by Harry Kraus
I walked to him and took his hands in mine. I looked into his brown eyes. “It seems we’ve both been stuffing away our feelings.”
He looked at me with innocent eyes, afraid to smile.
“So go with me. I’m packed. Our flight leaves in an hour and a half. We can be strolling on white sand together before the sun sets.”
“Mrs. Crumley is expecting me.”
His next piano student. I wondered silently if she’d fallen for him too. “Call her and cancel. You need a few minutes to pack.”
“Just like that. We disappear together.”
“Henry thinks I’m going to a meeting in Denver. He won’t suspect a thing.” I teased him by pushing out my lower lip in a pout. To my surprise, he kissed me. I wrapped my arms around him and let him taste my lips.
After a moment of delight, his indecision returned. He pushed me away and shook his head. “This is crazy!” He walked across the room towards a large stone fireplace. I trailed behind him like a puppy on a leash.
“Of course it’s crazy. If I know you like I think I do, you’ve never done anything irresponsible in your life.” I slapped his shoulder. “Wake up and live, Jack. Look at us. We were made for each other.”
“I don’t know. Reverend John — ”
“Please don’t bring my father into this. I’ve spent my life doing what that man wanted. And look where it’s taken me.”
“You’re doing pretty well.”
“I’ve divorced my heart.”
He sighed.
“Starbucks?”
I shook my head. We’d fallen into a routine. After each lesson, we’d have coffee together at Starbucks, sitting at a corner table to go over my music theory book. “We have a plane to catch,” I said. I tried desperately to capture his eyes. “Come with me.”
He took a step towards the front door. I couldn’t voice my fears. Don’t do this, Jack. Don’t leave me alone. I’ ll be crushed. We love the same things! Music. Art. Travel. Double mocha lattes.
He continued walking until he reached the foyer, when he turned to face me. “Don’t get me wrong, Wendi. I want to go. It’s just — ” His voice trailed off.
I shook my head at him with tears welling up and threatening my mascara. “Just walk out that door and go to your next piano lesson. But I promise that for the rest of your life you’ll live with the haunting question, ‘What would have happened if I’d obeyed my heart?’ ”
He shook his head slowly.
My voice began to crack. I cried through the next sentence. “Here,” I said, pulling a little box from my pocket and shoving it in his hands.
He opened it and saw a gold pocket watch on a chain. He snapped it open, saw the little picture of my face inserted opposite the watch face, snapped it closed again, and saw the engraved heart on the front.
“It’s my heart. I want you to have it.”
I suddenly felt so adolescent. I was twelve again, giving Jimmy Pearson a ring behind the bleachers.
He stood clutching the little locket in his hand. Speechless, I watched as he slipped it into his pocket. “It will be our secret,” he said. “Wendi, I can’t — ”
I stopped him with a kiss on the cheek. “Don’t say ‘no’ yet. Drive away. Follow your heart. I’ll wait for you.”
He looked as if he might protest, so I added, “Thirty minutes. Then I’m leaving for the airport. Go to your next lesson or go home and pack. The choice is yours.”
I shoved him towards the door. “Just do something,” I added, choking up, “before I lose it completely.”
He opened his mouth, but I held up my hand. “Go!”
He let himself out. I closed the door and dropped my head against it with a thump. I lifted it again and let it drop. Maybe it would make the pain go away. I turned and slid to the floor with my back against the door.
What had I done? I was a member in good standing at the church across the street, and I’d just given flight to the bird of my inner feelings.
I took a deep breath and wondered if I’d lost my mind. I’d thrown myself shamelessly at my father’s choir director. I’d shown him my soul, naked and unpretentious, and he’d walked away.
My heart ran ahead as I studied my trembling hands. No matter what, I’d done it. I couldn’t believe it. I’d actually followed through with an insane plan to escape my perfect life. My perfectly boring life. I was free. Exhilaration pulsed in my soul, circulating through my veins until it reached my face to show itself in a smile so wide my cheeks hurt.
My next thought scared me to death and buried my smile in the anxiety. I’m going to be thrown out of the church, disgrace my husband, and burn in hell.
I closed my eyes, pinching back tears and contemplating a sacrilegious prayer:
God, I hope Jack comes back.
With my hands knotted behind my head, I paced the house. When I passed the bookshelves next to the fireplace, I saw my wedding photo album sticking out from the neat row of books beside it. I pushed it back into place and wondered how long it would take Henry to notice that I’d cut my face out in the shape of a valentine to put in the watch I’d given Jack. I didn’t use any of the photos of me alone. I used one of me standing beside Henry, one I didn’t mind desecrating.
I paused with my hand coming to rest on a pair of binoculars that I used for looking at the cardinals playing in the backyard birdbath. Then, I ran to the back deck and strained to see if Jack’s car had reached Route 29. From my vantage point up the hill from the highway, I had a partial view of the intersection. I pressed the binoculars to my eyes to see Jack’s blue Honda Accord pull up to wait at the light.
If he turned left towards Charlottesville, he was heading towards Mrs. Crumley and his next piano lesson. If he turned right, he was heading home to pack! I held my breath. I strained to see the back of his car, but his signal lights were hidden behind the dogwood leaves. I moved right a few feet, then left, aware of the drone of an eighteen-wheeler barreling down Route 29 from town.
Jack’s light turned green. Binoculars in place, my eyes were fixed on a circle with Jack in the center. I needed to see his taillights. Was he turning right or left? His car edged forward and then disappeared. I saw the flash of a side of a silver truck and a glimpse of the blue Accord as it flipped out of view. Two seconds later, I heard the sharp report of metal against metal. I pulled the glasses away, squinting over the treetops towards the highway.
“Jack.” I spoke his name in disbelief. I’d personally witnessed the destruction of dozens of smaller vehicles at the hands of eighteen- wheeler behemoths.
“No,” I cried. “No, no, no!”
CHAPTER 4
Jesse Anders wiped sweat from his forehead and explored the gap in his smile with his tongue. He downshifted his rig, turned down the music and picked up his cell phone. Let Dr. Stratford try to cut me off again.
He fumbled with the numbers, folded his cell, and cursed his trembling hands. He’d dreamed of this moment for months. How could his emotions betray him now? Inside the refuge of his smoky cab, his heart hammered out his resolve.
He checked his rearview mirrors and marveled at his luck. No one is following. No one saw. With phone open again, he willed his fingers to cooperate. Slowly, he dialed the surgeon’s number.
He listened as he was patched through to Dr. Stratford’s voice mail. Typical high-brow behavior. Won’t stop to talk to me. Anders nodded to himself. He’ ll learn who’s in charge. “Hey, Doc!” he said. “It’s a new day. And we need a new start.” He paused. “Maybe now you’ll understand just how painful it is when someone you love gets hurt.”
No.” I lifted the binoculars up to my eyes and scanned the roadside. Neither vehicle was in view. I could hardly believe what I’d witnessed. One second Jack was in view, the next he was gone, launched out of view by a speeding truck.
A second later, I was in motion, clawing at the screen door to throw it open, then vaulting over a leather ottoman on my way to my Mercedes.
I sp
ed down the road towards the highway in a blur of anxiety. I had fully expected some negative fallout from my plummet from grace, but not so soon. I drove down the hill as if swimming through a tangle of emotions threatening to strangle me. Guilt. There it was, sitting on the seat beside me. I thought I’d abandoned that copilot in my desperate search for the new me. But predictably, in a swing of the pendulum, my old life came slamming back. Shame enfolded me, the airbag deployed as a result of the wreck I’d made of my life.
How could I have been so stupid as to think that Jack would leap into my arms and save me from my desperation?
Was it so bad, wanting to stop the hypocrisy?
All the way to Route 29, I couldn’t help feeling responsible somehow. I behaved shamelessly and Jack paid the price.
That’s ridiculous. God doesn’t behave that way.
Or does he?
I approached the intersection and pulled onto the shoulder. Where was Jack’s car? Where was the truck? Could it be that I misunderstood the whole thing? Cars were speeding by. It seemed like normal Wednesday traffic. With morning rush hour over, traffic was sparse. Jack?
I grabbed my cell phone and walked along the highway. Broken glass littered the road. My heart quickened with my pace. “Jack!” My voice disappeared into the wooded roadside. Twenty yards to the north, I saw a disturbance in the grass beside the road. A fresh rut cut an acute angle off the highway. I ran ahead, scanning the ditch. There, partially hidden by a bank of honeysuckle, was the blue Accord.
The car was upside down, and the smell of gasoline pungent. I approached from the passenger side and dropped to my knees. “Jack?” I touched the edge of the shattered passenger window. It moved, so I stood and kicked it with my shoe. I dropped to my belly in the soft dirt. “Jack?”
That’s when I saw him, hanging from his seatbelt. “Jack!” I screamed.
No response.
I punched 9 – 1 – 1 on my cell phone.
“State police, 9 – 1 – 1. What is the nature of your emergency?”
“There’s been an accident. Just north of the intersection of Azalea and Route 29. A car is off the road east of the highway. The driver isn’t responding.”
“I’m dispatching a paramedic crew, ma’am.”
“I smell gas.”
“I’ll have a crew there soon.”
“I’m afraid of fire.”
“What’s the condition of the driver?”
“I’m not sure. Hang on.” I went to the driver’s side. The window was gone. “Jack?” I touched his cheek, and recoiled. Blood dripped from his forehead.
“Is the person breathing?”
“The car is upside down.” I looked at Jack again. “He’s breathing!”
“Don’t move him.”
“I’m afraid of fire.”
“Help is on the way.”
I knew better than to try to move him. I stood and ran to the edge of the highway. After a three-minute conversation in which the male 9 – 1 – 1 voice told me four times that help was on the way and that I should stay calm, I saw the approaching lights of the rescue squad. I waved my hands in the air and ended my phone call with the stay-calm voice.
I pointed to the car. “He’s over there. A truck hit him.”
A trio of paramedics ran to the car carrying large orange tackle boxes.
I was used to crash scenes. But not ones with people still bleeding. I didn’t remember my own accident that launched me into a plastic life of regret. From the looks of Jack, he wouldn’t remember this either. Perhaps that was a necessary grace.
Feeling uneasy watching, and not wanting to lose it completely, I withdrew into the shell of my life’s work: accident reconstruction. I retreated to my car and retrieved my evidence kit. A police cruiser pulled off the road behind the rescue squad just as I was measuring the distance from the point of impact in the middle of the intersection to the final position of Jack’s car. I stepped it off behind my rolling measuring wheel, like a person might walk a dog on the end of a stiff leash. Then, I took digital pictures of the scene, carefully documenting the dispersion of glass and fender molding on the highway, the ruts on the roadside, and the car from every angle, including close-ups, which would allow me to measure the amount of deformation. From the distance and weight of the car, I would calculate the speed of the truck.
A Charlottesville police officer approached me. He was Schwarzenegger-built and took off his sunglasses before speaking. “Hello ma’am. Did you witness the accident?”
“I was watching from my back deck,” I said. I pointed to the wooded hillside. “I live up there. I saw the light on Azalea turn green. The car pulled out and was broadsided by a truck.”
“Did you see the type of truck?”
“Silver. I’m pretty sure it was an eighteen-wheeler.”
He put back on his glasses. “Pretty sure,” he muttered.
I looked beyond him to the paramedic crew. I looked twice to see if the patient was really Jack. They had him on a stretcher with a large yellow collar around his neck. In a moment, they loaded him into the back of the rescue squad. “Where will you take him?”
“University.”
I nodded. Of course. To the trauma team. To Dr. Stratford, king of trauma.
“The truck couldn’t be far. This only happened a few minutes ago.”
The officer disappeared into his cruiser, leaving me, as the rescue squad siren warbled a get-out-of-my-way warning. I watched it go, fighting the urge to cry.
I stood helplessly beside the road with a question hanging paramount in my mind. Was Jack turning right or left?
I had to see if his turn signal was in an up or down position.
I walked back up the road, wishing the signal into an up position. I was just about equal with the police car when the Accord exploded into flames.
CHAPTER 5
I drove to the University of Virginia hospital praying to a God I was sure I’d offended, wrestling with my alligator of unbelief. I’d run boldly away from God, and now, with disaster all around, I wanted to cover my bases. It wasn’t that I doubted his existence. I just doubted that he loved me.
I parked in the pay deck across the street and walked to the emergency room, where I found Henry quietly teaching a resident about airway management. She was stunning, blonde and tall with a full figure noticeable behind her white coat. Henry leaned close as he made one-two-three points on the tops of his fingers.
I clasped my left hand, suddenly conscious of my bare fingers. “Henry,” I said.
He wore a pair of green scrubs and a white coat embroidered with his name over the left breast pocket. “Wendi?”
“I came to check on Jack Renner.”
His eyes narrowed. “What’d you do to your hair?”
I hadn’t even remembered. “I had it cut. And dyed.” I did it for Jack, I thought. “How’s Jack?”
“Aren’t you supposed to be on a plane?”
“Henry, Jack just had a horrible accident.” I hesitated. “I couldn’t take a trip now.” Not without Jack.
“He’s in the scanner,” Henry grunted, then studied me. I looked away. I didn’t want him to read me. I couldn’t tell him. Not yet.
“He’d just left our house after my piano lesson. I saw the whole thing from our back deck.”
“The paramedics mentioned a witness. I had no idea it was you.”
I steadied my voice. “Is he going to be OK?”
Henry stepped away from his resident and took my arm, ushering me towards a bank of X-ray view boxes and away from the path of a patient stretcher being pushed by a mob of white-coats. “I’ve got a good team this month. Ulrich is with him in the scanner.” He looked over at the female resident. “Cindy, check on the boys in CT. Tell them I want an update on patient Renner.” Then, back at me he said, “I’m so sorry, Wendi. I’ll find you a new piano teacher.”
Did he actually think that would calm my heart? My temper rocketed and in seconds, I launched from guilt and sorrow in
to an orbit of white-hot rage. “You insensitive pig!”
His jaw dropped. I felt the eyes of patients and nurses. The ER environment blurred through my tears.
I needed to disappear. I pivoted and stomped through the double doors leading out of the ER and into the hospital beyond.
Michael Ulrich, M.D., looked through the viewing window into the CT scanner, watching a blood pressure and cardiac monitor hooked to his newest trauma patient. As an intern, Ulrich represented the front line, the first to be called by the nurses and the first to be blamed if things went south. “Eat when you can,” he whispered. He retrieved a blue Starburst candy from a bulging coat pocket. It looked like it was going to be a long day, and working for a perfectionist like Dr. Stratford was a royal pain.
The door to the CT command console opened, and Chief Resident Cindy Swanson entered. “The monitor says his pressure’s sixty-two.”
“I’ve opened his fluids.”
“Have you started blood?”
“First unit is in.”
“And his pressure is still down. When were you going to let me know about this?” Cindy touched the shoulder of the CT technician. “How much longer?”
“Thirty seconds on the head. Then I’ll give a bolus of contrast for his belly.” He shrugged. “Should be out of here in five minutes tops.”
“Make it three.”
The tech glanced over his shoulder. “When did you dye your hair?”
“When I started trauma.”
The intern smirked. “We all find our ways to cope.”
She paced the small room, muttering, “Load the boat, Ulrich, load the boat.” She quoted from a surgery training principle. When the patient is going down like a sinking ship, you need to keep your higher-ups informed, so that if the boat goes down, your bosses will be with you.
Ulrich nodded, unwrapped another piece of candy, and threw one to his chief resident. “Load the boat,” he echoed. “Should we tell Stratford?”