This Side of Heaven

by Karen Kingsbury

  “They were best friends.” Daisy told the detail to Carl Joseph, as if she were the owner of that part of the story. “The very best.”

  “Right, and at that time there weren’t any cars coming, so the girls were standing in the road. They were trying to find State Street and they needed directions.”

  “So you told them.” Carl Joseph stared at the framed picture. “They seem like nice girls.”

  “They were. They hadn’t been drinking, and they didn’t want to get home too late. Too many bad drivers on the road on New Year’s Eve.” Josh ran his hand through his dark hair. He was feeling stronger than before so he released his hold on the mantel and crossed his arms. “I was giving them directions when I saw the drunk driver.”

  Fear lined Carl Joseph’s forehead. “It’s against the law to drive drunk.”

  “Yeah.” Josh uttered a quietly sarcastic laugh. “I don’t think the driver was very concerned about the law.”

  “Because he was passed out.” Daisy nodded emphatically.

  “He was.” Josh could still picture the guy, his head slumping forward onto the steering wheel as his car veered off the road. “And he was headed straight for the girls.”

  “This is the scariest part.” Daisy partially closed her eyes, the way a person might in anticipation of a frightening scene in a horror movie. “I hate this part.”

  “Me, too.” Josh imagined the accident all over again. “Everything happened so fast. The girls couldn’t see the drunk driver, but he was headed straight for them. I pulled one of them out of danger, and as I reached for the other one the car slammed into us.”

  Carl Joseph and Daisy were silent, gripped by the story. “I had time to throw the second girl onto the grass, out of harm’s way, but at the same time the car hit my left shoulder and knocked me to the ground.”

  Daisy put her hand over her mouth. “That’s terrible.”

  “He broke the law for sure.” Carl Joseph’s tone was hushed. “That was a very bad thing he did.”

  “Very bad.” Josh felt the impact again the way he’d felt it that night, how the front grille of the Mercedes sedan had barreled into him, knocking the wind from him and leaving him in a heap on the ground. For the first few minutes he thought he was dead. He couldn’t breathe, couldn’t move, and as people surrounded him and sirens sounded in the distance he wanted only one more chance to tell his parents and Lindsay and Becky he loved them, to somehow get word to Savannah that he had tried to be her father, always he had tried.

  Daisy allowed the hint of a smile. “The story has a happy ending, right?”

  “It does.” Josh had never told Carl Joseph or Daisy about his back pain. They wouldn’t understand, and it would only mar their visits with unnecessary concern. There was nothing they could do to help ease his pain or heal his back, so why complain to them about the way he hurt? Better to let them focus on the girls. He drew another breath and finished. “The car didn’t kill me, and the two girls weren’t hurt at all.” He grinned at his friends.

  “A happy ending for sure.” Carl Joseph raised his fist high in the air. “I love that story.” He smiled at the two girls in the photo and then at Josh. “That makes you a hero.”

  A hero. The words cast a ray of sunshine across his cloudy heart. All the pain was worth something, even if few people thought he was a hero. The girls did, certainly. And the people who read the article, and his neighbors. But he hadn’t shared the story with his parents, not yet. He remembered the way his mother had received the news of his accident when he called her late that night.

  “I was hit by a car,” he told her, his voice flat. “I’m in the hospital, but I’m okay.” He intended to go into the details, tell her how he’d pulled the girls to safety before taking the hit, but his mother was already talking.

  “Josh, what happened? Are you hurt?” Then she called for his father. “We’re on our way, son. We’ll be there in an hour.”

  “Mom, wait.” Josh was already on pain medication by then, and the scope of his injuries was still being realized. “I’m fine. I’m going home tonight and I’m coming down tomorrow.”

  “Oh, Josh.” His mother’s relief came in short breathy gasps. “You scared me to death.” She wasn’t mad, just worried about him. Afraid because he could have been killed. But what she said next stayed with him still. “Now maybe you’ll see why I want you to get your degree, do something with your brain for a change. Towing cars, Josh? Every day I worry about you, and now this. Why don’t you take some time and think about getting back in school. Not one good thing comes from your work as a tow truck driver, son. Not one good thing.”

  So he hadn’t told her or his father or Lindsay. Not because he wasn’t proud of his role in saving the lives of the girls, but because it wasn’t enough. He loved his family, and they loved him—their feelings for him were all that kept him going some days. But they hadn’t spent more than a rare few minutes at his apartment, and none of them had noticed the small photographs on the mantel. One day he would explain it all. He would get his settlement—half a million dollars or more—and he would open his own garage, and then, when his back was healed and life was good, he would tell them the truth about how he was hurt.

  Daisy took the photograph from Carl Joseph and set it back on the mantel. “I love hero stories.” Adoration made her eyes sparkle as she looked at Josh. “You and CJ and Cody are the only heroes I know.” She looked at her friend. “CJ because he protects me from the rain, and Cody because he made my sister, Elle, love again. And you, Josh, because you saved the lives of those two girls.”

  Josh liked being a hero for these two. It seemed to give them hope about the world in general, and if it did, well, then that was another good thing that had come from the accident. No matter what his mother thought about his job as a tow truck driver.

  “What about this one?” Carl Joseph picked up the photo of Savannah and studied it. He pushed his glasses back into place again. “Can you tell us this story, Josh?”

  “Not today.” Josh kept his tone easy, his smile in place. “That one’s not a happy story.”

  “Oh.” Daisy frowned. “Then let’s not talk about it. I only like the happy ones.”

  “Me, too.” Josh could feel the OxyContin holding his pain at bay, making it bearable for him to be on his feet this long. “You two better get home for your late breakfast.”

  Daisy gasped and looked down at the eggs. She’d been holding them in one hand, clutching them to her chest. “I almost forgot about late breakfast.”

  “Yeah, we better go.” Carl Joseph took charge and grabbed hold of Daisy’s free hand. “We have our movie date.” He waved to Josh as they reached the door. “Thanks for telling us the happy story.”

  “Anytime.” Josh followed them and waited until they were down the walkway. “Have fun today.”

  They both turned around and waved one last time. When Josh closed the door and went into his living room, he took a minute to sit down and catch his breath. He hadn’t stood that long at one time for a week at least. From where he sat, he looked at the photos on the mantel again and his eyes fell on the one of Savannah. Maybe one day their story would be a happy one, too. When he could finally prove that the reason her eyes looked like his was because she was his daughter. He stretched his back and tried to find a comfortable position. He agreed with Daisy. The happy stories were the best.

  Even if he was the only one who knew how much the happy ending cost.

  FOUR

  Maria Cameron held tight to her daughter’s hand and together they trudged down the cement steps to the subway that ran beneath the streets of Manhattan. She had panhandled her way through another Sunday afternoon and now she needed the red line north along Broadway to 145th Street in Harlem. She and Savannah rented a room from a guy she’d met in the park three months ago. Freddy B, he called himself.

  She paid her rent one way or another—with the money from tourists in Central Park or by spending the night in his bed
when he wanted her. He lived in a one-bedroom apartment in a brownstone in the part of Harlem that had yet to experience urban renewal. But it was a home, and it would do for now.

  “I’m hungry, Mama.” Savannah’s strawberry-blond hair was pulled back in a ponytail, and her cheeks were smudged with dirt—the way Maria had smudged them earlier that morning.

  “We’ll eat when we get home.” She gave the girl a look intended to quiet her. She didn’t need people scrutinizing them on the subway. “Keep quiet, now.”

  Savannah nodded and bit her lip. She pushed the sleeves of her sweater up, but as she did she exposed a series of small bruises. Maria reached over, jerked her sleeves back in place, and gave the girl a look that told her to be more careful. Strangers didn’t understand bruises on a seven-year-old. But sometimes Savannah walked too slowly, and she had to be pulled along. It wasn’t Maria’s fault the girl’s skin was fair, or that she bruised easily.

  She paid the fare and led Savannah to the first two open seats. The subway always smelled the same—a faint mix of sour milk and old urine. Maria took stock of the car. An old lady at the far end, half asleep. Otherwise they were alone. She pulled a wad of bills from her pocket and counted them. September was a good month. Lots of tourists around the zoo entrance, less heat and humidity. Everyone in a good mood. She sorted through the bills and came up with an amount that surprised her even for September. A hundred and forty-two dollars. Not bad for a day’s work.

  “How much?” Savannah crossed her ankles and put her hands on her knobby knees. “Enough for rent?”

  “More than enough.” She eyed her daughter. “Don’t ask so many questions.”

  Maria tucked the money into the back pocket of her baggy jeans, leaned her head back against the window, and closed her eyes. Good day or not, this wasn’t how life was supposed to turn out. She was so far from those days that sometimes on the long subway ride home she forced herself to go back. Otherwise she would forget where she’d come from, and that wouldn’t be good. Because if she couldn’t remember the past, how was she ever going to find her way back there.

  She and Raul had married ten years ago with dreams of opening their own pizza shop on the Lower East Side. Raul had business partners who were shady, but Maria didn’t ask a lot of questions. It wasn’t her deal where Raul got his money or how he spent his time when he came home late at night.

  The trip to Vegas was his idea. “Go meet a guy with money. Get yourself knocked up and we’ll be set. Regular money coming in first of the month till the kid’s eighteen.”

  Maria hadn’t liked the idea, but the fact that Raul suggested it made her just mad enough that she decided to go. Could be fun, spending a week away from Raul, playing in the bed of a new man, someone rich and mysterious. She let Raul book her plane and hotel, and she took the trip two weeks later. Josh Warren was the first guy she met, sitting at a bar in the Mandalay Bay casino. He had dark hair and fair skin and blue eyes that caught her attention across the room. She had fifty dollars in her pocket and instructions to find the highest roller in the hotel. A nearby restroom gave her the chance to freshen her red lipstick and adjust her blouse so her cleavage was more prominent. Then she ambled up to the man and took the bar stool beside him.

  “Hi, there.” She played with a strand of her red-blond hair. “What’s a pretty boy like you doing all alone in a place like this?”

  He didn’t seem interested at first. He pulled a cigarette from a pack of L&M lights and offered one to her. She took it and held it out while he lit both of them. “I came alone.” He took a long drag from the cigarette. “Haven’t had a vacation in a year.”

  “Me, either.” She wasn’t sure the guy had money, but she was willing to take a few minutes to find out. “Buy me a drink?”

  Josh studied her and exhaled a mouthful of smoke with a series of surprised laughs. “You’re bold.”

  “Yes, sir.” She crossed her legs and adjusted her short skirt in a phony show of modesty. “My mama taught me you get nothing in this world unless you ask for it.”

  “Touché.” Josh held his cigarette up as if he were toasting her boldness. “Name’s Josh Warren.”

  “Hello, Josh.” The cigarette helped her voice sound velvety. She leaned over so he’d have a better view. “I’m Maria Cameron. Alone, same as you.”

  “Vacation?”

  “Sort of.” She willed herself to look the victim. “Old man used to beat me.” She shrugged one dainty shoulder. “Finally left the jerk. Came here looking for a change in luck.”

  Josh didn’t exactly look interested, but the glass of whiskey in front of him was half empty and he seemed pleasantly relaxed. “You a gambler, Maria Cameron?”

  “Sometimes.” She let her eyes move slowly down his frame. “Depends on the prize.”

  He laughed and they finished their cigarettes, flirting and making conversation. The part that caught her attention came just as he leaned across her to kill the cigarette in a nearby ashtray. Their shoulders brushed against each other and he whispered near her ear. “I got a million reasons why you should go out with me tonight.”

  “A million?” Maria’s heart beat harder. What was he saying? That he was a millionaire? She leaned closer. “Tell me about it.”

  “I got plans.” He ordered another whiskey for himself and one for her. When the drinks came, he grinned at her in a way that sent chills down her arms.

  “Tell me.” Maybe she’d fall in love with this Josh Warren. That would serve Raul right for sending her here in search of a one-night stand.

  “I work out of a garage in Denver, but in a year I’ll own the place. Then I’ll open a chain of garages up and down the state of Colorado. I’ll be a millionaire in no time, baby.” He clinked his glass against hers. “That’s the plan.”

  Maria wasn’t sure just how much money Josh had right now, but with plans like that she had to believe she’d found her guy. “I have plans, too.” She looked over her shoulder and lowered her voice. “But I don’t like talking about them in public.” She felt the corners of her mouth curl up. “Know what I mean?”

  Josh paid their tab and without asking what she meant he led her to the elevator and up sixteen floors to his room. They spent most of the next four days in bed, and she never even bothered to check in under her own name, never spent a dime. If Josh wasn’t a high roller, he certainly played the role that week. He told her he was a Christian and that he’d never done anything like this, and he tried everything he could to sell her on Denver.

  “We can get married and get a place together.” He had stars in his eyes from the time he first brought her to his room. “We’ll find a church and raise a family and I’ll take care of you the rest of your life.” As an afterthought he asked about her age.

  She was a well-kept thirty-two, but he didn’t need to know that. “I’m twenty-seven.” She studied him across the table at breakfast one morning. “What about you?”

  “Just turned twenty-one.” He was smoking again. “But that’s in style. Guys with older girls.”

  With every passing day Josh seemed to fall harder for her. He talked about his family, his sister, Lindsay, and how his parents wanted him to continue college. “But my plans don’t need a degree,” he told her. “Everything’s falling into place just like I hoped it would.”

  Josh made her feel things Raul never made her feel, and after three days she was thinking about going home with him to Denver and never looking back. It wasn’t until the last day that Maria made sense of the plans Josh had been talking about. Sure, he planned to own the garage at the end of the year, but right now he was living on a tow truck driver’s salary.

  They’d been in bed, and as the details fell into place, she climbed out and got dressed in a hurry. “You mean, you’re not a millionaire?”

  He leaned on his elbow and let out a nervous laugh. “Not yet. Not for a year, anyway.”

  She gathered her things. “This can’t work, Josh.” She was shaking by then, attracted
to him but scared about Raul. He’d left her a message at the front desk asking her to call. If she left with Josh now, Raul would hunt her down. He had friends who frightened her, friends who could find her. And if Josh wasn’t the high roller Raul had ordered her to find, then why would she go with him, anyway? More than that, when she got home he’d be furious with her. She shook her head. “Not yet, not now.” She had his phone number and address, and she’d given him hers. She backed up until she hit the hotel room door. “Besides, I’m married, Josh. I—I should’ve told you.” She reached for the door handle. “I’ll call you. Maybe then you’ll have your plans worked out and I’ll be single again and . . . and . . .”

  Josh sat up. “You’re married?” His cheeks lost their color. “How could you do this?”

  Maria left without answering, angry and in tears. He shouldn’t have exaggerated the truth. If he didn’t have a million dollars coming, then why say so? Pretty boys with a tow truck driver’s salary were a dime a dozen. Raul was better than that, after all. Josh followed her out into the hall, but she didn’t look back. Once she exited the elevator she made her way to the front desk and called Raul.

  “I found the high roller.” She swallowed the lie and pressed forward. “I’m ready to come home.”

  Raul praised her and gave her instructions for catching a flight home to New York the next day. She spent the night with a stranger from Australia and flew home a few hours later.

  “Think you’re knocked up?” Raul asked her when he met her at LaGuardia.

  Maria wanted to spit at him, but instead she glared with piercing eyes. “I had a good time. Let’s just say that.”

  Her answer ticked him off. He beat her bad that night, punishing her for having a good time on a trip he had forced her to take. The bruises and screaming were the beginning of the end, and by the time she found out she was pregnant, her marriage was over. She moved in with a girlfriend and began a series of bad relationships, all the while waiting until the baby was born.