Rejoice

by Karen Kingsbury

  The paramedic continued his efforts. Checking her pulse every few minutes, maintaining the rhythmic squeezing of the oxygen bag.

  Only then did Brooke notice the swelling in Hayley’s hands and fingers, the way even her face looked bloated. The worse off a drowning victim was, the more swelling she would have. This time panic slapped her in the face, and she had to know, had to ask the question burning inside her.

  “Is she going to . . .” Brooke ran her fingers along Hayley’s tanned arm and found the medic’s eyes. This was the question patients asked her, but now she was asking it. She pressed her free hand against her stomach and ordered herself to finish speaking. “Will she live?”

  “We have a pulse.” The paramedic was breathless, sweat dripping down the sides of his face. “But she’s not breathing on her own.”

  A lump formed in Brooke’s throat. The medic’s information was obvious. If Hayley were breathing on her own, he wouldn’t be giving her artificial respiration. But hearing it, listening to the man’s words as he gave the grim report, made everything about the moment more real.

  How damaged was her brain, and how soon before they could determine the extent of her injuries and the first step back to normal health and . . . ?

  She had a hundred other questions, but no need to ask even one of them. She was a doctor; she knew the answers. Depending on the length of time Hayley was underwater, her brain could already be dead. If it wasn’t, if a flicker of life remained, she could spend the rest of her life in a hospital bed hooked to tubing. Beyond that lay several dozen other possibilities.

  Hayley could be brain damaged, unable to eat or walk or talk, or she might retain all of those actions, but in a slow, partial sort of way. Just one option was acceptable. And that would only happen if somehow her brain had escaped any damage at all. If Hayley hadn’t been under as long as they thought and if she could get past the initial trauma, then maybe—just maybe—she would come back to them, back to the same way she’d been that morning.

  But Brooke knew the odds of that as well. She’d studied pediatrics after all. Once a victim could no longer breathe on his own, tests weren’t needed to determine whether brain damage had occurred.

  It had; it was that simple.

  The sirens grew louder, shrieking at her in a sort of pattern that mocked her and made her crazy. It was all her fault, wasn’t it? She shouldn’t have taken the on-call assignment. If she’d been there, Hayley never would’ve had a moment alone by the pool. She wouldn’t have had a moment alone anywhere. Brooke wouldn’t have allowed it.

  But Peter . . .

  Her own guilt dimmed as she pictured her husband, stuck to the living-room chair, watching the baseball game. As much as it was her fault, it was more Peter’s. She’d asked him to watch the girls, to keep an eye on them and make sure they stayed in their life jackets.

  She slid her hand around Hayley’s again. “Baby . . . wake up, please, honey.” Her voice was quieter, less certain. If Hayley couldn’t breathe, she definitely couldn’t hear sounds. Hayley wasn’t there at all, not really. She was trapped in another world, locked in a distant cell where her release depended on one thing only.

  Her brain’s ability to function.

  “We’re almost there.” The paramedic glanced out the side window and kept his hand on the bag.

  He didn’t need to tell her that every second counted. She nodded, her eyes locked on Hayley’s face. Move, baby. Show me you’re still there. . . .

  But her daughter remained motionless, and Brooke thought of the life jackets again. Neither girl could take them off without help, and a mountain of rage began to form in Brooke’s soul. She had asked Peter to leave the jackets on, so that meant someone else must’ve removed them.

  But who? Not Aletha or any of the other mothers. None of them would’ve taken that risk. And Hayley and Maddie never would’ve asked one of the other fathers. The mountain grew larger, and a picture began to take shape in her mind, one that imagined Hayley and Maddie running up to Peter and asking him to take off the life jackets. Maybe so they could play upstairs with the other girls or so they could sit more easily on the kitchen chairs while they ate cake.

  If Peter had taken off the life jackets, he would’ve stayed with the girls, stayed with them until they were ready to go back outside or at least stayed in the kitchen with the other adults. That way he would’ve seen the girls heading back outside.

  And if he hadn’t . . .

  If he’d done nothing more than sit in front of the baseball game talking to DeWayne . . .

  The ambulance jerked into the hospital driveway and tore up to the emergency-room entrance. Someone from the outside yanked the doors open, and the medic joined two others in a flurry of activity as they removed the stretcher and headed inside the building.

  Brooke stayed with them, praying with every step, her rubber-soled tennis shoes padding out a muted beat on the hospital linoleum that sounded like Please, God . . . please, God . . . please, God . . . please, God. . . .

  No other words came to mind, nothing she could force herself to say. The spots were back, and Brooke stared at the stretcher being pushed along in front of her. What were they doing here? And why was Hayley at the hospital, sound asleep? And how come no one was trying to wake her up?

  Terror seized her, stopping her, doubling her over for a few intense seconds. She stared at the scuffed hospital floor and then lifted her head. Hayley was getting away from her, hurrying off on the stretcher without her.

  “Wait!” Brooke straightened, urged her legs to keep moving.

  “You okay?” One of the medics fell behind the group and held his hand out to her.

  Brooke took it and felt herself moving forward, felt her feet pick up speed as she dropped the medic’s hand and caught up with the stretcher again. Please, God . . . please, God . . . please, God. . . . “Hayley!” She had no air, but she found a way to shout the words building within her. “I’m here, baby.”

  The spots faded again and she remembered where she was, what was happening. They were trying to save Hayley’s life. She forced her feet to keep moving, keep taking steps until they took her to one of the private emergency rooms. Don’t let her die, God . . . don’t let her die.

  “Get a tube in her.” The doctor’s voice was familiar, but Brooke didn’t look at him, didn’t look anywhere but at her daughter.

  “Hayley . . .” Brooke’s whisper was lost in the chaos of emergency personnel working to get her little girl breathing. “Hayley.” She touched Hayley’s matted blonde hair, and her thoughts ran together.

  What if Hayley died? What if she wasn’t okay? What if she was never the same again? Brooke ran her tongue over her lower lip and tried to swallow. What about herself? What if she couldn’t take another minute watching Hayley lying motionless on the stretcher? And where was Peter? Where had he been when this happened?

  Wherever he’d been, he’d taken his eyes off her, let her drown. This whole thing was his fault; it had to be.

  He probably took off the girls’ life jackets and forgot to put them back on. That had to be it. And if they lost Hayley because of his carelessness, then yes, it was his fault. Even if she had taken the on-call shift. As the medical team raced about the room, the realization became an understanding, and Brooke became certain about one more thing.

  If she lost Hayley because of Peter’s carelessness, their marriage wouldn’t stand a chance. Because never, not as along as she lived, would she forgive him.

  Chapter Three

  Ashley was painting again.

  In the first month after her diagnosis, she’d put away her easel and brushes, convinced she would have no time to paint as long as she was seeing doctors and working on a plan to stay alive. But she still hadn’t seen a doctor, and all her determinations to let go of painting had changed with Landon’s visit. His time with her the week after Kari and Ryan’s wedding convinced her that a difference existed between breathing and living.

  “None of
us know how long we have,” Landon had told her the night before he returned to New York. “Don’t stop living because of a diagnosis, Ashley.”

  She’d thought about that often since then, and he was right. At least about part of it. Cole, for instance, and her painting. Even her twenty hours a week at Sunset Hills Adult Care home. She’d told the owner about her HIV blood test, and the woman had checked and found out Ashley could still work there. As long as she handled administrative and social details and left physical care of the patients to the other workers.

  Her relationship with Landon would die because that was the right thing. But otherwise, she would stay engaged in life. Until her strength was gone, she would play with Cole, toss a ball with him or push him on the backyard swings, run with him along the shore of Lake Monroe, and read Dr. Seuss to him each night. She would stay connected with the people at Sunset Hills: Irvel and Edith and Helen and Bert.

  And she would paint, pouring her heart across the canvas with every stroke.

  All of it as long as she drew breath.

  She sat outside her parents’ house now, watching Cole as he tried to lasso the horns of a plastic bull’s head. The head was a present from Landon. It had two metal stakes that dug into the ground, so that the bull, minus a body, appeared to be gazing ahead in a stiff sort of way, while the horns stood straight up, ready for capture. Landon had also bought him a cowboy hat and a child-size rope, one that was stiff enough to hold a loop and light enough for Cole to toss.

  “It’s all in the wrist,” he’d explained to Cole when they set it up in Ashley’s front yard that day.

  Now she moved her paintbrush in delicate strokes across the canvas and smiled at the memory. Cole’s eyes had been so wide she could see the whites almost all the way around them. His small mouth had hung open. “Are you a cowboy, Landon?”

  “Well . . .” Landon had chuckled, casting her a glance across the yard. “Not really. But my uncle was. He taught me how to rope when I was a little older than you.”

  Cole had been obsessed with capturing the horns of the plastic bull’s head ever since.

  A breeze brushed against Ashley’s face, and she watched Cole from her place in front of her easel. The painting was of Cole this time—Cole with a cowboy hat and lasso, determination etched into his expression.

  “Watch, Mommy . . . I got both horns last time.” Cole’s voice sang out across her parents’ front yard.

  “I’m watching.” Ashley studied him, the easy way he held his arm up and behind him, moving his wrist just the way Landon had taught him. Cole was a natural athlete, a boy who would’ve thrived under the daily love of a man like Landon.

  Ashley dipped her brush into a color that was too light to be brown and painted the fine outline of a rope above the image of her son.

  Where was he now, Landon Blake?

  Slowly, like the setting sun, sadness clouded her heart. He’d surprised her by showing up at Kari and Ryan’s wedding, and for the first twenty-four hours she almost let him change her mind about breaking things off with him. It was his presence that did it, of course. The nearness of him, the smell of his skin, and the way his fingers felt on her face.

  His voice was as real now as it had been that evening. “I’m not leaving, Ashley . . . you can’t make me go.”

  And for the first day Ashley could only hold on to him and believe he was right, that somehow they would find a way to be together despite her health. But by the second day, her sanity returned. She couldn’t live with herself if she dragged Landon down with her.

  Two days before he left, she told him so.

  “I need time,” she’d told him while they walked along the river behind her parents’ house. “I have to see my doctor, make a plan. And you . . . you need to get on with your life, Landon.” They stopped walking and she faced him. “You have three months left in New York.”

  “No, Ash.” Something that wasn’t quite anger or sorrow filtered across Landon’s expression. “Don’t do this—not again.”

  “I’m not doing anything. I’m telling you how I feel. I can’t be with you right now; my health has to come first.”

  Landon fought her on it until the day she took him to the airport. But he agreed on certain points. Yes, he needed to finish up with the FDNY. His position at the Bloomington station wouldn’t open up until spring, anyway. In the meantime, she could figure out a plan for her health.

  “But after that, I’m coming back for you.” They were lost in an embrace at the airport’s curbside check-in.

  “I’m not sure, Landon.” She drew back and searched his eyes.

  “Not sure about what?” His tone was more fearful than frustrated. “Ashley, stop fighting me.”

  With everything in her she wanted to agree with him, to tell him to get back in her car and never leave her side again. But she loved him too much for that. She would never agree to a relationship with Landon Blake, not while she was battling HIV, not when she was facing the possibility of AIDS. But this wasn’t the moment to fight him about the facts. Instead of saying anything else, she had leaned in and kissed him on the cheek. “I love you, Landon. I always will.”

  “That’s better.” His lips brushed against hers, and the tiny lines around his eyes relaxed some. “I’ll call you when I get home.”

  When he left, she felt physically sick for days, as if he’d ripped her lungs out and taken them with her. But even if it killed her, she needed to let him go. Landon deserved a normal life, a life where she was nothing more than a fond memory. Of course he never would have agreed to that, so she stalled. If she could send him on his way and keep her distance, then eventually he’d move on with his life and everything would work out for the best.

  At least that was the plan.

  But in the ten days since Landon left, he had called four times. Ashley had done everything to avoid talking to him. Three times when she saw the call was from him, she let the answering machine pick up, and the one time she forgot to check her caller ID, she pretended to be too rushed to speak.

  “Where’ve you been?” He sounded confused, hurt. “I left you messages.”

  “Landon, I have to run.” She sighed loud enough for him to hear it. “I told you. I have a lot to figure out. Give me time, okay?”

  The conversation had ended abruptly, and afterwards Ashley had wandered around her backyard for half an hour, until Cole came outside and found her near their old oak tree.

  “What’s wrong, Mommy? You miss Landon?”

  Ashley had managed the slightest smile. “Yes, honey.” She took Cole in her arms and nodded, struggling to find her voice. “I miss him a lot.”

  Cole had wriggled free from her embrace and brushed his fingertips along her brow. “He’s coming back, Mommy. You don’t need to be sad anymore. Landon’s coming back forever. In a few shakes of a rope, remember?”

  “I know, sweetie.” Ashley hadn’t had the strength to tell him the truth. That as long as her blood was contaminated, she couldn’t let Landon back into her life or Cole’s. “I know.”

  She still needed to tell the rest of her family. Her parents knew, and Luke, of course. But now that Kari and Ryan were home from their honeymoon, she needed to tell them as well. That way they could form a plan for Cole in case she developed a full-blown case of AIDS.

  She set down the smaller brush and picked up one with a broader tip. It was time to paint the sky, time to frame the frozen moment in a hundred shades of blue. She dipped the bristles into a powdery color and was just about to accent the area over the rope when the phone rang.

  The cordless receiver sat on a chair a few feet away. Ashley set the brush down, hopped off her stool, and grabbed the phone on the third ring. “Hello?”

  “Ashley . . .” The voice at the other end was tight, strangled with fear.

  “Yes?” She couldn’t make out who it was, but his tone made her heart skip a beat.

  “It’s Peter.” He hesitated, and she heard him release a shaky breath. “List
en, I need your help.”

  “Of course.” Ashley moved closer to Cole. “What is it? What’s wrong?”

  “Hayley . . . she’s at the hospital. I need to be there, but I have Maddie.”

  Hayley? At the hospital? The child was perfectly healthy a few days ago when Kari and Ryan returned from their honeymoon. Ashley brought her hand to her throat and massaged her neck. “What’s wrong with her?”

  Silence shouted on the other end.

  A few feet away, Cole circled the rope three times over his cowboy hat and released it in a perfect loop around the bull’s plastic horns. “I did it!” He turned to her. “Did you see that, Mommy? I did it!”

  She nodded and put her finger to her lips. “Peter . . . tell me what happened.”

  “We were at a party. Hayley. . . she fell in the pool. When we found her she was at the bottom.”

  Ashley gasped. “No . . . Peter, no!” The trees and bushes and grassy carpet around her began to shift, waxing and waning and making it hard for Ashley to focus. She dropped to the ground and crossed her legs, her voice no longer familiar. “Is she . . . how long was she under?”

  “We don’t know.” Peter’s tone was more controlled now, but the urgency remained. “I’ll bring Maddie over in a few minutes. And please, Ashley . . . could you tell the others?”

  She agreed, and the call ended.

  But still Ashley remained on the ground, her chin on her chest as she stared at her knees and tried to accept what Peter had said. Hayley had drowned? She’d fallen into a pool without either Brooke or Peter seeing her? It seemed impossible. She glanced up, beyond the tree branches toward heaven.

  Please, God . . . please, let her live. She’s just a little girl . . . full of life and hope and laughter.

  As she prayed she included Brooke and Peter, because things between them were already strained. Brooke spent much of her time at their parents’ house, even when Peter was home. If something happened to Hayley, all of them would feel it. But for Brooke and Peter, things would never be the same again. Every day of their lives together would forever be changed.