by Wil Mara
“Hmm?”
“You … can’t … do … everything.”
She nodded. “I know.”
“You are handling this as well as anyone could. Better, in fact, than most. Believe me on this, I’ve seen enough small-town governance to know what I’m talking about.”
“But if something goes wrong.…”
“Here’s a news flash for you—something will go wrong. Something always goes wrong.”
“And everyone will judge me on how I reacted. I can feel their eyes on me today.”
Phillips laughed. “Your dad had a saying about that, y’know.”
“He did?”
“Yes, and I haven’t gone a day without thinking about it. It’s a quote from Maya Angelou. ‘People will forget what you said and forget what you did, but they’ll never forget how you made them feel.’”
Sarah grinned. “That sounds like him.”
“It was, it absolutely was him. And it’s absolutely you, too. You care about the town every bit as much as he did, and our residents know that. No one expects you to be a miracle worker. If they believe you’re trying your best, that’s gold. And no one—believe me, no one—thinks otherwise. That right there is how you make them feel.”
She took a deep breath, tilted her head up, and exhaled. “Just as long as it’s enough to carry the day.”
“It will be, you’ll see.”
“Okay, let me get back to work here.”
“Sure. And if there’s anything I can do to help you, remember I’m here with my cellphone and my iPad.”
“What? Who gave you—”
“Bye.…”
7
The ambulance bounced into the driveway at 337 Birdsall Road with its lights flashing, stopping just short of the aging Nissan sedan parked in front of the garage. The house was a modest structure in a modest residential district, with a finely trimmed lawn and weedless flower beds. A tidy awning, from which potted plants hung, sheltered the side door. Some of the yard’s luster had been tainted as the ongoing storm littered the landscape with wet leaves and sickly branches. The ambulance had fared no better; its lower half was splattered with mud.
Two uniformed EMTs jumped out and raced for the door. Danny Lewis, the youngest member of Emilio’s crew, reached the steps first, then stopped and waited for his boss. Emilio went past him and tried the doorknob, which was locked. Frowning, he reached for the scraggly hydrangea hanging nearby.
“What are you doing?” Lewis asked.
“Mrs. Hart always leaves a key somewhere in the—ah, here it is.” It had been half-buried in the soil. Emilio stretched his arm out beyond the awning to let the rain wash it—as well as his fingers—clean. After he dried the key on the side of his navy trousers, it slid easily into the lock.
The odors waiting behind the door were depressingly familiar to Emilio, whose passport into the land of geriatrics had been stamped many times since he’d taken up his profession. Old World cooking, various gels and liniments, the trapped-in-time dustiness of a home left unimproved for decades, and the unspeakable mordancy of a gradually decaying human body. Searching for the house’s sole resident, he and Lewis passed through the kitchen, with its linoleum floor and colonial-style cabinetry, and into the living room, where the carpet’s threadbare nap had been worn to a muted shine. It was a perfect complement to the faded tweed couch and framed crocheted renderings of ducks and deer.
A huge Samsung flat-screen seemed startlingly out of place, but Emilio knew that Mrs. Hart’s estranged daughter had sent it as a guilt offering, in lieu of an actual visit. The sound of a garbled moan sent him hustling down a short hallway, his Bluetooth earpiece blinking in the darkness and his partner close behind.
Emilio reached the open door at the end and went in. He found Ellen Hart lying unconscious on the bedroom floor. Blood from a wound on her forehead had soaked into the carpet and dried to a hardened crust in her ivory hair. The first-alert device she had used was around her neck on a silver chain, one hand loosely wrapped around the panic-button pendant. Her nightgown was hitched up to her stomach, revealing soft, wrinkly legs and a pair of sky blue panties stretched taut over an adult diaper.
Emilio got to one knee and carefully pulled Mrs. Hart’s nightgown down to her ankles. Then he went through the vitals—breathing, pulse, temperature, pupils, blood pressure.
He massaged her gently on the cheek. “Mrs. Hart? Mrs. Hart?”
Her head rolled back and forth, and she opened her eyes. “Yes? What?” When she saw him, the recognition was immediate. “Emilio? What are you—ooo. Oww.…” She touched the wound gingerly. “What happened?”
“It looks like you hit your head. Do you remember that?”
She took a deep breath and thought back. “Yes, yes. The joints in my knees have been killing me all day. This … this storm.”
Emilio nodded. “The barometric pressure is what makes the tissues in some people’s joints swell up.”
“I remember, um … I came in here. I was going to take a bath. Then I … I couldn’t stand up any more, it was just too painful. And down I went. I reached for my, uh…”—she felt around for the first-alert pendant and took it in hand—“this thing, and I pressed it.”
“Good thing you did,” Emilio said. He patted the edge of the nightstand. “I’ll bet you hit your head on this when you fell.”
“Yes, that’s right. Ooo.…” Her hand went to the laceration again—which was riding atop a good-sized lump—but Emilio gently stopped her before she touched it and risked further infection. “Where’s Toby?” she asked.
As if on cue, a dog could be heard galloping down a staircase toward the front of the house, then appeared in the hallway and began barking. Each note was a frantic shriek blended with the jingle of aluminum tags. Emilio heard Lewis say, “Hey there, little guy,” then watched as the door began to slowly open. Ellen Hart’s single housemate was a Maltese that weighed about a pound and a half. Its fur was unevenly black and white, and it had large round eyes that looked like oil spots.
No sooner had it taken stock of the situation than it rushed forward and clamped its teeth on Emilio’s pant cuff, grunting and growling as it tried to yank him backward.
Emilio chuckled, making no move to detach his attacker. “Hey, Toby, come on. Don’t you remember me?”
In a dreamy voice, Mrs. Hart said, “Toby, stop.”
Emilio turned back to her. “It’s okay, but I need to take a closer look at that boo-boo of yours.” He removed a pocket magnifier from his belt and leaned in. The wound was about three inches long and had ragged edges, as if a thin line of skin had been ripped free. “Hmm … it looks pretty nasty. It’s already begun to clot, which is good. But still, it’s fairly deep, and I’m concerned about secondary trauma. Here, look at me.”
She opened her eyes again, and he held up two fingers in the standard peace sign.
“How many?” he asked.
“Two.”
“Now how many?” he said, raising two more.
“Four.”
“Now?” He held up an open hand.
“All five.”
“And now?” He extended the thumb and pinky and turned his hand sideways. Hang ten, dude.
“Um, one. No … two again.”
“Okay, good. Now, just bear with me for a second.…” He used a pencil flashlight to shine a beam into each of the old woman’s eyes, and her pupils dilated properly, if a little sluggishly. “I doubt you’ve sustained a concussion, but I’d rather not take a chance. Also, if I leave you here and you have another spell, you could suffer a much more serious injury, like while you’re going down the stairs. So I’m going to take you to the emergency room for some tests, if that’s okay.”
“Yes, fine.”
“All right. I’m going to get an ice pack and some bandages, then we’ll get you out of here.”
He turned to Toby, who was still attached.
“And you—I’ll be back in a second and you can continue
with the alterations on my pants, okay?”
Toby released her grip as soon as she saw his hand coming toward her. Emilio scratched behind her ears before getting to his feet, fully expecting a nip in return. But she only looked at him perplexedly, no doubt wondering why a foe would make such an amiable gesture.
With Lewis trailing him down the hall, Emilio said, “She has a small to medium contusion on her forehead. She fell and struck the nightstand on the way down.”
“Ouch.”
“We have to cover it and put a pack on it to get the swelling down.”
“Right.”
“I want to take her to the hospital for some tests, so I need your help with the gurney.”
“You got it.”
They went back through the living room and took a sharp right into the kitchen, where Emilio stopped short and his subordinate nearly plowed into him. Rain was driving so ferociously against the curtain-framed window above the sink that it looked like the house was going through a car wash.
“What the hell?” Lewis said.
Emilio looked at the other window—the one above the radiator, facing the road—and saw the same thing. Then he backpedalled past his partner and returned to the living room because he had already noticed the acoustics were better in here. He could clearly hear the downpour on the roof; it sounded like a million tiny kettle drums being beaten by a million tiny natives. When he opened the door where they first came in, the storm’s volume increased exponentially. Then thunder blasted through the sky and lightning flickered as if connected to a bad fuse.
“My God … this all happened in the last fifteen minutes?” Lewis asked.
“I guess so.”
Out on the stoop, the sweet, frenzied scent of electricity hung heavily. Lightning struck again—this time quite close—accompanied by another thunderous report.
“It’s like someone turned the volume knob up to ten,” Lewis said.
“Twenty.”
“Yeah.”
Emilio shook his head. “Well, here goes.…”
The rain on his skin hurt like mad, more like little pebbles than drops of water. The wind drove it in a nearly horizontal direction, spraying water into his face and up his nose. He opened the rear doors of the ambulance—one immediately blew shut again and smacked him on the side—and piled the ice pack and bandages onto the gurney, which he then covered with a sheet of opaque plastic. Lewis came out and helped him wheel it inside. The rain hitting the plastic sounded like applause from a crowd of thousands.
They got a blanket under Mrs. Hart and lifted her together. Once the bandages were in place, Emilio lay an ice pack over the contusion and asked her to hold it there. Covering her with a second blanket, they began rolling the gurney through the house. Toby jumped and barked around their feet, alarmed and confused.
Emilio stopped. “We can’t leave her here.”
“What?” Lewis asked, looking perplexed.
“The dog. We can’t leave her here in the storm.” Then, to his patient, “She’ll be scared, won’t she, Mrs. Hart?”
She nodded. “Lightning and thunder frighten her very much.”
“That’s what I thought. Okay, then.…”
He scooped Toby up while she wiggled and squirmed, and set her on the gurney next to her mistress. She snuggled down without further protest, though her eyes were still bright with terror.
“Allison’s the resident physician in the ER today,” Lewis said, nodding toward the dog, “and she’s not going to like that.”
“Tough luck for her,” Emilio replied and began pushing again.
When they got to the door, they pulled up the rails and stretched the plastic sheet over the top of the gurney and its passengers, which reduced them to hazy images underneath. Racing through the pounding rain, they were in the ambulance in seconds. Lewis remained in the back while Emilio hopped into the driver’s seat, grimacing at the feeling of his shirt sticking to him like a superfluous layer of grimy, loosened skin. It was soaked to the point where his crewneck undershirt had become clearly visible.
Back on the road, the windshield wipers did their best to throw aside the downpour. On Falls View Avenue, Emilio had to navigate around a large maple tree that had split in half. In spite of the rain, there was smoke drifting from the spot where lightning had nailed it. One side was lying on the pavement; the other was leaning against the power lines, which were stretched as tight as guitar strings. A sickened feeling rose inside him at the sight of this. Things are breaking down, he thought. The infrastructure of the town. Something very basic. He couldn’t quite put his finger on what it was, but there was something not-right about it. Depression was beginning to seep into him.
He called the police to let them know about the tree, and considered phoning Sarah. He was hesitant because he knew how busy she could be on an ordinary day, and this one was anything but ordinary. He also knew how much her work meant to her. But then speaking with her always soothed him.
He was just about to press the button on his earpiece when a call came in. He smiled when the robo-voice announced Sarah’s number.
“Hello there,” he said.
“Is it me, or did the weather gods just put the pedal to the metal?”
“Tell me about it. I’m in the first unit right now and I can barely see through the windshield.”
“Is someone injured?”
“Mrs. Hart fell in her bedroom and sustained a contusion. I think she’ll be okay, but I’m taking her to the ER for some tests just in case.”
“Good idea.”
“I brought Toby along, too,” he said.
“Aw, you’re so sweet. What a combination—sweet, funny, smart, good-looking—”
He chuckled. “Stop, you’ll make me blush. Besides, I could say all the same things about you.”
“Maybe later.”
“Under the covers?”
“It’s a date,” she said.
“Good. So what’s the deal with the storm? Are they saying anything about it on the news?”
“The weather geniuses are stumped.”
“Big surprise.”
“And I’m starting to get more calls.” Sarah said. “Trees down, flash floods, property damage.”
“I’ll bet.”
“You’ll be getting more, too.”
He sighed. “Yeah.”
Another thunderclap boomed through the sky to follow a neon stutter that briefly turned the dark back to day.
“My God,” Sarah said in a sharp whisper. Emilio knew she was becoming really frightened. But now that he was speaking with her, his own reserves of courage had been replenished, and he was ready to return the favor.
“Okay, take it easy,” he said. “It’s a big storm, but it’s still just a storm.”
“I know.”
He wanted nothing more than to hold her tight against him at this moment. “And I’m here, and I love you.”
She sniffed out a laugh, and that made him smile.
“I love you, too.”
“Then, hey, baby—how bad can things really be?”
8
“Marla—Ms. Hollis—please,” Corwin said as they returned to his office.
“You’re wasting your time, Mr. Corwin,” Marla said, her face a stony mask of corralled anger. “Save your strength. You’re going to need it.”
“I’m asking you to be fair here.”
Her eyebrows rose in astonishment. “Fair? You can’t be serious. How fair have you been today? You promised to be honest. You promised to be candid. You promised to be forthcoming. But I know you left things out.”
She snatched her bag and raincoat from the guest chair without responding.
“You need to understand my position in all of this,” he went on. “I truly believe that nuclear power is the best form of energy we’ve got, and that’s what really matters here. When you consider all the facts, all the statistics, I don’t know how you can view it any other way.”
Marla pushed p
ast him, picking up the sweaty scent of his fear—which was gratifying in its own way—and started down the hall toward reception.
“Maybe when I’m finished with my articles, I’ll write a book,” she said. “Maybe two or three.”
Trailing close, Corwin said, “Ms. Hollis, please. Perhaps we can reach an agreement.”
She slammed on the brakes and whirled around. She was smiling now.
“An agreement? You mean like a bribe? Is that what you’re suggesting?” She shook her head. “The rich never cease to amaze me. Pal, there isn’t enough money in the world to buy my silence on all the things I know—things that you’ve conveniently left out of our conversation today.”
“Like what?” he asked with puzzlement that was far from convincing.
She held up one hand with the thumb sticking out; the universal signal that a list was about to be recited.
“You’ve been written up four times for electrical malfunctions caused by faulty control-room indicators, five times for coupling failures in the service-water system, seven times for drug- and alcohol-related problems among your employees, and eleven times for spent-fuel disposal violations, in the last month alone.”
She dropped her hand and continued to rattle off a number of other violations. Corwin’s face took on a sickly pallor.
“How can you possibly know all that?” he asked, clearly stunned.
She turned away again, this time with a perceptible finality. The discussion was over.
“You have a leak, Mr. Corwin,” she stated triumphantly, entering the lobby where they’d first met. Corwin scurried after her like a nervous child. Marla laughed and added, “Ironic, isn’t it? A leak at a nuclear plant?”
The attractive young receptionist stood up when she heard this, looking worriedly at her boss for clarification.
“And this one will be a thousand times more radioactive than Chernobyl,” Marla went on, “particularly in terms of what it’ll do to your reputation. You can kiss that new facility good-bye, that much I can promise.”
Nearing the glass doors, Marla noticed that the storm was well underway. She paused and dug through her lumpy, heavily loaded shoulder bag until she found a compact umbrella. The rain was driving so hard there was no visibility beyond the sidewalk.