by Kayt Miller
“I know.”
“Plus, you’re obviously, um, attracted to her. I mean, the deal in the bedroom. You were so freaking loud. I’ll never be able to un-hear you, dude. Gross,” she mutters.
I chuckle.
“Not funny. I’m serious. I’ve got PTSD from that.” She sighs, “You want my advice? For real?”
“Yeah.”
“Get your head out of your ass. Pull up your big boy pants, and go get your girl. She’s that forever kind of girl that every guy needs. She’s one that you hang on to with both hands. If you don’t, you’ll lose her, and you’ll literally regret it for the rest of your pathetic life.”
I nod my head. I know all of that. I’ve known all of that for a while. I just wasn’t ready to accept it. I need to get ready, though. “When I picture my life moving forward, she’s with me.”
“So, you had your answer already. You were just too chicken-shit to admit it?”
“Pretty much. Now the question is, will she take me back?”
“No, the question is, what’s your play gonna be?”
“My play?”
“Yeah, ‘Your play.' It needs to be a grand, enormous gesture. I’m talking huge. Jeez, Mick. There’s nothing worse than an old guy who can’t commit.”
“I’m not old. I’m twenty-seven. ”
“Yeah, but you’re almost thirty. O-L-D old.”
“I’m not…” The highway I’m on is dark. I haven’t seen another set of headlights for thirty miles. Just as I hear her spell out O. L. D., I catch something moving in my peripheral vision. I’ve forgotten all about my phone call just as I make contact with something enormous and brown. “Fuck!” I shout. Then nothing.
“Mick? You there?”
“Mick?”
“Say something!”
“Mick!”
Chapter 36: Roni
I’m woken up by the sound of ringing. It won’t stop. Am I hallucinating? I lift my head up from my pillow as I hear my name being called from downstairs.
“Roni? Telephone.” The voice yells from a distance.
I sit up too fast, “Oh, God. I drank too much.” My head is splitting, and I don’t think I can move. “Not to self. Never do shots again.” I’m supposed to head back to Chicago in the morning, but this hangover is going to need extra love and care.
“Roni! Telephone,” my dad yells again.
I peer at the clock and see 12:03 illuminated in bright red numbers.
Damn. I’ve only been asleep for half an hour. I slowly lift my body from my bed. Still dressed in last night’s outfit––even shoes, I drag myself off my bed. Lumbering to the top of the stairs, “Dad? Who is it?”
In his deep raspy sleepy voice, “Hell. I don’t know. Just get down here.”
I stumble down toward the wall telephone. It’s so old; it’s not even cordless. It still has the yellow plastic cord attached to it. Like so many people, my parents use their cell phones for everything, but they like to have a landline, ‘Just in case.’
I take the phone receiver from my dad, “Hello?” I say tiredly.
“Roni? This is Emily.”
“Emily?”
“Yeah, Emily Flynn,” she says hurriedly.
What the hell? “Mick’s not here.” I’m still drunk because, for the life of me, I can’t figure out why she’s calling me. At my parent’s house. On the old yellow wall telephone.
“I know. What time did he leave?”
“I don’t know. Why? What’s going on?” I’m starting to wake up because I can hear the fear in her voice now. “Emily? What’s wrong?”
“He had an accident. Or I think he had an accident.”
“An accident?” I screech. “Is he okay?” My breathing picks up like I’m hyperventilating a little bit.
“I don’t know. Listen, I need you to think.”
“What? How can I help?”
“I was talking to him on the phone when he wrecked. It was after eleven. Close to eleven thirty. What time did he leave you?”
Leave me? “He came to the bar at…” I stop to think. We hadn’t been to the bar very long, maybe fifteen minutes. My sisters and I went out late after their kids were in bed. They picked me up just a little before ten. “I think he was there around ten fifteen or ten thirty.”
I hear her muffled response like she’s talking to someone else. “So that means he’d been on the road for about an hour.”
“Emily? What’s going on? Is he okay?”
“We don’t know, Roni. I heard him yell and then all I could hear were the sounds of a crash. Then nothing. I called 911 but couldn’t give them his location, so after a Google search, I found only one McGonigall in Goblesville, Indiana. Thank God it’s you.”
“What can I do?” I look over, and my dad is standing next to me with his hands on his hips. He looks worried.
Emily’s voice has changed to a deep masculine voice, “Roni? It’s Hank. I need for you to think. You know the roads better than any of us. How far would he have gotten in about an hour?”
I’ve made the trek so many times that I know approximately where he’d be if he drove without stopping. I can’t think. “An hour out?” I mumble.
My dad takes the phone from my hand and speaks, “No matter which highway he took, he’d be close to Plymouth, Indiana.”
But, which way would he have taken? I tune out my dad as he talks to Hank. He could have taken highway 30 up to Interstate 90, or he could have taken Highway 31. “Dad? Which way would he have gone?” I interrupt him as he talks to Hank Flynn. Dad holds one finger up as a sign to wait.
“Yeah, okay. We’ll head out now. Give me your cell number,” my dad says to Hank. “We’ll leave in five minutes and let you know when we get close to Plymouth.” He pauses to listen and ends with, “Talk to you soon.”
Dad hangs up the phone. He reaches out and squeezes my arm. “Grab your coat.”
“What’s going on dad?”
“They aren’t sure where he had his accident so you and I are taking one route to Plymouth and Hank and Emily are going to search the other. They’ve been on the road for thirty minutes. Hank’s going to alert the Plymouth P.D. to be on the lookout for an accident. So, let’s go.”
I’m standing in my parents’ living room wearing the clothes I had on at the bar. My shoes are still on my feet. All I need to do is grab my coat, and I’m ready. I run upstairs to grab the keys to my rental car and reach for my jacket. The overwhelming need to vomit hits me like a Mack truck. “It’s my fault.”
I move as fast as I can to the one and only full bathroom in mom and dad’s house. “Please let me get to the toilet.” I push the door open, and just as I’m opening the lid to the toilet, it comes out like a torrent. Once I’m done retching, I flush the toilet and grab a cloth from below the sink. As fast as I can, I clean myself up and rush out the bathroom door.
Dad is waiting for me by the front door with two bottles of water and a thermos of coffee. He’s dressed in his work boots and heavy duty Carhartt gear. As a former volunteer fireman, he knows about search and rescue. I only hope he doesn’t need to utilize those skills. He’s big and tall, and he’s always been, my hero. I feel the tears burning the back of my eyes, but I can’t get emotional. “Let’s take my car. It’s got a full tank of gas.”
He nods and takes the keys from me. I’ve still got alcohol in my system. Besides, I’m a better lookout than he is. I know what Mick’s car looks like. “We’re taking highway thirty-one up. I’m going to drive as fast as I can. Okay?”
I nod to him as I open the passenger side door. I slip in and buckle up. I take a deep breath as I feel the car start then lurch forward. “Did you tell mom?”
“I left her a note.”
“Okay, good.”
We drive in silence for the first twenty minutes. My hands are fisted around the bottom of my coat, and I haven’t moved. I’m tense and scared. “It’s my fault, dad.”
“How do you figure?”
“Bec
ause he wouldn’t have had an accident if he hadn’t come to see me.”
“That logic is problematic.”
I roll my eyes. The car is dark, so I know he can’t see me.
“Don’t roll your eyes at me, young lady.”
That surprises a small laugh out of me. “I didn’t.” I sigh, “Yeah, I did. I know it’s not logical to take the blame here but he has been trying to get in touch with me all week, and I’ve just ignored him.”
“Why’s that, dove?”
My parents both call me ‘dove.' It’s their little nickname for me. My sisters didn’t get a special name, and I like that. A lot. I take another deep breath, “It’s complicated.”
“How so?”
Jeez. He’s not doing to let this go. He asked for it… “Well, I met Mick at a bar.”
Dad groans.
Ignoring his response, I continue. “He’s a bartender.”
He groans even louder now. It makes me smile. I let out a little laugh. “Well, he manages a club downtown.”
“That’s better than just being a bartender,” he interrupts.
“Anyway…” I explain how met, how we became friends, how we became more than friends (Ick––not specifics), I told him about his deal with Lauren, why I’m home.
“Wow, Roni. That’s a lot to take in. Why was he here last night?”
“He missed me. He wanted to see me… but for all the wrong reasons. I made him leave.”
“He drove here to see you, and you sent him away?”
“He didn’t come to tell me he loved me or that he wanted to be my boyfriend or anything. He was just, um, you know…”
“No. I don't know. Why was he here?”
“Seriously dad! You’re going to make me say it?”
“Say what? I’m the one that’s confused now, dove.”
“You asked for it. He was horny. Okay?” There! I said it. Fast.
“Oh. OH! Well, that’s not a bad thing. Right?”
I choke on my sip of water from my bottle, “What?”
“Well, he came all this way to see you. You must be special to him.”
I smile. Of course, he sees the good in all of that. “Dad. That’s not okay. Like I told him last night. I’m not a ‘hook up’ kind of girl. I’m girlfriend material.”
“Obviously! You’re too special to just be used for, um, you know.” Now he’s getting in over his head. “So, how to you feel about him?”
“I care about him. I like him. I probably love him. But, none of that matters now. I said my peace, and now it’s over.”
“You think it’s over?”
“Yep. He doesn’t want a relationship, not one with me anyway. He doesn't want kids, and I want kids, dad.”
“I know. I want that for you too. But, don’t count him out just yet. You really are special, Veronica. I’m not just saying that because I’m your father. You’re smart, beautiful, and kind.”
“You’re supposed to say those things. I just hope he’s okay, dad.” I feel the burn of tears behind my eyes and I don’t try to stop them. “What if he’s n-n-n…not okay?” I stutter. My tears turn into sobs.
“He’ll be okay. We’ll find him and make sure of it.”
Chapter 37: Roni
As we drive, I reach for my hair nervously. It’s like a phantom limb. I keep thinking all of my hair is still there. My attempt to think about something as mundane as my hair is short lived when my dad says, “Okay, dove. We’re about ten miles from Plymouth. Time to keep an eye out for anything out of the ordinary. This section is very wooded. It’s possible he hit a deer or other animal. Emily didn’t think she heard another car, but she’s not sure. My guess is deer. They’re everywhere this time of year.”
He slows the car down to about half the posted fifty-five mile per hour speed limit. While I want him to go faster, I need to be able to scan both sides of the road as he drives. We’re silent as he crawls along.
“Wait! What’s that?” I say pointing to limb lying across the road.
“It’s just a limb. It’s been windy today.”
“Right.”
Dad continues to move past the limb when I see the body of a large buck, antlers partially on the highway, the rest of his large body on the edge. “Dad!”
“I see it. I’ll pull over then we’ll need to get out and look around. Are you going to be able to do that?”
“Yes, of course. Just pull over.”
He stops about ten feet from the carcass, and I jump out of the car. It’s gotten colder overnight, so I wrap my coat around me tightly. Dad reaches his hand out, and I place mine in his grasp. He’s such a great dad. He knows I’m scared. We walk to the spot of the fallen limb and dad crouches down. “Skid marks. This could be it. Are you sure you want to…?”
“Yes! I’m sure.” We both peer into the wooded area. There’s a deep ditch at this spot on the highway. It looks like it goes down about twenty feet, but it’s hard to tell because it’s pitch black. Dad pulls out a flashlight from his work pants. He clicks it on and shines it down into the ditch.
I gasp and then let out a gut-wrenching cry. “That’s his car, dad. That’s it!” I pull my hand out of his and start down. “Roni! Wait.”
“No, you call 911 and Hank, I need to get to him.”
I sit down on my ass to slide down to the car. There’s no risk of it going any further down because his mangled car is pressed up against a huge tree. I hear nothing coming from the car, and that scares me to death.
I’m not sure how long it takes me to get to him. Seconds? Minutes? But, when I reach the back end of his car I stop. What if he’s…? No! I can’t think that way. I slide my hand over the side of his vehicle, gingerly stepping over broken tree limbs, glass, and other debris. The driver’s side window is open, shards of glass everywhere. I pull myself over to it and peer inside.
“Oh, God. No! Mick!” I start to cry and hear myself scream, “Dad!”
I don’t really remember much after that. The next thing I do remember is my dad helping me back into our car. I’m in a daze. Lights are flashing everywhere. People are yelling and working frantically. I open up my car door and step out.
A gurney is being brought up from the ditch. “Mick?” The first thing I notice is his face not covered by a sheet. That’s good. Next, I see his leg. One of them is encased in an air cast. I can’t see his upper body yet, but I make my way over to him dodging police and firefighters as they work.
I see dad talking to Hank, and I catch a glimpse of Emily. She’s walking alongside the gurney talking to one of the paramedics, but I can tell she’s been crying. I speed my pace to get to her. I stumble over to them, “Mick?” I whimper.
“Roni!” Emily says as she wraps her arms around me. “He’s alive.” She pauses and quietly adds, “Barely.”
“Okay,” I reply absently. I look over at him and gasp. He’s unrecognizable. Covered in blood, he’s hooked up to bags with tubes and wires. “Where are they taking him?” I’m so numb I’m not sure what to do or say or even think.
“Plymouth Medical Center,” says Hank as we walks over to us. “They’ll assess him there and then Life Flight him to Chicago.”
“Life Flight him? Oh, God. This is all my fault,” the tears start up again.
“Shhh, Roni. This is not your fault,” reassures Hank. He pulls me into a tight hug and kisses the top of my head. “It was an accident. Pure and simple. He’ll be okay. He’s strong and healthy. He’ll be okay.”
I get the feeling he’s saying that as much for himself as he is for me. I just nod into his big chest. I have to believe him. There’s no other choice. The sirens start up and startle me.
“We’ll meet you at the hospital. Emily’s riding in the ambulance so she’ll be sure to find us to let us know what’s going on, Roni,” assures Hank.
Dad wraps his arm around my shoulder, “Let’s go, Dove. We’ll follow the ambulance.”
By the time we get to the hospital in Plymouth, Mick is already
in the Emergency unit. Dad asks the receptionist if we can go back, but they inform him that it’s for family only. She points us to the waiting area, and we sit and wait. And wait.
After what seems like days, Henry steps out and scans the room. When his eyes land on me he walks over, “Okay. Well, he’s stable.” He takes a deep breath. “He’s unconscious but the doctor thinks that’s a good thing because of his head injury. He’s got a compound fracture on his right leg that they have set temporarily and splinted. He’ll most likely need surgery, but they want Northwestern to make that call. His right arm is injured as well but not severely. They’ve set that, and now he’s ready to transport.”
I let out a squeak. I knew he had hit his head. I saw it for myself. I can’t recall seeing his airbag. “Did his airbag deploy?”
“No. It didn’t. If it had, he wouldn’t have the head injury.” Hank sits down next to me. “He may have a few broken ribs too but the biggest concern is the head injury and if there’s any swelling of his brain.”
“What happens next?” my dad asks.
“The chopper is on its way. As soon as they land, they’ll load him up and head to Northwestern Memorial in Chicago right away. Emily is going to fly with them as support since she works at Northwestern Memorial. The sooner they get him there, the better. This is a good hospital, but they just aren’t able to give him the level of care that he needs. So, do you know where Northwestern Memorial is, Roni?”
“Ye…Yes.” I say clearing my throat. “Should we go there now? Or can I see him?”
“They won’t let you back there right now, Veronica.”
“Oh. Um. Okay.” I know I’m not family, but that stings.
“Let’s hit the road, Dove. We can stop for some coffee and get a head start. How does that sound, honey?”