Blackberry Winter

by Maryanne Fischler

  Blackberry Winter

  by Maryanne Fischler

  Copyright 2011 by Maryanne Fischler

  Book One: Early Spring

  Chapter 1

  Emily Stone believed that to appreciate fully the beauty of new-fallen snow, one must see it in the first light of day. The romantic within her loved the almost ethereal blue color that is reflected off snow by the rays of the early morning sun. She noted what so many have before her, that a fresh blanket of snow turned a familiar, boring view into a strange and enchanting landscape. That miracle of transformation could only occur, however, in snow untainted by human feet.

  The practical soul that comprised the majority of her personality recognized the fact that once people were up and about their morning business, the snow would be marred by their careless tracks and would quickly become an ugly grey annoyance. The long-enough-already drive to the library where she worked would become even longer as fools who didn’t know how to drive in the stuff slip-slided their way into one another and snarled traffic to a cold crawl. The logical result would be that she would be incredibly late for work, and the whole order of her day would be ruined. This is the line of reasoning that led her to get up before dawn and set out for work at such an ungodly hour. Working her very slow way across the parking lot of her apartment building, she reflected that even though it was only just barely day, it really shouldn't be called an ungodly hour. It seemed to her that there was probably less crime, less family violence, and less of a lot of other nastiness early in the morning than later in the day, so it probably came closer to being a godly hour than any other time. She herself felt a certain virtuousness in making the sacrifice to get up so early to avoid being late for work. Of course, she also felt something of a fool as she reflected on the fact that she was imminently dispensable, and that the entire County Library System would hardly come to a grinding halt if one worker in the interlibrary loan department were late.

  Maneuvering with the extreme caution that sometimes makes careful drivers the most dangerous, Emily encountered more traffic than she had expected. “You’d think people would have the good sense to stay off the roads unless they had somewhere really important to go,” she said to herself testily. She turned on the car radio to pass the time and hear the latest traffic report. The announcements of long lists of school closings and other cancellations were powerful indicators that the winter snow had been a big event in a North Carolina city that sometimes went through the whole winter without any frozen precipitation at all. “Couldn’t do this on a weekend when I could have stayed home and enjoyed it!” she thought.

  Finally arriving at the underground garage where library employees parked, she took a brief inventory of herself before setting out on the long hike to her office’s entrance. Her shoulder length brown hair was firmly secured in a furry hat. Her small frame was bundled in a sweater, slacks, a heavy winter coat, a muffler around her neck, a pair of sensible black boots, and gloves, so that only her blue eyes gave any indication that a human being existed under the layers of clothing. Her footsteps on the greasy concrete floor made resonating taps in the nearly empty garage. As she approached the dark building, her key at the ready, she looked carefully around to be sure there was no one lurking in the shadows. Funny how people never “wait” in the shadows or “loiter” in the shadows, they always “lurk” there, she thought with a self-deprecating smile. She figured anyone stupid enough to lurk in this freezing nasty place deserved the shot of mace that she would rapidly send their way if they got anywhere near her. Three decades of solitary life had bred a cautious lifestyle.

  She entered the building, turning lights on along the way and carefully picking her way past the book carts and shelves to the back office where she spent her days. The essence of her job was to charge books out to the various branches, arrange for their delivery, and fill requests for specific books for individual patrons in the system. Naturally, she kept meticulous records of which books were sent where, although computerization had made that a much easier operation than it used to be. Marveling at how much more she was able to accomplish in a short period of time when she had the place to herself, she saw that her usual arrival time of 8:30 had arrived and a good portion of her tasks for the day were already finished. She began to notice the sounds of other people arriving, most of them late.

  “Good morning. Aren’t you the early bird this morning!” The voice belonged to Janet Barstow, the associate director of the library and Emily’s immediate supervisor. “It looks like we’re going to be short-handed today. I think we’ll probably need you up front, if you don’t mind.”

  Biting off an all too honest reply as being unseemly, Emily settled for a ladylike “I’d be glad to help.” If other people had demonstrated the good sense to get up in time to get to work when they were supposed to, she wouldn’t have to carry their load as well as her own. The truth of the matter was that Emily hated working out in the public part of the library. She hadn’t become a librarian out of any love for people, but out of a love for books. There was nothing for it, however, but to do as she was told. Mrs. Barstow led her out to the circulation desk, which was the Outer Mongolia of the library as far as Emily was concerned.

  “I’m afraid things are rather a mess out here. The snow started before closing last night and I guess the evening shift was in a hurry to get home.” To say things were “rather a mess” was to Emily’s way of thinking akin to saying that the explosion of Mt. St. Helens had been “rather noisy.” There were books, cards, and miscellaneous scraps of paper laying on every horizontal surface. All Emily could think was that there was no discipline in this department of the library at all.

  “We’ll see what we can do about setting things straight here before opening time,” she said, her slight southern accent colored by her forced-to-be-cheerful tone of voice. Mrs. Barstow recognized the tone and knew it would be best to leave well enough alone. Emily Stone could be a real pain sometimes, and at thirty-one was the youngest little old lady around, but she was a hard worker and never left a job half-done. There were plenty of people on the county library’s payroll who went out of their way to do as little of their work as possible, and if Emily was sour about having to pick up other people’s slack, who could blame her?

  Sourness turned to nervous exhaustion by the time lunch rolled around. Apparently the weather had been just too much for all but one of the regular circulation desk employees, which was odd since it hadn’t stopped what seemed like half the people in the county from dropping off their obnoxious children for the library staff to contend with all morning. With a familiar feeling that her irritation with her work and her impatience in dealing with people were hardly in keeping with the Christian ethic she felt herself called to live by, Emily experienced a pang of guilt about her attitude. Like the pain of an old injury never quite healed, the discomfort she felt had something of a life of its own. Somehow it fit into her personal scheme of justice for her to be perennially uncomfortable. As she pondered her own shortcomings, she looked out the front window of the library to see that the snow had started up again. Mrs. Barstow announced over the public address system that the library would be closing at one o’clock because of inclement weather. It was not a minute too soon to suit Emily, who had endured about all of the contact with the general public that she could manage. Peering out the windows into the growing gloom, she was apprehensive about the drive home, and contemplated catching a bus instead, but decided to make the best of it. “I’m always the most careful driver on the road,” she thought.

  It seemed more like the middle of the night than the middle of the day as Emily drove toward home. She wouldn’t have thought it possible that it could get so dark so fast. The wheels of morning co
mmuters had packed the snow into a hard, slick coating on the roads, and more was falling in blinding curtains of white. “It’s a lot prettier when you’re on the inside looking out,” Emily thought. By the time she was half way home she had seen two different fender-benders, several abandoned cars, and more than enough stupid driving to know that she could be in real trouble. The road was an obstacle course. It was almost impossible to get a grip with the brakes and she was tempted on the one hand to join the ranks of those who gave up and parked their vehicles at the side of the road. On the other hand, it was still a couple of miles to her house and well below freezing. It might be genuinely dangerous to try to walk that far in this kind of weather. “Why does my decision-making process always seem to come down to deciding on the least frightening of the frightening options?” she asked herself. She wished she was one of those confident people who always seemed to know exactly what the right thing to do was. Even when they decided what seemed like the wrong way, things always turned out right for them in the end. She didn’t have any trouble coming to one decision—that she never should have gone to work that morning in the first place, but that didn’t help her figure out what to do now. While considering the options, she kept on going, never realizing that by so doing, she was deciding her course by default. She had been on earth for thirty-one years, every minute of that time proving the adage that life is what happens to you while you’re waiting for your destiny. Emily Stone’s life met face to face with her destiny at the intersection of Hawthorne Road and Miller Street on a snowy January afternoon, and she never saw it coming.

  It was a small grey Escort being driven by a teenager. With the confidence in his own immortality that is peculiar to seventeen-year-olds, Russ Andrews was on his way to a friend’s house. Equipped with the wealth of driving experience that comes from fifteen long months, he was sure of his ability to drive in even the worst of weather. He resolved to be especially careful, but his brakes weren’t gripping any better than anybody else’s for all his caution. Had she been an objective onlooker at the scene, Emily would have found it supremely ironic that after her torturous concern over the obstacles in front of her, she was done in by something completely unseen coming at her from behind. For Russ Andrews the stoplight at the intersection might just as well have been a flag pole, because there was no way he could make the car stop. He plowed through the intersection, ran into Emily’s car, and like a tractor, pushed sideways it into an enormous pine tree.

  Emily’s perception was limited to a horrible noise followed by a brief visit to oblivion. Upon coming to herself in a limited way, she could hear that her car was no longer moving, and that someone was trying to open the door. There was a voice, shrill to Emily’s ears and obviously in panic, shouting into the wind for help. The voice stopped, and there came a metallic groan. And then she perceived that the wind was inside the car and a warm hand pressed against her throat gently. Then there was a different voice, calm and low. “Can you hear me?” The hand was moving about her, then pressed something cloth against her forehead.

  She tried to answer, but was unable to speak.

  “You’re going to be fine,” the voice said, “Just hang in there. Help’s on the way. It’s going to be all right.”

  But things don’t feel right, Emily thought. Everything hurts. Can’t talk. Can’t move. Scared to death. As these thoughts fought past the pain to make themselves known, she listened intently, desperately trying to decipher the confusion in her mind. She heard a siren in the distance. Coming for me, she thought, scared to death. And then the clouds in her mind thickened and she faded into unconsciousness. The last sound of which she was aware was the voice assuring her again, “You’re going to be all right.” And someone held her hand.

  The emergency room of the county hospital is a busy place on a snowy day. People find lots of ways to hurt themselves when the world gets slippery. Ladies of advanced years slip on their back steps and break their hips. Children take advantage of school closings to go sledding in trash can lids, run into trees, and cut their heads open. College students skip their classes and drink themselves into thinking that the pond behind the frat house is frozen solid enough to walk on and then fall through and break their arms. If people are snowed in for long enough, they get on one another’s nerves and the emergency room sees more than its normal share of broken noses and ribs.

  On the day of Emily’s accident, the emergency room was in its usual state of barely controlled chaos. The screech of the ambulance brakes at the admitting doors added to an already uncomfortable volume of noise.

  Emily’s first thought upon waking up was that it wasn’t quiet anymore. There were lots of voices and she had the feeling they were talking about her. She hated that. She wanted to tell them that she didn’t appreciate it, but her mouth wasn’t working yet. Hopefully they would fix it. There were a lot of parts that needed fixing, she thought. And sure enough people were poking at all of them. “Where’s the voice that held my hand?” she wondered. Then she heard him speaking to someone off to the side. “Come here and tell me some more about how I'm going to be all right,” she thought.

  It occurred to her that if she wanted people to talk to her, she should open her eyes, but she found that she couldn’t. For some time the concepts of “snow” and “car” and “accident” had been floating in and out of the cloudiness in her mind, but now one sharp, clear thought forced itself to the forefront. “I can’t see.”

  There are people who so hate pain that they live their lives avoiding anything potentially painful. Emily Stone felt the same way about fear. She didn’t ride on roller coasters, she didn’t read Stephen King, and she didn’t take any chances. And now here she was in a room full of strangers, unable to speak, unable to see. She was in a state of panic, and began to thrash around.

  And then she heard the voice again, the deep voice that penetrated her fear and reconnected her to the sensible, dignified librarian who always did what was expected of her. “Miss Stone, you’re going to be fine, but you have to give them a chance to help you. They know what they’re doing.”

  She stopped struggling and the room was calm again. The personnel working on Emily did their tasks with smooth efficiency, as if to verify what the voice had said about their competence. The clouds closed in again and Emily slept.

  When she was next aware that she was awake, Emily was in a different place. She could tell that because the noises were different. It was much quieter here. She was in pain, mostly in her face. She sensed that her eyes were bandaged and that her mouth was in some way stuck shut. She grunted to let anyone who might be in the room know that she was conscious.

  A female voice at the bedside asked, “You awake, Miss Stone?”

  The best she could respond with was a grunted, “Uh-huh.”

  “I’ll get the doctor to come and talk to you. Don’t you worry now, you’re going to be fine.”

  “People keep saying that,” she thought, “but it certainly doesn’t seem to be borne out by what I can tell. My face feels like it’s broken in about twenty different places. You wouldn’t think an area as small as a human face would have so many different places to hurt.”

  “Miss Stone, I’m Dr. Patterson. Can you hear me?”

  Again she grunted for an answer.

  “You are aware you’ve been in a traffic accident. Your car was hit from the rear and ran sideways into a tree. You with me so far?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “You took most of the impact in your face. Your eyes were hit by a branch through the side window. We have them bandaged up now, but we feel confident that there won’t be any permanent damage to your vision. Do you understand?”

  This time there was a note of relief in the “Uh-huh.”

  “We think your jaw must have hit the steering wheel. It’s not broken but it is badly bruised, so you’ll probably have trouble speaking for a while. Other than that you’re basically just bumped and bruised. You’ll be as good as new in a few days.”
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  She made a noise to acknowledge that she had heard him.

  “We’re going to give you something for pain and to help you sleep. You’ve had quite a day.”

  A traffic accident that took less than ten seconds to happen took several days to untangle. Emily managed to get a message to Mrs. Barstow at the library as well as to her insurance agent. The practical aspects of her situation were taken care of, and it remained to her simply to wait and recuperate. Emily had never been in a hospital before. She disliked the fact that she was not in control of the situation. She disliked being poked and prodded by people she didn’t know. She disliked the smells, the food, the noises at all hours of the day and night. More than anything else, however, she disliked not being able to see, even if it was to be only the temporary condition everyone kept telling her. Throughout her life when she had been troubled or depressed, she had turned to books; but now that solace was denied her. The loneliest place anyone can be, she decided, was in the dark.

  Time passes slowly in hospitals. Thirty-one years of living a deliberately simple life had given her much experience in killing time, but she had never had to kill it as a blind person before. Nothing to look at, nothing to do, no music to listen to, not even television, the sure-fire time killer, could relieve the monotony.

  After two days that seemed like two weeks, she heard a knock at the door. She had had few visitors, a couple of co-workers, Mrs. Barstow, her insurance agent, the hospital chaplain. She was usually shy about socializing, but any company is a treat when you’re sitting alone in the dark. “Come in,” she called.

  “Good morning, Miss Stone. How are you making out?” It was a familiar voice but she couldn’t exactly place where she had heard it before. It was someone who for some reason was significant to her. There was some positive connotation in that voice. “How unlike me to be so confused,” she thought. “It’s not as if I know all that many men.”