Finally Free

by Lynne Gentry

  “Tell me another story about my grandfather,” Aria pleads.

  “You’re a bottomless pit.”

  “I’ve got a lot of catching up to do.”

  I inhale the holiday scent of scrub juniper and begin to tell the story it brings to mind. “One Christmas Eve your grandfather agreed that all of us could camp on the bluff to watch for Santa.”

  “In December?”

  “This is Texas. Chilly, but not freezing.”

  “Can we do it?”

  “No.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because we awoke beneath a tent that had collapsed under the weight of an unexpected snow. We nearly froze to death before Daddy got us back to the house.” I let my mind drift back to the smell of cedar popping in the fireplace, old quilts wrapped around my shoulders, and my father passing out hot chocolate while Momma sneaked around and put the presents under the tree. “It was the best Christmas ever.” The happy ending to this story is sweet on my tongue. Not because I’m trying to sugar-coat Aria’s opinion of my father, but because that’s how I truly remember him.

  The realization that I remember my father fondly despite learning the truth about him jars me.

  Huffing as we climb higher, I ponder the hand my mother had in shaping the image I had of him. I saw my father as a hero, not because he’d done anything particularly deserving of the title, but because that’s how my mother saw him. She wanted me to love him, flaws and all, as much as she did.

  “Ari,” I say after we reach the bluff. “My father wasn’t perfect.” Hands clasped tightly, we inch our toes to the very edge of the ledge. From this vantage point, we can see the Addisonville water tower and the winding path the river cuts through the hills splashed with the color of red sumac and yellow river cypress. “And neither is yours. But it’s okay to still love them.”

  “I know, but the divorce is going to be final in a few weeks.”

  Deep water swirls below me. “The only thing that is ever final is death, my sweet. If you want to live with your dad, I’m sure we could renegotiate our settlement agreement.”

  She shakes her head. “Aunt Winnie is right, he doesn’t want me.”

  “Your dad loves you.”

  “Yeah, but he loves his freedom more, right?”

  “Parents are tricky things. We’re imperfect people trying to do the best we can.”

  “Even Nana?”

  Years of happy memories—recollections of my mother holding me close, teaching me piano, and always cheering me on—flood my mind. Memories that had so long been buried under my anger and grief.

  “Even Nana.”

  Aria’s grip relaxes within mine. Hand in hand, we stand in silence. I’m taking in the twists and turns of the river canyon when my gaze lands upon the tiny fossils, no bigger than little bits of shell, sparkling along the limestone walls. Like Momma and me, these ancient creatures were minding their own business, happily living out their purpose, when suddenly some unexpected and terrible act of nature trapped them in this valley. Only God knew that what had once seemed so catastrophic would lend beauty to a day far in the future.

  I pray He can redeem my past to aid my daughter’s future. “Tell you what, Ari. Let’s try to give both of them the benefit of the doubt. Okay?”

  “Okay.”

  An angry rattle buzzes on my right. “Don’t move,” I tighten my grip on Aria’s hand. “Snake.”

  “Where?” she whispers.

  “Shhh.” My gaze scours the rocks for the viper’s location.

  Coiled less than a yard from my foot is one of the biggest rattlesnakes I’ve ever seen. Before I can think of what to do, a jolt of pain ten times worse than a wasp sting pierces my ankle.

  Aria screams and the snake wheels and disappears over the rocks. “Mom, did he bite you?”

  Vibrations, much like those received from an electrical shock, shoot up my leg. I look down to where Aria is pointing. Two prick marks tattoo my ankle.

  “Mom, you’re bleeding!”

  I power through the fog that has already started descending upon me. “Run. Get Ira. Tell him to bring the tractor with the front-end loader on it.”

  “He can’t see to drive it.”

  “Well then, you’ll have to get Nana to drive.”

  “I can’t leave you here. What if that snake comes back?”

  “Your scream sent him packing. Run, Aria. Now!”

  Chapter 38

  SARA

  Ira!” The young girl’s scream is followed by the slamming of the screen door. “Help! Ira, where are you?”

  I leave the piano and trundle off to the kitchen. “What are you doing in my kitchen?”

  The blonde girl ripping through the cupboard drawers is red faced and breathing hard. “Nana, a rattlesnake bit Mom.”

  Something inside of me shatters like a fragile window pane that’s been struck by an unexpected fly ball. Fresh air rushes in and blows away the cobwebs. “Where is she?”

  “Sitting under the oak tree on the bluff.” Aria holds a clean dishcloth under the faucet. “She wants Ira to get the tractor and come pick her up so that the venom won’t pump to her heart.

  “That old man can’t see a thing. I’ll drive.”

  Ira rushes into the kitchen. “What’s going on?”

  Aria quickly explains the whole thing again. “We need the tractor.”

  Ira says, “Let me get my glasses.”

  “It’s my tractor. I’ll drive it.” I push him aside and hurry to the porch.

  Ira tells Teeny to call 9-1-1 while I shove my feet into a pair of boots. We all rush to the barn. For some reason, there’s a strange tractor-sized hole on one side of the shed. I don’t trust myself to maneuver the tractor through that opening without taking off a few more boards. I rush around to the barn doors, unhook the latch and swing them open. Lucky for me, Charlotte had taken the time to back the tractor in after she’d finished brush-hogging the fence rows.

  “Hop on.” While Ira and Aria scramble up behind the driver’s seat, I study the levers and gauges trying to remember how to make this thing go.

  “Turn the key,” Ira says. “There, on your right.”

  “I’ve been driving this tractor for years, Martin.” I press the clutch and turn the key. The old engine sputters, then dies.

  “Crank it again,” Ira urges.

  “I know what I’m doing.” I pump the gas and twist the key. When the tractor chugs to life, I can’t help but feel a little vindicated. “Hang on.” I drop the shifter into gear and release the clutch. We shoot forward with a lurch and putt across the yard.

  Aria hops off when we reach the pasture gate and quickly undoes the latch. She waves me through and I stop long enough for her to climb back on. It feels good to be behind the wheel again.

  “Hurry, Nana!” Aria’s pecking around on her phone. “We’ve got to get her to a doctor within thirty minutes.”

  Like me, the hurrying days of this tractor are long past. But I stomp the gas pedal as far as it will go. Black smoke belches from the exhaust pipe. The little bit of speed we pick up is soon lost on the climb toward the bluff. Memories of the horrible things I’ve seen from the highest vantage point in the county swirl in my mind.

  What if I’m too late...again?

  “There she is!” Aria points to the live oak. “Mom!”

  Charlotte’s obviously still conscious because she gives a weak little wave and thanksgiving leaps from my lips. By the time we get to her, the color has drained from Charlotte’s face and she’s sweating like the temperature has risen to a hundred degrees on this cool fall day. But she’s still alive. That’s all that matters. My baby is alive.

  Ira and Aria are off the tractor before I’m completely stopped. I push in the clutch, shift into neutral, then set the parking break. Unwilling to risk that I might not get the old beast started again, I leave the tractor running and climb down.

  “Oh, baby!” I squat beside my daughter and give her a good going over. “
Momma’s here.”

  “I should have listened to you, Momma,” spills out of Charlotte’s mouth as Aria places the cool cloth on her mother’s forehead. “He got me good.”

  Charlotte’s ankle is swollen and a bruise is beginning to spread beyond the fang marks.

  “Well, let’s hope your heart is as hard as your head.” I take her hand. “Martin, you and that girl there help me load this one into the bucket.”

  “I think I can walk.”

  “No,” Ira says as he drapes one of Charlotte’s arms across his shoulders. “You just try to relax.”

  It takes some doing, but the three of us work together until Charlotte is laid out in the bucket of the front-end loader.

  “Go, Nana!” Aria shouts after she climbs up behind me.

  I wheel the tractor around and beeline it to the house. In the driveway, Teeny is standing by the idling Caddy with one hand tented over her eyes, the other holding out my purse. “How is she?”

  “In desperate need of a doctor.” The shakes are threatening my knees, but I can’t give in to the possibility that I could lose another child. “Where’s that ambulance?”

  “I called,” Teeny says. “They said we could probably get her to town faster than they could come get her.”

  “Sweet Moses!” I grab my purse from Teeny. “Let’s go, Ira!”

  “But Nana, you don’t drive on the roads anymore.”

  “I do today, kiddo.”

  Chapter 39

  CHARLOTTE

  After Momma sideswipes the Wootens’ mailbox, a surge of nausea forces me to lay my head in Aria’s lap and close my eyes.

  “Mom!” Aria pats my face roughly. “Wake up!”

  “I’m okay, Ari.” I mumble, squeezing my eyes tighter as the car swerves again. “Nana’s driving is more than I can stomach right now.”

  “See why I need my learner’s permit?”

  The throb from my ankle has reached my knees, so I massage my hand and try to focus on Aria’s terrified face. “Point taken.” Another jerk forces me to close my eyes again.

  “You hang on, Charlotte.” Ira’s knuckles are white on the dash. “Sara and I will get you to the hospital.”

  “I googled snakebite.” Aria shakes me gently. “Mom, I can’t monitor your physical or mental state if you fall asleep.”

  “Aria, use that phone of yours to call Dr. Ellis,” Momma shouts from the driver’s seat. Her voice is not that of the confused woman I’d spoken to earlier this morning. Instead, it’s the voice of a woman who’s faced more than her share of tragedy, a woman who’s done what had to be done, and intends to get it done again.

  It is the voice of my mother.

  “I called Dr. Ellis on my way to the house, Nana,” Aria says. “He’s going to meet us at the hospital.”

  The next ten miles are the longest of my life. Momma’s jerky slowing and accelerating at each of the various curves tosses me around on the back seat. I dare to pry one eye open. Branches of overhanging trees fly by. Just when I think I can’t take another minute of watching Aria fight tears, my mother, the woman who can’t find her way from her kitchen to her bedroom, somehow drives us right up to the emergency room doors.

  Itty is waiting with a gurney and two burly aids when the back door opens. “Let me get her out of the car,” he tells Momma. “Ira, I’m counting on you to keep Sara and Aria company while I see what kind of trouble Charlotte’s gotten herself into now.”

  “Trouble?” I say, my tongue fuzzy. “I was ambushed by an angry rattler.”

  “How big?” Itty scoops me from the back seat and pulls me to his broad chest.

  I’m too busy trying to sort the reason for my racing heart to answer.

  “Huge!” Aria answers for me. “Maybe five feet long.”

  “That’s good.” Benjamin places me on the gurney. “The bigger the better.”

  “What?” Aria’s eyes swell to the size of baseballs.

  “Older rattlers are far less likely to waste venom on something they can’t eat.” Benjamin nods and the aids wheel me inside. “Y’all make yourselves at home in the waiting room, Mrs. Slocum. I’ll send someone out to get you after I’ve assessed my patient.”

  Itty issues commands once we’re in the exam room and two nurses scurry to do his bidding. I try not to flinch when he approaches me with a pair of scissors and proceeds to slit my capris up to my thigh.

  “Guess city girls aren’t used to watching for snakes.” He drops the scissors on a metal tray.

  As he gently removes the fabric from my swollen leg, I concentrate on the ceiling tiles. “There are plenty of sidewinders in the city,” I say between clenched teeth. “But they wear two-thousand-dollar suits and never rattle before they strike.”

  “Touché.” Itty takes a sharpie out of his pocket and makes a mark on my leg.

  I push up on my elbows and stare at the black line. “I’m dying and you’re playing connect the dots?”

  He places his hand on his heart and feigns hurt. “This is a cutting-edge medical treatment.”

  “And if it doesn’t work, you can always ask Momma to get the shot gun and put me down.”

  “Only as a last resort.” He smirks.

  I fall back on the bed. “I hate small towns.”

  “Relax. It’s an old trick I learned in Boy Scouts.” Once he sees that I’m in no mood for teasing, he goes on to explain, “Marking the extent of your swelling upon arrival allows me to monitor the progression of the venom spreading. Monitoring the swelling is the only way for me to know how much venom that old boy pumped into you.” He caps the marker. “How long has it been since you sustained the bite?”

  “Thirty to forty-five minutes.”

  “Any numbness or tingling in your arms or face?”

  “Maybe a little tingling.”

  “Okay.” He lifts my foot to examine the puncture wounds. “Are you up to date with your tetanus shot?”

  “I’m not sure.”

  “Well, I’ll give you another one just to be sure.” He lowers my swollen leg. “I’ll have the nurse draw some blood and admit you for a night of observation.”

  “Observation? Aren’t you going to give me antivenin?”

  “Antivenin has a whole different set of risks.” He presses my swollen calf. “Besides, why would you want to pay fifty to a hundred thousand dollars for a treatment insurance rarely covers when you may only need an antibiotic?”

  “How will you know?”

  “If you die, I’ll know I should have gone with the high-dollar treatment.”

  I don’t give him the satisfaction of laughing at his inability to resist tossing in another joke. “Shouldn’t you at least make an X with that marker and suck out the poison?”

  “You’ve watched too many old westerns. Forty percent of bites from older snakes are dry.” He swabs a little alcohol on the puncture marks. “A night of observation, some antibiotics, then a week of putting no weight on that leg is all you’ll need. Probably.”

  “A week?” I push up on my elbows again. “I can’t be off my feet for a week.”

  “For one whole week, you get to let others take care of you.” He types something into an iPad. “Ready for me to let your family come back?”

  “If you’ve done everything you can, might as well let the huddled masses take a crack at saving me.”

  “Gratitude. One of the many rewards of being a small-town doc.” He closes the cover on his iPad. “By the way, why was Sara behind the wheel of a car?”

  “Because we were all under the impression that time was of the essence when treating snakebites and my demented mother was the best shot we had of getting me here alive.”

  “That’s scary.”

  “Ari thought I was dying, but I had to keep my eyes closed because I was praying.”

  “The primary necessity of being a good caregiver is taking care of yourself.”

  “Right. I’ll just kick back and let everyone wait on me for a change.”

 
; Itty’s brow raises slightly. I don’t know if it’s the snake poison talking or the remnants of resentment I’ve been harboring, but my sarcastic edge is not lost on my old friend. “You want to bounce back from this?”

  “I have to.”

  “Then you’re going to have to make certain you’re resting enough, regardless of all the obligations you’re carrying due to your current living arrangement. Everything you invest into your personal well-being will benefit those who are going to eventually need more and more of your time and assistance.” Itty pulls out his phone. “Your mother is a little shaken, so I’m going to call Winnie and see if she can drive your family home.”

  “Don’t bother Win.”

  “Charlotte, I know you’d rather choke on your pride than swallow a morsel of it, but I can guarantee that a mental breakdown is in your future if you insist on doing this alone.”

  “You want to help?”

  “That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you.”

  “Fine.” I turn my head to the window. “You tell Momma that Winnie’s coming.”

  ****

  “We don’t need that hippie to drive us home!” Momma’s protests penetrate the closed door to my room. “I got us here, didn’t I, Benjamin? I can get us home.”

  Bracing for a fight, I push the button on my bed rail elevating my head so that my gaze will be eye level with my infuriated mother.

  Momma bursts into the room, her arms waving in frustration. “Tell this furry man that I’m perfectly capable of driving a car, Caroline.”

  “I’m Charlotte.”

  The correction throws Momma off long enough for Itty to jump in and change the subject. “Once I release Charlotte, she’s going to need a few days of rest. Therefore, I’m going to contact Home Health and see what we can set up.”