no doubt be hers one day and she smiled.
“Jillian, I have to ask you something and I am dead serious. Are you taking up with Ty?”
She grinned. “No way, José. He is just an old friend.”
“You thought about it though, didn’t you?”
“It crossed my mind and kept on going.”
“You’re a good girl.”
“I’m your daughter.”
“Why didn’t you tell Jack that you want him to come out?”
“Because I’ve been telling him what to do for twenty-five years.”
Daisy harrumphed and gave a quick nod. “Time he figured things out for himself then.”
“My thoughts exactly.”
“Could take some time.”
That was the scary part. Jill prayed it would not be a lifetime.
Chapter 39
Chicago
Jill checked her watch for the umpteenth time. Jack was late. She had been standing at the pickup curb outside the airport for twenty-eight minutes in the cold night air, her luggage neatly stacked beside her.
She should have told him she would take the train. No. She should have stayed in San Diego and gone to Agnes’s funeral and delayed this reunion.
“Oh, God.” The abbreviated prayer braced her for yet another wave of uncertainty and doubt. Since leaving the desert, the reality of facing Jack had loomed, a growing black cloud in her mind.
She believed she had changed. But would Jack see it or even care? Today marked the fifth week of separation. Would he talk now about them as he had promised he would?
The cloud overshadowed the goodness everyone had packed into her. Her parents had driven her to Viv’s, a two-hour flow of encouragement and love from their lips. Viv had continued where they left off. Even Marty had been thoughtful.
Jill pressed at the base of her throat. The tension of being unable to pray more than two words ached like a vise gripping her vocal cords. “Oh, God.”
Agnes would be proud of her brevity, for not informing God about what exactly needed to happen, for not preplanning a conversation with the estranged husband.
Estranged. It was such an ugly word. How did people acquainted intimately on so many levels for twenty-five years get to being estranged?
When he’d asked if she needed him to come out, it had felt like a slap. She could have died. Viv could have died. Agnes did die. And he had to ask if she needed him to be with her in the aftermath of such a nightmare?
Two days later she was back at Viv and Marty’s house, sitting in their kitchen, on the phone with Jack. He repeated his question. Stunned and hurt, she again said no thanks.
After Jill hung up the phone, Viv glared, her eyes almost hidden in dark circles. She removed her arm from its sling and set it on the table. The cast made a decided thump. “I want you to write something here.” She pointed to her forearm. “Write: ‘Jack does not fight for me because I won’t let him. I am stubborn and foolish and always have to be in control, and I get off on being hurt and self-righteous. Love, Jill.’”
Marty had seconded the motion, adding his own steely look. “He might try harder if you gave him half a chance.”
Now Jill doubled over the suitcase handle. “Oh, God.”
She had needed desperately for Jack to come and be her knight in shining armor. Why had she denied herself?
Because a true knight in shining armor would make the choice himself without asking. She wanted it to be his choice, his determination, his spontaneous reaction.
Squealing brakes jerked her attention to the street. A black car had stopped in front of her. Its door opened and Jack emerged.
“Jill!” He hurried around the car she did not recognize.
He had a new car. It wasn’t red.
Of course he had a new car. He’d totaled his own the previous month.
“Jill!” He wrapped his arms around her and held her tightly. “The traffic was—Are you all right?”
She lifted her chin, began to nod, and then burst into tears.
* * *
The initial hugs and expressions of relief over, her tears abated, Jill and Jack rode home. After all that had occurred in the past five weeks, it comforted her to feel an old sense of camaraderie with him.
Maybe the bus accident was the cause. Although Jack had failed her ridiculous litmus test for knight status, he had been exhibiting his gracious qualities. He sent flowers, phoned often, was overly concerned about her well-being, and talked to the doctor who had seen her.
The underlying stressful tone had disappeared from his speech, as if he no longer thought about divorce. Maybe the accident had knocked him right on through the midlife crisis.
The thought warmed her. Recalling his tenderness while she cried and his welcome-home kiss after filled her with hope.
She twisted around in her seat to face him as he drove, her cheek against soft leather. “The car is nice.”
“It’s a set of wheels.” He reached over and touched her hand in the dark. “Jill, I’m so glad you’re home, safe and sound. I can’t tell you how scared I was when Marty called.”
“He should have waited until he knew more.”
“No, I needed to know as soon as he did. And he kept me updated.” Jack squeezed her hand. “It was the longest day of my life. I can’t imagine how awful it was for you.”
“Off-the-charts awful. But there were amazing things too. I cannot believe that not one of those seniors needed so much as a Band-Aid. But Viv . . .” Jill’s voiced trailed off.
“Is going to be fine. A broken wrist. Bruises. She will be good as new in no time. Head injuries are a different story. We still need to be on the lookout for repercussions.”
Repercussions. Ty had used the same word as he sat next to her on the bus, examining her forehead.
He had said, “The skin isn’t broken but there’s a knot, I’d say jumbo egg size. Cage-free, no hormones added.”
She talked about Jack, looked straight into Ty’s willow green eyes and talked about her husband. “Jack was in a car accident and cracked his head open a few weeks ago. He needed stitches.” Jack fell down and broke his crown.
And now Jill had finally tumbled down after him. The very thing she had vowed not to let happen.
“Any repercussions?” Ty asked.
He wants a divorce. “He, uh, he hasn’t been himself s
ince.”
“Hopefully that won’t happen with you. I kind of like you the way you are.” Ty held her hand, fingers on her pulse. Checking it or trying to calm her? “Except for the shivering, but that will go away soon.”
Jill eyed Jack now by the light of the dashboard. She remembered how throughout the years his gentle touch quelled her shivering. He knew feet secrets and massaged her soles to quell distress.
“I need one of your foot treatments.”
He threw her a small smile.
They arrived at the house and she knew immediately that no way on earth was that going to happen.
She knew it because the house was dark. It was dark because Jack had not been there to turn on welcoming lights. He had not been there because he did not live there.
A pallor of awkwardness fell over Jill. Their marriage was floundering. That fact pounced front and center, in-her-face ugly.
As she walked inside, that fact resounded like crashing symbols. The pendulum on the wall clock was not ticking.
She flipped on lights. Jack set down her bags and went into the hall bathroom.
She headed upstairs to their bedroom, to their closet, into their bathroom. All traces of Jack were gone. His cologne, his hairbrush, his toothbrush, his clothes . . .
“Oh, God!” she cried out. Her chest tightened.
She returned to the kitchen. The rack above the stovetop was empty. His favorite pots and pans no longer hung there.
“Jack!”
“Back here,” he replied.
She found him in the small family room off the kitchen. The cozy nook held only two recliners, a television, and a bookcase. They had built it as their getaway when it became apparent that the house had become the main gathering hub for Connor and his twelve-year-old friends.
Jack stood before the gas fireplace. His face was tired, his clothes rumpled, his light brown hair in need of a cut. The light caught his left hand on the mantel.
