“It looks good to me.”
“Bye. I’ll be with Roger.” Annie stepped off the porch. Laura watched her, her bare feet picking their way along the path, the long lines of her legs angling over the pine-needled ground. She disappeared through the trees.
Laura returned to her sketch pad, but her hand was still. First it had been Gordon. Maybe it was still Gordon. But certainly, for now, it appeared to be Roger.
It had begun a week ago—their first night here.
After dinner, they’d gone to the auditorium for a show the student staff was putting on. At first, Annie sat with the rest of them, but then she moved forward to an empty front row and sat, chin in hand, a faint smile on her lips, watching with undivided attention the young man named Roger who emceed the show. He was easily the most attractive man on stage. Annie watched him, all the time.
Of course he noticed. After the show, as audience and performers mingled and walked away, he went over to Annie. Soon they were talking and laughing, Annie’s brown eyes shining, her smile wide in her slender face, her long arms gesticulating, Roger leaning forward, his hand cupped to his ear in exaggerated accommodation to the noisy room, his other arm resting lightly on Annie’s shoulder.
After that, Roger spent much of his off-duty time with Annie and, in his capacity as headwaiter in the dining room, came to their table at least once a day to stoop close, smile at them all, and say, “Is everything all right?”
They would smile back and nod and one of them would say, “Thank you. Yes. Everything’s fine.”
Last night, Laura and Trace had come back after a movie, to find Annie and Roger on the couch in the living room. Roger sat with his back braced against one end and both his feet in Annie’s lap, his shoes and socks on the floor. Annie was moving her hand back and forth over his foot and ankle and under the folded-back cuff of his slacks. An uncapped bottle of lotion stood on a chair beside them.
“Getting a foot massage,” Roger said.
“So I see.” Laura tried to keep her voice even, not to appear startled. After a few more exchanges about the evening, the movie, the fact that this was Roger’s second year on the student staff, she and Trace said good night and started toward their room.
“I’ll be going soon,” Roger said.
“Good,” Trace said. They all laughed.
In their room, Laura said, “Well, that was a surprise. What next?”
“Your guess is as good as mine.” He was looking through the magazines on the bureau. “Have you seen the new Harper’s?”
In bed, he drew her close, his hand easing across her shoulders and down her back. She heard Roger and Annie get up and go out.
“Oh, Trace, listen. She’s gone with him.”
“She’ll be all right.” His tone dismissed it. “We have to let her live her life.” His breath came faster. He pressed against her hip.
Moving to him, she thought of the pair who had just left, and of Annie’s hand moving over Roger’s ankle, languorous, back and forth, beneath the crumpled cuff. Then her own blood crested and she lay still.
Trace slept. She heard Bart and Philip come in, go toward the room they shared.
She’d dozed off, awakened to the sound of steps on the porch, the front door opening. In the moonlight, she looked at her watch. It was past one o’clock. Annie was humming softly. Her footsteps came to the bedroom door. “Yo-ho. Mom, if you’re awake, I’m home.”
“Thanks.” Relieved, she’d dropped off to sleep, but not before deciding to speak to Annie in the morning.
She had. “It makes Dad and me uneasy, your coming in so late. Besides, you don’t want Roger falling asleep in the dining room.”
Annie scoffed. “I’m sure that’s what you’re worried about.” Still, she’d promised to be in by eleven.
A sound drifted up from the pool. Laura looked down. A swimmer poised on the high-diving board was calling to a friend. Annie reappeared out of the trees and approached the deck of the pool. Roger was already lying there on a lounge chair. She pulled a chair close to his and stretched out in it and they turned to one another, talking. He reached under his chair, handed something to Annie, and she leaned forward, began applying sunscreen to her long brown legs.
A light breeze rustled the pine branches. Halfway down the hill, a hummingbird, its wings a blurred fan, poised at a blossom of columbine. Butterflies drifted against the low brush.
There was a splash. The woman from the high-diving board had entered the water.
By the time Laura and Trace returned from town, it was 1:30. A note in Bart’s handwriting said, “We’ve gone to lunch.”
They left their packages and went to the dining room—no sign of the children.
“Phil’s probably gone off in search of flora and fauna,” Trace mused, smiling. “Bart and Annie were going riding—wasn’t that it?”
“Yes,” Laura felt an edge of disappointment bordering on resentment, thinking, Annie invited me to go. Not that I wanted to, but they could have waited to ask.
Trace swung an arm around her shoulder. “Well, how about just you and me?” he said, then to the hostess, added, “Two, please.”
She led them to a table by a window where they could look up at the mountain, its snow-covered peak almost blinding in sunlight. But already a cluster of clouds was moving in from the west.
Farther down the mountain, a cleared strip of chairlift and ski trail marked a forested lower slope. Empty chairs swayed with the racheting of the cable. A few, occupied with summer sightseers, advanced steadily against the dark ground.
“Ski team, anyone?” Trace said.
Laura smiled. Last week, they’d all taken the chairlift ride, enjoyed the view from the high elevation. But she’d been glad to get back down. “I will if you will,” she said, knowing she was perfectly safe. It was one of their joys in one another—an early discovered compatibility—that they had almost no interest in organized team sports. “But I might have tried riding.”
“Fine,” he said. “You still can,” and they both turned their attention to the menu.
After lunch they went to the lobby, stood by the big picture window. By now, storm clouds covered the tops of the high mountains, though it was still clear on the lower slopes.
“I think I’ll try a nap,” Laura said. “We were up pretty late.”
“I’ll hang around here for a while.” Trace spotted the man from Grinnell. “Maybe I’ll see if Don’s read the article. If the kids come back in time, we could take a trip to the museum. We haven’t done that yet.”
Laura moved toward the door. “I’ll be at the cabin if anything develops.”
*
She was propped on the bed, reading—pillows pulled from under the dark chenille bedspread—when she heard Trace’s footsteps on the porch. They were heavier, faster than usual.
He came into the room. “Laura! A girl has been badly hurt and taken to Estes Park by ambulance. She was riding. They think it’s Annie.”
“Trace!” Her stomach like a vise, she reached for her shoes, fear thick in her throat.
“Philip is waiting for us in the lobby. Bart went with the ambulance. Get your things—”
Her hands shook as she tied the laces. She grabbed her purse. Her blue raincoat—it might be a while, and the air was cool. “Why do they think it’s Annie?”
“Her horse came back.”
They hurried to the lodge, grasping each other’s hands, stumbling as they went.
A small crowd had gathered. Philip came to them, his face white, immobile. Laura reached to him. “Philip.”
The lodge proprietor explained to Trace where the clinic was located. Roger was beside her, his face stark. “It’s on the main street,” the woman said, “beside a gas station. I don’t think you’ll have trouble finding it. There’s a sign—MEDICAL CLINIC.”
Laura looked at Roger. Their eyes met, acknowledging their fear. “Do you know where it is?” she asked him.
“Yes.”
“Maybe you could come and help us find it.”
He looked at the lodge owner. She released him. “Go.”
*
Trace drove, Roger in front with him. Laura sat with Philip in the backseat. Her eyes consumed the road ahead, and she thought, Faster. Annie, I love you. She tried to counteract the mushrooming panic that enveloped her, which they seemed to be driving into; it surrounded them, clung to them, viscous against their skin. Wait! she thought. We have been through other alarms that turned out all right —that time we lost Annie at the beach. The time Philip cut his wrist and we had to rush him to the hospital. Don’t anticipate the worst! “Badly hurt,” Trace had said. But maybe it was less serious than it seemed. Maybe it wasn’t even Annie at all.
“It could be another girl,” Roger said. “Some others went with the wrangler.”
“Yes,” Laura said. But Bart had gone with the ambulance. Annie, I send you my energy. Receive it. It will go into your fingers. It will curve with the curve of your skull. Annie. I pray for you. I fill your body with my life. For a moment, she thought they were interchangeable. She knew it was Annie who had fallen.
She was thinking, What if she is broken and maimed—how shall we deal with that pain? There was another thought that darted by the corner of her mind—she would think of it later— I don’t want it. I don’t want to give my life to an invalid. She turned from it in horror—it was her daughter; she would give anything to save her. Annie, however you are, receive my strength. Annie, be well.
The mountain road wound on. They came to the edge of town. “Keep going straight,” Roger said. “Now turn left. It’s past the gas station.”
They saw the clinic sign and, at the edge of the parking lot, they saw Bart, his hands jammed into the pockets of his tan windbreaker. With a nod of his head, he motioned them in.
They got out of the car. “It’s Annie?” Laura asked.
“Yes.”
“How is she?”
“I don’t know. They’re working with her. In the ambulance she seemed to move her head.”
“It’s her head that’s hurt?”
“Yes.”
They started toward the clinic. Roger hesitated, looked toward the clinic, then toward the road. “I’d better go back,” he said. “I’ll hitch a ride. You’ll call the lodge when—” His voice broke.
Laura hugged him quickly. “Thanks for coming with us. We’ll call.” He started toward the road.
They went into the clinic. The nurse directed them to an interior room. “The doctor will be with you soon.”
On a white enamel table, glass tubes stood in a wooden case. A blood-pressure indicator rested beside them, its rubber tube a black curve on the white table. To one side was an electrocardiograph, its handsome teak surfaces gleaming.
They sat in chairs. The room seemed crowded, with four pairs of knees jutting into the empty space.
They turned to Bart. “Tell us what happened.”
He leaned forward, his elbows braced on the knees of his tan chinos, hands clenched in front of him. His knuckles were white knobs. “We were riding our horses. She was in back. Her horse turned away, onto a path they sometimes take. The wrangler came back and redirected the horse. We started out again. It turned a second time. It galloped out of sight. She called out. The wrangler went to help her. By the time we got there, she had fallen. No one saw her fall.”
Laura sucked in her breath. “You got there?” she said.
“As quick as I could. She was lying on the ground. She was unconscious.”
For a minute, they did not speak. Trace gripped the chrome arms of the chair, shifted forward on the grained leather seat. “The ambulance?”
“A passing car saw and phoned. The ambulance came quickly. I helped them lift her in.”
“Ohh!” Laura said. “In the ambulance—how did she seem?”
“I was in front. I looked back. Once, I thought I saw her head move. I didn’t see her when the men took her out.”
Philip stirred, moved his foot against the chair leg.
They waited. Still the doctor didn’t come. What could be taking so long? Surely someone could tell them something.
A family was milling around the desk in the main waiting room. A boy had an arm in a cast. They were all laughing. How strange that they were here—such a slight affliction. They were taking energy from the care of Annie. Why don’t they go? she thought.
The doctor came in—a young man. He appeared shaken. “Mr. Randall?” he said to Trace. “I’m Dr. Baldwin.” He looked away from Trace toward the middle of the room. He did not look at any of them.
“She’s unconscious,” he said. “She’s been thrown, dragged. Her skull is fractured. Her jaw is broken. I’ve given her shots to stabilize her heart, breathing, everything we can do here. I’ve sent her on by ambulance to the hospital in Boulder. A neurologist will be waiting. You can go there.” He paused. “I’m sorry, I don’t think—” He started again. “I don’t think she has even a fifty-fifty chance of making it.”
Laura sat forward in her chair. The blood was leaving her head. She heard a harsh wail. It was her own.
“Do you want something for her?” the doctor asked Trace, as though she were an object to be tended to. She snapped up in her chair. “I’ll be all right. Can you give me some smelling salts?” She knew what to ask for. She had always been a fainter—standing too long before breakfast to have her hair braided, standing in the sun at junior high Memorial Day exercises, waiting in a hospital while the doctor sewed up Philip’s hand. For a minute, she put her head between her knees, noticed for the first time the dulled swirling green and white of the floor tile, like ocean spray against rocks.
“The nurse will get you something.” The doctor’s voice was cold. Anger restored her. She did not faint.
The doctor brought a map of Boulder and showed Trace where the hospital was. “We’ll find it.” Trace took the map.
The nurse handed Laura a cylinder of cotton wrapped in paper. “It’s smelling salts. You have to break it open.” The nurse’s eyes were kind.
“Thank you.”
The doctor stepped forward again, a paper bag in his hand. He gave it to Laura. “Her shoes and jacket.” In the next room, on the floor under an operating cart, Laura saw Annie’s wine-colored jersey. “Her shirt?”
“I had to cut it off her.” He handed her a folded tissue. “I took out her contact lenses.”
She opened the tissue. There was blood on the disks. She stared into her hand, then folded the tissue in, like the petals of a flower, closing.
This time, Bart drove. Philip sat in front with him. Trace and Laura were in back, one by each window, hands clasped across the open space between them.
“Tell us again?” Laura asked Bart. Maybe there was something they’d missed. Maybe he could prove the doctor wrong.
He told how the wrangler had called, “Hold on!” and gone after her, but she was out of sight. When Bart reached them a few minutes later, she was lying on the ground and the wrangler was kneeling beside her.
“She was already unconscious?” Laura’s voice was faint. She wanted Annie not to have suffered.
“Yes.”
“The ambulance?” she prompted.
“A passerby called.”
“Then what?”
“We waited. I sat there on the ground with her. I covered her with my jacket. I kept patting her back, telling her she was going to be all right.” His voice was low. “I didn’t want her to be alone.”
“Oh, Bart, thank you.” Laura broke into fresh tears. Philip was sobbing quietly. She reached out to put a hand on his shoulder. But it was also Annie she reached for.
Annie at two, sitting with her on the rocking chair and turning the pages, telling the words phrase for phrase, her voice mirroring the inflections in Laura’s own: “His mummy didn’t know him; she really and truly did not know him, because, you see, she had never seen a rabbit with red wings in all her life.”
&nbs
p; She is braiding Annie’s hair for her recital. The braids fall onto the Irish lace collar of the green velveteen dress Rachel made. Annie hurries to the piano to run through her piece one more time—“To a Falling Star.” She plays it fast. “I’ll go slower when I get there,” she says. She is eight years old.
O Thou that takest away the sins of the world, grant us thy peace. O Thou that hast walked through the valley of the shadow of death and feared no evil… I am afraid Fear is all I know. Fear is who I am.
It was a long ride into Boulder. The road wound among mountains. The shadows lengthened, laid dark patches across the highway. The air turned cooler. There would be thunderstorms in the mountains. It was why the climbers were urged to be off the mountains by afternoon. They had always done that. They had abided by all the rules. They watched the signs, the diminishing mileage to the city.
Still, Laura held Trace’s hand. They did not look at each other. Their eyes were on the road.
She thought, If Annie dies… But wait. Don’t anticipate it. Those other times disaster had threatened… “I don’t think she has even a fifty-fifty chance of making it.” She saw Annie this morning walking to the pool, her long legs stretching over the pine-needled ground. She saw her at home, perched on the blue kitchen stool, her guitar propped in her lap. “I live one…day…at a time,” Annie sang, her voice sweet, clear. “I dream one…dream…at a time.”
At Boulder, they found the hospital—a long, low building, tan stucco. Trace spotted the red EMERGENCY sign. “That way,” he said. Bart had already turned.
The reception area was light, spacious. Long corridors led away. A woman sat behind a glass partition, the space in front of her a wide, clear arc. Trace went to her. “We’re the Randalls. Our daughter—”
“Yes, we’ve been expecting you.” She was deferential, apologetic, asking the questions: “Name of company? Policy number? Name of insured? Age? I’m sorry to have to ask you these questions.”
Laura watched him, astonished at his composure.
“Come this way.” A nurse led them to a small waiting room, which was ringed with orange-upholstered chairs, a few benches. Tattered magazines rested on a low round table. A vending machine stood at one side. Nearby a coffeemaker held a black residue of coffee in a ringed glass pot. An elderly couple looked up from a bench as the four of them filed in.
Such Good People Page 9