“Yes, that’s our car,” he was saying. “Yes … yes, that’s the license number. What’s happened?”
Daria gripped his arm and put a hand to her mouth. “Oh, please, Lord,” she whispered. “Please …”
“Oh no,” Cole said into the phone now, his shoulders sagging. He swung his legs over and sat on the side of the bed, elbows on knees. “When did it happen?” Daria had heard that tremor of horror in his voice only one other time in all their years together.
She climbed out of bed and began to pace and cry. From Cole’s end of the conversation, it was obvious something terrible had happened. Oh, please, Lord … not Nattie. Please, God. Please … She thought immediately of Nathan Camfield. How would Nate ever bear it if something had happened to their daughter?
“We’ll be right there,” Cole told the caller. He dropped the receiver into its cradle, stood up, and looked at her with a stunned expression. “Natalie’s been in an accident.”
“No, no!” Daria moaned, shaking her head from side to side in disbelief. “Is she …?” She couldn’t bring herself to finish the sentence.
“She’s alive. She’s in the emergency room at Community, but …” He dropped back to the bed and put his face in his hands.
“What, Cole? What is it?” Panic rose in her. There was something he wasn’t telling her. Something worse.
“They said …” He stopped and took a tremulous breath before going on, “There was a passenger in the car with Nattie. Her passenger was killed, Daria.”
“Oh, dear God, no! Was it Sara?” Her thoughts spun out of control. “What happened, Cole? How did it happen?”
Already he was in the closet pulling on his jeans. Daria knew she needed to get dressed too. They had to go to Nattie. She would be devastated. Maybe she was critically injured herself. But Daria couldn’t dwell on that possibility now. Her mind simply could not take in all the facets of this horrific news.
“Cole, how did it happen? Do you think it was Sara? Who else would’ve been with them?” she asked again.
“I don’t know,” he said, pulling a sweatshirt over his head. The sheriff’s deputy said it was a two-car accident out on the highway. Apparently, some kids were leaving a party out at Hansens’—”
“Oh, Cole,” she breathed. “You don’t think Natalie was out there, do you?”
“I don’t know, Daria. Hurry, get dressed. We need to go to the hospital.”
She felt as though she were moving in slow motion.
“I’ll leave a note for the girls,” Cole told her, already halfway down the stairs.
She threw on a pair of jeans and a sweater and fumbled with shoes and socks. When she got to the kitchen, she could hear Cole starting the car in the garage. She’d just gotten her car door shut when he backed out of the garage and raced down the driveway. He pulled onto the road and drove far too fast on dirt roads that were still soft from the recent rains.
“Oh, Cole,” Daria cried, as the reality of what had happened hit her full force. “What if it’s Sara?”
He didn’t answer but kept his eyes straight ahead as they sped through town, then found a place to park near the hospital’s emergency-room entrance.
Inside, the halls were littered with people. Daria recognized a few faces, worried-looking teenagers mostly, though her muddled state of mind wouldn’t allow her to put a single name with a face.
A nurse met them at the admissions desk. “Are you the Camfields?” she asked.
“I’m Cole Hunter,” he said, correcting her. “We’re Natalie Camfield’s parents.”
“This way,” the woman said, leading them through a heavy door to the right of the admissions desk.
“Do you know anything about the accident?” Cole asked her as they dashed through the emergency ward.
“Right this way,” she replied, ignoring his question.
The way she said it, it struck Daria that the woman must have known something she wasn’t allowed to reveal. Daria’s hands began to shake, and she wondered where Maribeth and Don were. Oh, Father, don’t let it be Sara.
Then a numbing thought hit Daria like a punch in the stomach. What if the wreck was Natalie’s fault?
The nurse stopped at an examining room and pushed the curtain aside. Natalie lay on her back on a cotton sheet. Her face was pale, almost gray, and dirt smudged her cheeks, but Daria could see that her daughter was in one piece and that she was breathing. Relief coursed through her veins, leaving her drained and on the verge of tears.
But she felt another surge of relief when she realized that the doctor working over Natalie’s still form was Marlin Davidson. Marlin was an elder in their church.
He looked up when they walked into the room. “Hi, Cole, Daria. She’s unconscious, but she’s alive. She has some cuts that will need sutures, and”—he brushed the hair off Natalie’s forehead—“she has a pretty nasty bump here. We’ve already done a FAST exam, but we’ll need to do a CT scan to make sure we’re not missing anything. We’re going to have you wait outside for a few minutes. You can sign the necessary papers. I’ll let you know the minute you can come back in.”
The nurse ushered them to a private waiting area. Daria stared at the forms they brought her, struggling to remember the simplest information, and clutching the pen with trembling hands.
Cole didn’t sit but paced the short length of the room. Daria watched his lips move silently, and she knew that as she was, he was praying the most fervent prayer of his life.
After what seemed an eternity, Dr. Davidson appeared in the doorway. Daria jumped up, Cole at her side. She was horrified to notice, for the first time, the blood that stained the doctor’s white coat. His face was unreadable as he nodded.
“Cole, Daria … please, sit down.” He waited, then told them, “She has a pretty good bump on her head that we’ll be keeping a close eye on. The cuts and abrasions are relatively minor. We have her stabilized right now, but the CT scan showed that her spleen is ruptured, so we need to move her into surgery. Dr. Grant is on his way in now.”
Dr. Davidson assured them that Natalie was getting the best care possible, but he may as well have been speaking a foreign language for all Daria comprehended. She understood only that her daughter was seriously hurt—and they must face the unthinkable possibility that Nattie’s dearest childhood friend was dead.
When Marlin left, Cole led Daria back to the chairs in the tiny private waiting room. They sat side by side, praying silently, interrupting each other every few minutes to ask aloud questions to which neither of them had answers.
“I wonder who found her.”
“Do you think she knew what was happening?”
“Was Marlin going to be there—during the surgery? Oh, Cole, I hope she’s not alone … oh, Natalie … Nattie.” Daria finally broke down and wept.
The wait was interminable. Cole walked back and forth while Daria sat on the edge of a chair, her head in her hands. From time to time Cole went to the nurses’ station, trying to get some clue as to how much longer they had to wait. But the nurses were frazzled trying to deal with the crowd that had gathered in the halls and could only tell him that they would let them know the minute they could see her.
Daria called her parents and asked them to go to the house to be with Nicole and Noelle. She couldn’t bear to have the girls home alone now. She knew they would agonize over their sister—and over Sara, if what they feared was true.
Bill Simmons, the assistant pastor of their church, came and prayed with them, then sat with them while they waited. It went through Daria’s mind that Pastor Vickers was probably with Don and Maribeth.
Finally, a haggard looking Dr. Davidson emerged from the ward and met the Hunters at the doorway of the waiting room.
“Let’s go sit down, shall we?” He motioned toward a secluded corner of the room and closed the door behind him. “She’s in ICU now. The surgery went well. I feel she’s out of immediate danger, but we want to monitor her closely for the next few hours.�
�� He looked at the floor and cleared his throat, then turned to each of them in turn. “I don’t know what you’ve been told about the accident …”
“Marlin, do you—Do you know what happened?” Cole asked. “The deputy who called us said Nattie’s passenger was killed.” His voice broke. “He said—it was a two-car accident. Do you know who was in the other car? Do they know—whose fault it was?”
“I don’t know much, Cole. There were two fatalities, and—”
Daria gasped, “Two?”
Cole groaned, but Dr. Davidson ignored his reaction and went on in a soft, steady voice. “Witnesses have said that the kids left a party—a beer party—you know, out at Hansens’ on the highway?”
Daria and Cole nodded in unison.
“Apparently the other vehicle ran a stop sign and hit Natalie’s car broadside. The driver died at the scene, and his passenger was LifeWatched to Wichita. Natalie was thrown from the car. And her passenger was killed.”
Cole interrupted now. “Can you give us any names, Marlin? Was it Sara Dever? Nattie’s passenger? Do you know?”
Dr. Davidson nodded slowly and looked at the floor. “Yes. It was Sara.”
Daria began to moan.
“From what EMS said, she was dead at the scene—probably instantly.”
“But the wreck wasn’t Natalie’s fault, was it?” Daria wept, pleading for the answer she needed so desperately to hear.
“It doesn’t sound like it, Daria,” Dr. Davidson sighed. “But of course they won’t determine that for a while. The sheriff has ordered blood samples on everyone. Witnesses said that both vehicles came from the party, and you know there was plenty of beer flowing out there.”
“Both vehicles? They think Natalie and Sara were out there too?” Cole asked.
Daria could tell that he was near tears.
“I really couldn’t say for sure. You’d have to talk to the sheriff about that.” Dr. Davidson pushed his glasses up on his nose. “It’s a miracle, really, that anyone survived at all. Be grateful that you have your daughter in one piece. You’ll cross the other bridges when you come to them.”
Cole rose from his seat, his voice choked with emotion. “Thank you, Marlin. Thank you so much for everything. We’re grateful.” He extended his hand to the doctor who stood to shake it.
“Can we see her now?” Daria rose too.
“Sure. I’ll walk you to the wing. It’s hard to say how long it might be before she comes to, but you can sit with her for a while.”
He showed them through the halls and pointed toward the corridor that led to the ICU.
Daria clung to Cole’s arm as they went down the hall. Natalie was lying in a hospital bed, her strong young body connected to the bed and the IV equipment by numerous tubes and straps. Daria rushed to her daughter’s bedside and took a quick inventory. She couldn’t help thinking of the moments immediately after Natalie’s birth when she had inspected her baby, counting precious fingers and toes. Now she saw that there was a nasty bruise on Nattie’s left forearm and that both her arms were bandaged. Her pale hair had been brushed away from her forehead, revealing a large goose egg of a bump. Her face had been scrubbed clean, and except for the bump on her forehead and the pallor of her complexion, her face showed no other sign of the trauma.
Daria gingerly stroked her daughter’s cheek as tears coursed down her own face. Cole came and stood beside his wife, put his arm around her, and pulled her head to his chest, cradling it there.
She wept bitterly. It seemed unbelievable that they were here. She and Cole stood together that way for several minutes, quietly giving thanks to God that the life of their eldest daughter had been miraculously spared … and praying for the strength they would need to tell her that her dearest friend in the world was gone.
They stayed by Natalie’s bed for hours, listening to the drone of the blood pressure machine and watching for any sign that she was waking up. Finally, Daria decided to go home long enough to break the news to Nicole and Noelle and to get some of Natalie’s things to bring back to the hospital.
As she drove the few miles home in the gray light of morning, her mind reeled at all they still didn’t know about the accident. Her heart went out to the Devers. She knew they would have to face Don and Maribeth, and she dreaded it, especially knowing that Natalie had been driving.
Please, God, she begged silently, don’t let it be Nattie’s fault. Oh, Father, it will be hard enough for her to accept that Sara is gone. It will be unbearable if Natalie was responsible.
She felt guilty even as she begged God for the fault to lie with someone else. She knew it was pointless to pray about something that was past, but somehow she hoped her words were true.
Daria pulled into the garage and went into the house. The farmhouse was quiet on this Sunday morning, and a sob escaped Daria’s throat as she thought about waking the girls and telling them. Nicole, especially, would be devastated by Sara’s death. Daria wondered if Jon might already have called her.
Daria walked through the kitchen into the dining room, where her parents were sitting somberly over coffee.
Margo Haydon jumped up and crossed the room when she saw Daria. “How is Nattie?”
“Hi, Mom.” Daria walked into her mother’s embrace. “She still hadn’t come to when I left, but they think she’s going to be all right. At least physically.” Her shoulders slumped. “But I don’t know how she’s ever going to get over Sara’s death.”
Her father set his mug on the table. “So Natalie doesn’t know yet?”
Daria shook her head. “The girls are still sleeping?”
Her parents nodded in unison.
“I’d better go tell them.”
She went up to the room her younger daughters still shared. Turning on Nicole’s bedside lamp, she shook the slight shoulders. “Nikki, wake up, honey.”
Nicole stretched and rubbed her eyes. “What time is it?” she murmured.
“It’s early. About five-thirty. But wake up, honey. I need to tell you something. There’s been an accident.”
The words brought Nicole upright in bed. “What happened? Is it Daddy?”
“No. Daddy’s fine.”
In the other bed, Noelle rolled over and sat up in bed. “What’s going on?”
Daria looked over at her youngest daughter and braced herself to tell the news. “Natalie was in an accident last night. A terrible accident.”
Both girls began to cry, and Noelle came and sat on her sister’s bed, huddling up against her. “Is Nattie dead?” Noelle wailed.
Daria joined her daughters, weeping unashamedly. “No, I think Nattie will be all right, but—Sara was with her … And she—Sara didn’t make it.”
“Oh, Mom! No! Not Sara! What happened?” Nikki wailed. “Does Jon know?”
“I’m sure he does, honey. It just happened a few hours ago. We haven’t talked to Don and Maribeth yet.
“There was another fatality too,” she told them.
“Who?” the girls asked in unison, hands to their faces in disbelief.
She shook her head. “We don’t know. No one at the hospital could tell us anything.”
“Was—Was Sara at the hospital?” Nikki asked, her voice trembling.
For a minute Daria wondered if Nicole was in denial, not accepting that Sara was really dead. But then she realized that Nikki meant Sara’s body. The thought took her breath away, made it all too real. “I don’t know, honey,” she finally said. “Dr. Davidson said Sara was … dead at the scene, so they probably didn’t take her to the hospital.”
“Then … where would they take her?”
“I don’t know, Nikki. Probably the funeral home. But I don’t know for sure.”
Such hard questions. Their tears and weeping filled the room, and as Daria gathered her daughters into her arms, the three of them sat on the bed, lost in their separate thoughts.
How strange that a few short hours could change their world so suddenly. Yesterday they had been car
efree and happy. Today Sara and someone else’s son or daughter, brother or sister, were gone. And another young person was fighting for life in a Wichita hospital. Names they didn’t know yet. Names that in all likelihood they would recognize and mourn.
And Natalie lay a few miles away, not even aware yet that her life had been devastated.
Nine
Natalie opened her eyes and strained to keep them open against the bright lights above her. Everything felt so heavy. Her eyelids, her arms, her head … especially her head. She couldn’t move without extreme effort, yet it was a rather pleasant sensation—like the weight of heavy quilts on a wintry night. She gave in to its pull and closed her eyes for a minute.
A muffled sound reached her ears. She blinked and tried to open her eyes again, squinting against the harsh light overhead. The dull ache in her head had subsided somewhat, and with minimal effort she turned in the direction of the voice. Why were there rails on her bed? And what were all these machines whirring and beeping beside her? She must be in a hospital. But why? She tried to remember why she would be here.
Her eyes adjusted slowly to the light, and without moving her head she took in her surroundings. Things began to come into sharper focus. There was a window opposite her bed, and though the heavy draperies were pulled, light leaked in between the two panels and around the edges of the window. It was daylight.
She racked her brain for a recent memory. Bits and pieces started coming to her. She remembered driving around town with Sara, bored, then ending up out at Hansens’. Something must have happened there. She formed a picture of Sara going off to sit in the car. Yes, she remembered that. And she had gone after her. Sara was angry with her for being at the party. But that was all she could recall.
She tried to sit up in bed and immediately fell back on the pillows as pain seared through her head from front to back. She moaned, and instantly two worried faces hovered above her.
“Natalie? Can you hear me, honey?”
It was her mother. Daddy was right beside Mom. She felt warm hands on her arms and a gentle palm against her cheek.
After the Rains Page 7