by Kim Mckade
Probably someone else had been by hours ago to check on Mr. D. Probably.
Toby rolled over and buried his face in the pillow. He was so worn-out, he couldn’t sleep. His body refused to relax, after being strung taut for so many hours.
It was no use. He hauled himself out of bed and cupped his chin in his palms, his elbows on his knees. He might as well drive by the man’s house right quick, just to check. Then he could go to the office and catch up on paperwork That always put him to sleep. He could catch a quick nap on the cot in the cell—it wouldn’t be the first time.
He pulled on a flannel shirt and pinned the star to his pocket. To hell with the uniform.
Jeremy was sitting on Mr. Davis’s recliner when Toby walked through the door. The boy had a box of dry cereal in his lap, and he was watching television.
“Why aren’t you in school?” Toby asked.
“I’m taking a personal day,” Jeremy said, tossing a handful of cereal into his mouth.
Toby decided not to pursue that at the moment. “Where’s Mr. D.?”
Jeremy indicated the bedroom with a toss of his shaggy head. “Snoozing.”
“Everything okay?”
Jeremy shrugged his bony shoulders. “Sure. Except for taking Mr. D. to the emergency room last night, things have been pretty quiet. How ’bout you?” Jeremy smiled in exaggerated politeness.
“The emergency room? Why?”
“I found him down at the football grounds, conked out. Big bump on his head.”
Toby hurried to the bedroom and looked in on the old man. He was sleeping peacefully, a wide white bandage over his forehead
He returned to the living room. “What the hell happened? What was he doing at the football grounds? Was this after we talked last night?”
Jeremy shook his head. “Nah, it was before. I just forgot to tell you. Of course, it was after. Get ahold of yourself, man. It’s not that big a deal. Look at you, your face is all white.”
Toby fought the urge to strangle him. He was still a minor, for a few months at any rate.
“Jeremy,” he said with deadly calm. “Tell me what happened.”
“I don’t know what happened. After Luke came to the station last night, I was going to hike it home. I thought I saw Mr. D. tottering to the school. It was dark, and by the time I found him, he was out cold. He fell—you know, there behind the concession stand where the retaining wall is crumbling a little? He must have slipped.”
Toby nodded and rubbed his head so hard it started to burn. It was all slipping out of his hands. He wasn’t handling anything. “How did you get to the hospital?”
“I flew.”
“You smart off one more time and I’ll shoot you, I swear.”
“Jeez, okay. You really need to look into getting a sense of humor, you know. I told you it was okay. I woke the old guy up, and he was kind of woozy, you know, calling me other people’s names and stuff He could walk, though. I was walking him back home, and your mom found us. She was out looking for him.”
“She took him to the hospital?”
“Yep.”
“What did the doctor say?”
“That he needs to watch his step. Hey—” Jeremy lifted his hands helplessly and pressed back against the chair “That’s what he said, I swear. He stitched Mr. D. up and said he needed to watch his step.”
“Does he know about the Alzheimer’s?”
“Yeah, he asked what medicines he was taking. I told him the ones I remembered. Your old lady—sorry, your mother—filled him in on the rest. He didn’t act like it was a big deal. He said this happens to people with Alzheimer’s all the time Mr. D came around while we were there, thinking straight and everything. It’s cool, man. He pulled it off. How’s your squeeze?”
“Don’t call her that,” Toby said automatically. He felt suddenly as if the world had started turning a different way or something, and he couldn’t keep up. Corinne in the hospital. She was going to be okay, thank God, but it could have been a lot worse. Carl losing his leg. And Mr. D. The temperature had been in the high thirties last night. A man his age, out in the cold all night, could have died from exposure, gotten pneumonia, all kinds of things. If Jeremy hadn’t been walking by just then...
Toby stared at the braid rug on the floor, stared until the pattern blurred and lifted toward him. He rubbed his jaw, his hands scraping stubble. He thought inanely that maybe he should have shaved; maybe then he’d feel more in control of everything.
“Were you planning on staying here for a while?” he asked.
Jeremy nodded and rose hesitantly. An uneasy concern replaced his sarcasm. “I told your mom I could stay while she went home and took a nap—she sat up with Mr. D. all night. My mom said it was okay. She already brought me some clothes. She told me about the accident. How are they? Your—Miss Maxwell and Buchanan?”
Toby sighed. “Corinne’s okay. Just a bump on the head.” Much like the one Mr. Davis had. “Carl is—they had to amputate his leg.”
“Man,” was all Jeremy could say. He looked a little dazed. “They cut it off? Like, for good?”
In spite of everything, Toby smiled wanly. As if they were going to cut it off and then put it back on. “Yeah, for good.”
“Man,” Jeremy said again.
“Listen, if you don’t mind staying, I need to go out for a while. I need to take care of some...business.”
“This one is from the junior class,” Becca said as she read the card attached to the huge bouquet of flowers just delivered to Corinne’s room.
“That’s nice,” Corinne said absently.
“I’ll just put them with the rest of the jungle.” Becca slid aside a potted ivy and a bouquet of mums to make room for the new addition.
“Why don’t I make a list of everyone who sent something and what they sent so you can send thank you notes?”
“That’s a good idea.” Corinne shifted on the bed and looked at the door.
“The doctor should be here any minute to discharge you,” Becca said hopefully. Corinne didn’t answer.
“Do you want a magazine?”
“No, thank you.”
“How about a drink of water?”
“No, thank you.”
“A soda?”
“No.”
“Then what do you want?” Becca asked, exasperated.
Corinne met Becca’s eyes. “I want to know why I’m here.”
“Put your hand up to your forehead and you’ll remember.”
“Not here in the hospital. Here, in this position. At this point in my life. You said everything happens for a reason. What am I doing back in Aloma?”
Becca sat down beside the bed. “Deep philosophical questions are a pretty tall order for someone on painkillers. Are you sure you don’t want to leave this for later?”
“I’m sure. There’s a kid down the hall who had his leg cut off. There was a definite sequence of events that led up to it, too. You can see it plain as day, if you want to look. First, he’s arrested for drinking. Then he’s restricted from football. A decision I played a hand in—”
“Hold it,” Becca said, putting out her hand. “Don’t even go there. Carl is the one who chose to drink. Carl is the one who chose to drive. I feel sorry for him, too. But the fact is, it’s his own fault.”
“I’m not saying it wasn’t. I’m just saying, I put myself into the equation. And I can’t help but wonder how things would have happened, if I hadn’t come back. If I hadn’t spoken up, would Toby have backed down? Maybe Carl would have gotten to play football. Maybe he would have done great and gotten a scholarship and gone on to play professional football or something. Is this what was supposed to happen, Becca? Was Carl supposed to lose his leg? He’s only eighteen.”
“I don’t know,” Becca said. “Some blessings are disguised as tragedies, until you look a little closer.”
“I just can’t help thinking there’s something else. I keep thinking about what you said. I mean, if I had anyth
ing at all to do with him losing his leg, then surely my responsibility extends beyond that as well. If I had a part in something bad happening to him, then I have to also play a part in something good. Don’t I?” She looked beseechingly at Becca.
Becca squeezed Corinne’s shoulder. “I can’t answer that.”
Corinne scrunched up her face and sat up “You drive me crazy, you know that? If you weren’t such a good friend, I’d never speak to you.”
Becca smiled and stood, unperturbed. “I know.”
“This is not what I had in mind at all, when I came back.”
“What did you have in mind?”
Corinne shook her head and leaned back. She still tired very easily. “I just wanted some peace. I wanted to be anonymous. That’s how I felt before, growing up in Aloma. Like nothing I did would ever affect anyone. Like nothing I did mattered. That’s why I left. And it’s why I came back. I wanted to be completely unimportant. I didn’t want anything I said or did to affect anyone.” So I couldn’t screw up again, she thought.
“Everyone affects someone, Corinne. Haven’t you ever seen It’s a Wonderful Life?”
“Yes, a couple dozen tunes just like—”
The door creaked open. Jeremy Huckaby stood in the doorway, a sheaf of papers curled in one hand. He gave a halfhearted wave. “Hi.”
“Hi,” Corinne said with a smile. He hung there in the doorway, hesitant, until she gestured for him to come in.
She raised herself higher on the pillows. “This is a nice surprise.”
“Yeah,” he said uncomfortably. The room was silent for a moment, until Becca asked, “Did your mother drive you over?”
“Nah, she’s staying with Mr. D. I brought the car.” His pride at coming to the city by himself showed through even his awkwardness.
“Have you been to see Carl?” Becca asked.
Jeremy shook his head. “No. I’m going to. I guess. I don’t know what I’m going to say.”
Corinne nodded. “It will be awkward. But I think you should talk to him, even if it is. That way it won’t be so hard when he comes back to school.”
“Yeah, I guess you’re right.”
“What’s that in your hand, Jeremy?” Becca asked.
Jeremy looked at the papers curled in his hand as if he expected them to do something.
“It’s just—it’s this thing I wrote. I thought you might get bored and want to do a little reading. If you don’t have time, though, or don’t want to, it’s okay.”
Corinne reached out and took the papers from him. “I’d love to read it.”
“Don’t worry. It’s a real story. Not a true story—I don’t mean that. But it’s not gross or violent or anything like that.”
Corinne smiled and nodded. “I understand.”
Jeremy cleared his throat and scratched the back of his head. “Listen, the reason I came is because me and the sheriff—the sheriff and I, I mean—we had a long talk the other night. And I came to tell you that I shouldn’t have written those things in school. I was trying to...well, I guess I was trying to get into trouble. I don’t know if you heard about my father?”
“I heard.”
“Of course you did,” Jeremy muttered, shaking his head. “It’s Aloma. Anyway, I really just wanted to get out of here, and I heard that you were tight with the sheriff. I thought I could scare you and make you think I had done all that stuff, and you would tell him I should be sent to some home or something like that. My probation officer kept telling me that if I got mto any more trouble, I’d get sent to the county correction center.”
Corinne leveled her gaze at him. She decided to forgo the lecture about how tough those places were “I thought that was what you were after. I just didn’t understand why.”
“Because I couldn’t go anywhere or do anything without knowing that everyone was staring at me, and talking about me. I wanted my mom to transfer me to another school, but she said she couldn’t afford to drive me twenty miles each way every day. And I think...” His voice trailed off and his face became grim. “I was really mad. At him. For screwing up like that, for making my mom so unhappy and everything. And I thought that was the worst thing I could do to him. If I got locked up somewhere, he would know it was his fault. He would know how he had made everyone else feel.”
He looked at the floor and frowned. “Pretty dumb, huh?”
Corinne gave him a sympathetic smile. “Yeah, pretty dumb. But understandable. People do dumb things when they’re hurting.”
“I wasn’t hurting. I was just mad.”
“But you’ve changed your mind now? You’re going to stay out of trouble?”
“I guess so. It wasn’t doing me any good, anyway. I might as well stick around here and tough it out till the end of the year. Hopefully I can get a student loan or something and go to college. Do they have some kind of special rate for children of cons?” He gave a feeble attempt at a laugh.
“I know it’s difficult, Jeremy. But I’m glad you’ve forgiven your father,” Corinne said.
Jeremy scowled. “I didn’t forgive him. I just decided I’m not going to screw up my life just because he screwed his up.”
Corinne and Becca looked at each other. Corinne shrugged. “It’s a start, anyway.”
She turned to more pleasant topics “What is this story about?” she asked, holding up the pages.
He shrugged awkwardly. “It’s just this Christmas thing I wrote. It was for the contest. I know it’s supposed to be confidential and all that, so I’ll probably get kicked out of the contest for showing you. But I don’t care.”
Corinne shook her head. “The judging is already done, so it’s okay.”
“I thought maybe—” He cleared his throat again. “I thought maybe you could critique it for me. Not like a grade or anything, but tell me what you really think, so maybe I can send it to a magazine or something....” He drifted off awkwardly. “If you have time. And feel like it. And all that.”
Corinne bit down on a smile. “I’d be happy to see what I can come up with. There’s a book in the library with a list of magazine publishers. We’ll check it out when I get back—”
Corinne faltered when she realized that by the time she got back to school, the semester would be almost over. And so would her time as Jeremy’s teacher. “Or. I suppose Miss Danvers can help you, or the new English teacher”
Jeremy nodded grimly. “Yeah, I guess you’ll be headed for Atlanta as soon as semester finals are over.”
Corinne remained lost in thought for a moment, until she realized what Jeremy had said. “How did you know about Atlanta?”
Jeremy blinked. “Oh—I...well...I was—”
“Snooping?”
“Yeah. Snooping. Another thing I guess I need to apologize for. But it’s true, isn’t it? That woman wants you to come to Atlanta so you can have your own talk show.”
“Yes, it’s true.” Corinne idly rubbed the bandage over her eye.
“I’m sorry I was snooping. And I’m sorry you’ll be leaving town. I wish you weren’t going. But really, Miss Maxwell, it sounds like a great chance. You could get really rich and famous.”
“Mmm,” was all Corinne would say.
“It’s true, Corinne,” Becca said. “It could be a great opportunity.”
“I know. It would be everything I wanted and worked for, everything I dreamed about for almost ten years.”
“A dream come true.”
Corinne nodded. “Yes, my dream come true. Recognition. Respect. The knowledge that I affected a lot of people. Made a difference in the world.”
“It sounds like a person would be crazy to pass it up.”
“Yes,” Corinne said slowly. “Crazy. What was that?”
“What?” Becca asked
“I thought I heard something. Is someone in the hall?”
“I didn’t hear anything,” Becca said. “But I’ll go look”
“When you get rich and famous, will you get me an introduction to Alicia
Silverstone?” Jeremy asked.
“When you’re a rich and famous author, she’ll be calling you herself. What was it, Becca?”
“It’s Toby,” Becca said over her shoulder. She stuck her head back out the door. “Hey, Toby, you can come in. She’s awake.”
Corinne sat up straighter in bed and smoothed her hair back. She wasn’t crazy about Toby seeing her like this; she hadn’t showered or brushed her teeth. But the moment Becca said he was there, she realized she wanted to see him.
After a few seconds, she leaned forward. “Becca? Tell him to come in.”
Becca walked back into the room, a puzzled frown on her face. “I tried. He just kept walking away.”
Chapter 16
Toby held his hat m his hand and slipped into the dim, deserted hospital chapel. The cold ball of fear had slipped from his throat and settled with a solid sourness into the pit of his stomach, and promised to stay here.
My dream come true.
Three short pews faced a backlit cross. Toby moved to the front bench and sat.
He’d intended to pray, but now that he was here he found that between sleep deprivation and worry, his mind couldn’t hold on to a solid thread of thought. Jumbled images tumbled around inside his head, whirling like a tornado around and around. Corinne, falling in a limp heap in his arms. Corinne, prone on a city sidewalk, a dark maroon puddle spreading too rapidly under her head,
Corinnne’s dreams coming true. Corinne leaving again. And the dark gulf that awaited him when she did.
He heard movement in the doorway behind him, then felt the cushion shift as someone sat beside him. He stared straight ahead at the glowing cross, not interested enough to turn his head and see who sat beside him. He smelled vanilla, though, and knew without looking that it was his mother.
‘I stopped by the home you chose and picked up some paper Mr. Davis will have to go in, of course, for an interview The decision is still up to him, though, Toby.”
“know,” Toby said gruffly without looking at her. ”But if it’s what’s best, I can convince him.”
“It is what’s best, Toby.” She wrapped her fingers around Toby’s arm and leaned on him. “You’re not turning your back on him, Toby. He’ll only be forty miles away.”