by Lyn Cote
Glancing up at Jane, the nurse murmured, “Please sit down. It will be a while before I can get to you—”
“I’m not hurt—”
“You are. Just not as much.” She pointed to a mirror above a small sink. Leaning over, Jane peered into it and gasped. Her own face was nicked and smeared with blood. Her complexion went white. Her knees lost their strength.
The nurse dropped her basin and grabbed Jane’s arms. Without ceremony, she plunked Jane down on a straight chair and shoved Jane’s head between her knees. “I guess I shouldn’t have told you.”
“The window broke—”
“Just keep your head down till it clears.”
Nodding slightly, Jane gazed dismally at the gray linoleum floor, feeling light-headed for the first time in her life. She felt so helpless. Her family might be in. need of her, and here she sat sick at the sight of her own blood. She tried to pray, but only worrying images flashed in her mind. Finally she sat up and watched the nurse finish treating Mel.
Jane stood up. “Let’s get you home, Mel. Thanks. We’ll take care of the paperwork on our way out.”
The nurse tried to dissuade her from leaving without treatment, but Jane helped Mel down from the high table. They stepped outside the curtain and into the arms of Rona.
“Carmella Stephanie Maria Vitelli! Thank God! I couldn’t get you on the phone! I went to the shop. It was awful. I was so worried.” Mel wilted into her mother’s arms and began sobbing.
Jane longed to throw herself into her own mother’s arms—and Cash’s. She visualized Angie and Cash as they had looked just hours before on her front steps. A terror beyond any she had known before ripped through her, making her gasp aloud. Where were they? Had they suffered harm? Her mind balked at the possibility that they had been hurt, but she could not stop the fear that they might already be lost to her. She felt a scream welling up inside of her. Not Angie! Not Cash!
Her mind at that moment cut away all but the essential. Angie and Cash were the two most important people in her life. Why had she refused Cash’s repeated proposals? Why had she let her foolish pride stand between them? So what if he didn’t love her! Oh, God, are they safe? Help me find them. Let me tell him how much I love him. Let me hold Angie and feel her soft, baby hair once more.
“Jane! Jane, are you all right?” Rona asked loudly, taking Jane’s hands in hers.
“She should stay for treatment,” the nurse insisted behind them.
Ignoring the nurse, Jane squeezed Rona’s hands, then she moved toward the exit. Her fingers plucked keys from her slacks pocket. As she stepped on the rubber pad that activated the automatic exit doors, an ambulance with blaring siren and flashing lights halted in front of her, blocking her path. Two men in uniform quickly unloaded a wheeled stretcher. Jane barely noticed their activity till she saw her cousin climb out of the back of the ambulance, too.
Tish threw herself at Jane, her arms closing around Jane’s shoulders. “Mother’s hurt!”
“Tish!” Jane scanned her cousin, noting the girl’s disheveled clothing, scrapes and bruises.
“We were driving back to town,” Tish explained between sobs. “The wind just pushed us off the road! We rolled down the embankment. Over and over. Mother won’t ever wear her seat belt…” She gave in to her sobs, and Jane, her arm around Tish’s shoulders, turned back to lead her inside. They followed the stretcher on which Claire lay, white and silent, until it disappeared into another curtained area.
A woman with a clipboard tried to ask Tish the few necessary questions to admit her mother, but Jane had to answer for Tish. Her cousin’s eyes never left the curtain, which separated her from her mother.
Tish’s arrival caught Jane in a dilemma. Seeing Aunt Claire made her anxiety over Cash and Angie multiply tenfold, but she could not leave Tish. As much as she loved her aunt, it took all her willpower to stay in the chair beside her cousin. She desperately needed to see Angie, her grandmother, her parents and Cash. A yearning ignited within her, a yearning to touch Cash, to see him whole and well. This longing almost swept her into tears. But Tish, sitting next to her, had begun to cry. Jane knew if she also gave in to tears, Tish might become hysterical. Drawing on God’s strength through silent prayer, Jane began talking softly, gently to Tish.
Finally she calmed Tish enough so that she could leave her side and go as far as the desk phone. She tried to call each in turn: Cash, Uncle Henry, Lucy, her parents. Downed lines prevented her from reaching any of them, except for Tish’s home, but Uncle Henry was not there. She left a message on their answering machine.
Still unconscious, Aunt Claire was wheeled from the curtained area. The doctor explained that one of her lungs may have been punctured and there was a possibility of other internal injuries. Aunt Claire was being taken to X ray immediately, then probably surgery.
Tish clung to Jane. “I’m so afraid.”
“I am, too, but the Lord is here. I know we don’t feel like it right now, but He is here whether it feels that way to us or not. We only have to ask.”
“I don’t think He will help me…” Tish began crying harder.
“Of course He will,” Jane whispered. “He loves us. No matter what.” She swallowed her own tears, held Tish close and smoothed her cousin’s long hair back from her tearstained face over and over.
Then Jane saw Roger Hallawell hustle in. He barked orders at the lone nurse still in sight. Jane caught only the word injured. The nurse followed him outside. Within minutes, the woman was back frantically paging staff. Roger returned carrying a girl about ten, who lay limp in his arms.
A rush of staff with wheeled stretchers and chairs passed Jane and Tish. Before Jane could call his name aloud, Roger was back out the door, shouting information to the nurses.
Jane and Tish watched as another four children and one woman were brought in. All five looked battered. Their clothing was ripped and embedded with mud, leaves and pebbles. Jane waited impatiently till Hallawell emerged from seeing the last of his charges receive treatment. “Roger!”
He hurried to her. “What happened to you?” His shocked expression reminded her of her own disheveled appearance.
“Just some nicks from flying glass,” she said with a shrug. She didn’t mention he was dirty and blood smeared just like she was. His hands were encrusted with mud as though he had been digging earth with his fingers. “What happened to you? Who were those children?”
“They were attending a woodcraft class at the park near my office. An oak took down the roof. Do you need a ride home or anything?”
“I have my Blazer, minus one door.” Then she directed his attention to Tish, who sat pitifully drawn and pale, huddled on the molded plastic chair. Jane lowered her voice. “I have to stay. My aunt is in surgery. We can’t locate my uncle and I can’t get my family on the phone.”
“What do you want me to do? I’ve got to get going. We’re checking damaged areas with rangers and civil defense.” As he spoke he looked as though he was about to leave her.
Jane gripped his sleeve, stopping him. “I need to have someone check on my parents and my grandmother.”
“Okay. I’ll be out that way. If they need help, I’ll radio the police. If they’re okay, I’ll give them your news.” Even as he spoke, he pulled away from her.
She nodded, biting her lower lip against tears. He waved to her and left at a jog. Jane slipped back down beside Tish and shivered.
Tish looked up. “How much longer can they keep her up there? It’s been over an hour.”
She put her arm around her cousin again. “The doctor will be down soon to tell us how she is.”
Tish’s face trembled. “I’ve been awful to Mother this week. Yesterday when I was with one of my friends, I even mocked the way she talks. How could I?”
Jane hugged Tish to her, feeling her cousin’s tears on her own cheek.
“Just because she and Father talk so much. I love them. I really do—”
“Of course you do.”
“Then why do I say and do such terrible things all the time?”
“This is the real world. Just because we love someone doesn’t mean we do and say everything we should.” Jane’s own words stabbed her. She’d been harsh to Cash because of his proposal. “Your parents love you, and they know you love them, too.”
At last the doctor, still in green surgical garb, came down the long corridor to them. “Tish, your mother is in post-op. As soon as she is able, we will move her to IC—”
Tish stood up shakily. “That means she’s really bad, doesn’t it?”
“I wouldn’t say that,” the doctor hedged. “But we will have to watch her carefully for another day or two. Have you been able to reach your father yet?” Tish, looking down, shook her head. He patted her arm. “Keep trying, then.” He turned away. A nurse immediately called him into one of the curtained areas which were all now filled with new patients. Jane and Tish sat back down, side by side.
“I’m so glad you were here, Jane,” Tish murmured, looking away. “I acted so awful that day you fired me—”
“Don’t talk about it now.”
“But I was awful. I lied—”
“Tish, we all do and say things we regret. Grandmother always told me, ‘Just don’t repeat the same mistake.’”
“I won’t. I prom—”
Jane touched two fingers to Tish’s lips to silence her. “I have faith your mother is going to be fine. I’ll stay till your father comes.” She pulled Tish close again.
Father, I’ll let you take care of Grandmother, Mom, Dad and even Cash and Angie. But only because I must This is the hardest day of my life, staying here when I want to go to them. But I have faith that I am where you want me to be. Tish needs me.
Jane shut her eyes, willing away the haunting pain of not knowing where those she loved best were and if they needed help. Heaven would have to take care of them. If only she had the chance to hold Angie in her arms again and tell Cash she loved him and that she would be honored to be his wife. She sighed and rubbed her hand across her forehead.
Another few hours crawled by. The phone lines were still down, and the sheriff sent out word that everyone but rescue workers were to stay off the roads while the utility companies worked to clean up broken power and telephone lines. Jane’s eyes burned with fatigue and, for Tish’s sake, she had to suppress tears of frustration.
She felt her faith was a rock she was clinging to in the midst of a storm. She hadn’t felt that way since Dena’s funeral. Soothing Tish took all her strength. She felt beaten, drained of energy.
Finally evening darkened the sky outside the double doors of the ER. The number of people seeking medical attention slowed to a trickle. Another nurse tried to take Jane into a treatment area, but Jane waved her away. Jane’s face and hands stung where she had been nicked by glass, but she wasn’t in the mood to be poked and prodded by a stranger.
As they waited together, she and Tish held hands. Giving in to fatigue, Jane bent her head into her free hand.
“Tish. Jane.”
Jane sat up straight. Uncle Henry stood in front of them. He was mud spattered and rumpled like both of them. “The police finally tracked me down. I was helping our neighbors,” he said wearily as Tish flung herself into his arms. “I thought you and your mother were safely in Wausau—”
“It’s all my fault. I started a fight with her,” Tish sobbed, “so we started home early.”
“I’m here now, child.” He hugged Tish to him.
Jane rose stiffly. “I’ll get going then. Have you heard from Mom or Lucy?”
“No, but I think the twister missed them completely. It swung west of them.” He pulled Jane into his embrace, hugging both of them to him.
She rested her head against his arm momentarily. Then she straightened up.
“I should take you home, Jane.” He tightened his arm around her.
“Claire and Tish need you here. I’ll be all right.”
Henry nodded and let her go. “Send word when you can. We’ll be here.”
She nodded and patted Tish’s arm.
Outside, twilight was spent. Jane shivered in the cool evening air. The sweltering temperatures of the morning had been swept away by the storm. She fumbled in her pocket for her keys. Her head throbbed, and she was aware of every cut on her face, neck, arms and hands. In the dim light of the parking lot, she felt totally abandoned.
A blue Jeep careened around the corner and swooped down on her. She turned her head. “Cash!”
The brakes screeched. He leaped out and he was there, in front of her. Before she could speak, he began shouting at her, “Hallawell said you were just scratched. Is this what he calls scratched! If I’d known you were this bad, I would have come right away. How could they let you leave like this? I’m taking you right back in there—”
Suddenly feeling like a fretful child, she whimpered, “No, I want to go home, I want Angie.” She tried to describe all the worries of the whole long, torturous day, but her words were garbled by gasps and tears. “Angie?”
“Angie’s fine. She’s with Lucy at your parents’ place.” His strong arms went around her, and he hugged her close. He placed fervent kisses on her forehead and mussed hair. “I’m here now. Hush. God’s been good. Everyone’s fine.” His lips and gentle words soothed her.
She rubbed her face against his dirty, wrinkled shirtfront. He was so real she was comforted at last. She heaved several deep sobs, then she released a sigh. The tension left her so suddenly that she leaned limply against him.
“I’ll take you home now.” He swung her up into his arms, carried her to the passenger seat of his Jeep and hooked her seat belt for her. Then he drove smoothly through almost-empty, darkened streets. Large branches, and in some place trees and light poles, lay beside the road. Fortunately the nearly full moon was out.
Jane insisted as strongly as she was able, “I want to see Angie.”
“She’s fine.”
Jane said, “I want—”
“I had to give in to Lucy and your mother. I tried to bring Angie, but they wouldn’t let me out of the door with her.”
“Are you sure she doesn’t need me?” Jane leaned her head into her hand.
“It’s dangerous to be out. There are lines down all over, and, as if this weren’t enough, more storms are heading this way tonight. Lucy said Angie was already asleep and would be better off with them, but that I was to get you home.” He inflected the words to mimic her grandmother’s emphatic way of speaking. This persuaded Jane as nothing else might have. She slumped back against her seat. Everyone was safe.
She asked, “Where were you and Angie when the storm hit?”
“At Lucy’s. After the all-clear was sounded, the three of us went straight to your parents. Then I headed into town to check on you, but Hallawell flagged me down—”
“Roger did find you then?”
“He told me where you and Tish were and that you were scratched up, but okay. I was going to come for you right then, but he asked me to help him—”
“Help Roger?”
“There was a lot of territory to cover. The rangers, sheriffs deputies, civil defense, all of us were stretched pretty thin. So after I stopped back to tell your family about you and Tish, I cruised two camping areas, then met Hallawell, and we patrolled together. He’s still out there, but he sent me to get you. I stopped to get Angie before coming for you. After losing the argument with your family over bringing Angie with me, I came right to the medical center for you.”
“I love you. I’ll marry you.” Her declaration slipped out naturally.
At first the man beside her did not react to it. Moments passed. Then he stopped the Jeep. He tugged her face to his and kissed her.
Cash’s kiss had an effervescent effect on Jane. Inside her, an unseen current bubbled up from her toes, lifting her, making her feel as though she floated near him, weightless. He ended the kiss, murmured, “Jane, God knows how much I love you, b
ut I have to get you home now.” He gave her a heartening embrace before he turned to the wheel.
Soon he drove down her drive. After parking, he led her to the back door. A cold rain began falling, dampening and chilling them. But when she saw by the light of the veiled moon that her snug house was unscathed, warmth filled her heart. Inside her house the floating sensation, which had carried her in, abruptly deserted her. She slumped against Cash.
“Don’t fade out on me now,” he whispered. He touched the light switch on the kitchen wall out of habit. When no light flashed on, he grumbled, then swung her into his arms again and cautiously made his way through the dark house to her bedroom. He left her sitting on the edge of her bed.
She heard him making rustling noises in the dark, but she did not feel compelled to make sense of them. Her family was safe, she was in her bedroom, and Cash was with her. Gratitude filled her.
Cash said quietly, “I know we may not need this, but it will give us some light and warmth.”
She saw Cash starting a modest fire in her bedroom fireplace. Watching the kindling flare made her shiver in anticipation. The cool evening air, cold rain and damp clothing made the fire very welcome. She stumbled to Cash and dropped to her knees in front of the flames flickering to life.
Cash returned the screen to its place and dropped a kiss on her forehead. “You need a hot bath. Hope you have enough water stored in your hot water heater for one.”
From across the hall she heard the creak of her bath faucets being turned on and the gush of water pounding the tub. Cash came back in, pulled her to her feet, snatched a white terry cloth robe off a hook on the back of the door and led her to the warm and steamy bathroom. He sat her down on the edge of the tub.
He rested his hands reassuringly on her shoulders. “I’m going to wash your face and put some antiseptic on those cuts and nicks.” He opened the medicine chest over the sink.
Jane closed her eyes, letting Cash smooth saturated cotton over her face and dabbing here and there. Even the stinging of the alcohol did not rouse her completely. Dreamily she trailed her fingers in the water, making more frothy bubbles.