The Mill River Redemption

by Darcie Chan

  There were only a few people in the waiting area. Rose was among them, sitting hunched forward and tense in a chair off to the side.

  “Rose?” Ivy said, and they started toward her, but almost at the same time, a man wearing scrubs came into the waiting room and called out, “Ms. Frye?”

  Rose immediately jumped up and went to him, and Emily and Ivy moved closer. Still with her back to them, Rose was listening to the doctor and nodding, but Emily was able to hear what he was saying.

  “… results of the CT scan. Your son has an epidural hematoma. What that means is that he has bleeding inside his skull that’s causing pressure to build up on his brain. Alex needs to have surgery to relieve that pressure as soon as possible. We’ve alerted neurosurgery at Fletcher Allen in Burlington, and we have a DHART helicopter en route to transport him there. It should be arriving here in a few minutes.”

  “Will I … can I ride with him? Please let me go with him,” Rose asked in a shaky voice.

  “That shouldn’t be a problem,” the doctor said. “Stay here, in the waiting area. A nurse will be down in a few minutes to escort you to the helipad.”

  Rose nodded again as the doctor hurried off, but she didn’t move from where she was standing.

  “Rosie, honey?” Ivy said. Emily watched as her great-aunt went to put an arm around her sister. “We heard what the doctor said just now. Have you seen Alex since you got here?”

  Rose shook her head and glanced back over her shoulder to where Emily was standing. Her face was splotchy and red, and she was still crying uncontrollably.

  “Have you gotten hold of Sheldon?” Ivy asked.

  Rose nodded. “Not yet, but I’ve left messages,” she managed to say between sobs. “Oh, Aunt Ivy, this is all my fault.” She fell into Ivy’s arms, and Emily watched as her great-aunt tried to comfort her sister.

  “No, honey, it’s not,” Ivy said, smoothing Rose’s disheveled blonde hair. “Kids do things like climbing trees all the time. It’s a part of being a kid, and this is just one of those crazy accidents that sometimes happen.”

  “No,” Rose said. “It wasn’t an accident. Earlier, he was wanting me to come outside with him, and I didn’t go.” She uncurled her fist and held out her hand. “He was wearing this. He figured it out, found it all by himself. It must’ve been hidden in the tree.”

  Emily took a step closer as she and Ivy stared into her sister’s open hand. She saw the sparkle of gold and silver—a familiar locket, and a key engraved with “338” that was unmistakably real.

  CHAPTER 32

  AS SOON AS SHE GOT HOME, CLAUDIA TRIED TO CALL KYLE to tell him about what happened to Alex. He didn’t answer his phone, though, and the receptionist at the station told her he wasn’t there. Probably on patrol again, she thought. Even though she felt anxious and unsettled, and her thoughts kept drifting back to the horrible image of the little boy lying unconscious in the grass, she finally decided to head into Rutland as she had planned.

  At JCPenney, Claudia found some cute shirts and a new pair of running shoes, but as she paid for her things and looked out of the storefront into the mall, she was forced to admit that, after Alex’s accident, her heart really wasn’t into clothes shopping. She still needed to stop for groceries, though. The inside of her refrigerator was looking pretty empty, and the big Hannaford supermarket had a nice salad bar and a better selection of produce than the small grocery store in Mill River.

  Maybe it was because she was so concerned about Alex, or because she had committed the cardinal dieting sin of shopping while she was hungry, but when Claudia emerged from the supermarket, there was a box of Entenmann’s cake donuts in one of her bags. Oh, she’d bought plenty of fruit and vegetables, too, but it had been such a long time since she’d allowed herself her favorite sweet. I’ll ration them out, Claudia thought. One each day, after exercising, and I’ll keep the box in the car to avoid temptation.

  On the way home, she passed the King’s Lodge, the fancy restaurant where Kyle had taken her for Valentine’s Day. She felt warm and tingly remembering the wonderful dinner they’d had … and the unforgettable night together that had followed. It was a welcome distraction from her worry.

  She was almost back to Mill River when she thought again of the vandalism complaint Kyle had handled. He’d said something about damage to Rose DiSanti’s lawn, about the word “lush” being burned into it. She and Daisy hadn’t made it as far as Rose’s house, and she was suddenly curious to see it for herself. She felt a little silly acquiescing to the urge to gawk, but vandalism of any kind was such a rarity in Mill River. It would take her only a few minutes to drive by and get a glimpse of what had happened. In fact, I can get a little something for Alex at The Bookstop while I’m over there, she thought. She remembered that Rose had mentioned how much he liked to read, so a couple of books would be the perfect get-well gift.

  As she came into Mill River, Claudia turned onto Maple Street. The Bookstop was on one side of her car and Rose’s house on the other, and she slowed her car and peered out the window at the front yard. Someone sure did a number on it, she thought. Just as Kyle had said, the word “lush” was visible in the lawn, with the letters being formed by swaths of dead, yellow grass. Strangely, though, the grass surrounding the letters seemed to be dying, too. It was wilted, and patches were beginning to turn a brownish-yellow, although none was yet the same hue as the letters. It was almost as if someone had purposely poured weed killer over the whole lawn in an attempt to hide the word written there.

  Claudia didn’t want to pause too long in front of the house lest she raise suspicion of any kind, so she stepped on the accelerator after a few moments of creeping along at idle speed. She had only gone perhaps another fifty feet, though, when she slammed on the brakes.

  Kyle’s truck was parked along the curb right in front of Emily DiSanti’s house.

  Her first thought was that it couldn’t possibly be Kyle’s pickup, since he was still supposed to be at work. But, there was no mistaking that the truck was his. She stared at the familiar dent on the left rear fender, the result of a close encounter with a shopping cart. As she eased up on the brake and slowly passed the vehicle, she saw the Mill River Elementary bumper sticker pasted on the back, the one she’d sent home with Rowen last year. Right next to it was the green license plate with the number she knew by heart.

  With her mind reeling, Claudia drove the rest of the way down the street and pulled over just before the intersection. She was craning her neck around to look back at Kyle’s truck when Emily’s front door opened. She gripped the steering wheel and stared, still not quite believing what she was seeing. Kyle came out, looked around quickly, and jogged to his truck. Slowly, certain other facts registered in Claudia’s brain.

  The sedan Emily had been driving earlier was parked right behind Kyle’s truck, which meant that even if Emily had gone to the hospital in Rutland, she was home now.

  Kyle wasn’t wearing his police uniform.

  Rowen wasn’t with him.

  Claudia pulled away from the curb, gunned the engine, and headed back to Main Street. She needed to get home, to process what she’d just seen.

  Something’s been going on, she thought as she pulled back into her driveway. She grabbed her shopping bags from the back of her car and slammed the hatchback. She barely made it inside before starting to cry.

  If she hadn’t seen what she’d just seen, she never would have believed Kyle to be capable of cheating on her. How could she have been so stupid, and so blind? There had to have been signs—maybe she’d missed them, or talked herself out of any suspicions. Obviously, she’d misjudged Kyle and underestimated her own naïveté. He’d been her first real relationship, her first love, her first everything. She should have realized that no one was as perfect as Kyle had seemed. No real relationship happened just like magic and worked out happily ever after, like a fairy tale.

  Claudia pressed her back up against her refrigerator and slid down until she was
sitting on the floor next to the bags of groceries. She glared at the stalks of celery and the crisp green lettuce that protruded from them. What was the point? All the hard work to change the way she cooked, to deprive herself of delicious things, to fight with herself over running every morning seemed to have been a huge waste of time. When she’d been fat, no one had been attracted to her. Now that she was a healthy weight, it seemed that the only men interested in her were stalkers like Leroy and cheating scumbags like Kyle.

  What other reason would there be for him to be over at Emily’s? she wondered.

  Emily. Claudia felt a growing disgust as she thought back then to the first time she’d met her—at Josie DiSanti’s wake. She’d felt such empathy for her, standing alone in Josie’s living room while her older sister had the support of a husband and son. On the day Emily had moved to Mill River, she’d actually schlepped her belongings into her house. She’d offered to introduce her to her circle of friends. And just this morning, after Alex’s accident, she’d hugged Emily in a genuine attempt to comfort her, never guessing that the redheaded harlot had apparently been doing some comforting of a different kind. Emily’s behavior in the face of the kindness she had extended was especially appalling.

  Sticking up from the grocery bag furthest from her, Claudia saw a white cardboard corner. Almost without thinking, she jumped to her feet and grabbed it. Before another ten seconds had passed, she was standing at her kitchen counter and had poured herself a tall glass of milk. She opened the Entenmann’s box and began to salivate. There were a dozen donuts before her. Claudia’s hand hovered just above the neatly stacked rings of cinnamon-sugar- and powdered-sugar-coated bliss. Her indecision lasted only a moment, and the powdered sugar won.

  It had been so long since she’d allowed herself even a single donut. She couldn’t remember the last time she had truly eaten with abandon, particularly of things that were not normally on her list of acceptable foods. She did not intend to stop with a single donut this time. Claudia chose one of the powdered sugar variety, broke off a piece, dunked it in her milk, and shoved it in her mouth. The soft sweetness was beyond delicious. It extended up around her teeth, down her throat, and out through her limbs. It was the perfect way to push away the hurt she felt, at least for a few minutes.

  After she had eaten another three donuts, she paused to swig some milk. She didn’t care that cinnamon and powdered sugar dotted the front of her shirt or that crumbs littered her counter and the kitchen floor. Perhaps it was because the huge infusion of sugar was beginning to kick in, but it felt so good to eat.

  When the box was half-empty, the first daggers of anger began to make their way through her sugar high. Claudia began to chew a little more slowly. Now that she had wised up, she resolved to act quickly to keep the upper hand and preserve what remained of her self-respect. At the very least, she deserved an explanation, and she realized how fortunate it was that Kyle was unaware he’d been caught in the act.

  Claudia sniffed and lifted a plain cake donut from the box. She would blindside him with the truth. Once she had eaten her fill—which she hadn’t come close to doing yet—she would call Kyle. She would invite him, no, she would demand that he come over. And when he did, she would confront him over his visit to Emily.

  Regardless of whether he spluttered an admission or tried to lie his way out, and even if he begged for her forgiveness, she would look him in the eye and dump his sorry ass.

  ROSE SAT IN THE WAITING ROOM OF THE SURGICAL WING OF VERMONT Children’s Hospital at Fletcher Allen Health Care. The twenty-minute flight to Burlington had been her first helicopter ride, but she’d rarely taken her eyes off Alex. Her son had remained unconscious during the flight. She’d found herself straining to hear over the drone of the helicopter’s rotors, listening for the rhythmic beeps of the machines monitoring Alex’s pulse and respiration as reassurance that he was still alive. Immediately upon landing, the crew had whisked him inside, straight into an operating room that was prepped and ready for their arrival.

  She barely remembered signing the consent forms for the surgery. The surgeon who had come out to speak with her had used terms like “intracranial pressure” and “brain resection,” and she hadn’t been given any specific estimate of how long the operation might take. “At least a few hours, but we won’t know until we’re under way,” the surgeon had told her when she’d asked. Then, she’d been left in the waiting room, surrounded by a sea of impersonal blue upholstered chairs, emotionally exhausted and terrified of losing her only child.

  The chair Rose occupied was in the far corner of the waiting room and well away from everyone else. She’d been sitting there for more than two hours now, and every minute that passed seemed like an eternity. Consumed by guilt and shame and fear, she closed her eyes and leaned her head against the wall. What have I done?

  “You’re an ugly drunk and a poor excuse for a mother,” her sister had told her. And Father O’Brien’s words from just that morning had been remarkably prescient. “So many times, an addict, particularly someone who is addicted to alcohol or drugs, doesn’t ask for help until something awful happens,” he’d said. “He or she ends up getting hurt or hurts someone else.”

  He was right, and so was Emily, Rose thought. Alex is here because of me, because I wasn’t doing my job as a parent. Her face crumpled as she realized the truth of what she had been told. She did have a problem with alcohol, one that had caused untold pain for people she loved and threatened to claim Alex’s life. “The doctors will save him,” she whispered to herself. “Please, please, let them save him. Please, please …”

  Rose didn’t know how long she stayed in that position, but she startled when a hand touched her shoulder. She bolted up to see her aunt Ivy standing beside her, along with Emily and Father O’Brien.

  “Did I doze off?” she said. “Was anyone looking for me? Did someone come to give me an update on Alex? Is he out of surgery?” Wild-eyed and slightly disoriented, she looked around the waiting room, but no doctors or nurses were in sight.

  “We just got here, honey,” Ivy said, “but it doesn’t look like anyone’s come out to talk to you yet. How long has he been in there?”

  Rose glanced at her watch. “Going on two hours. You didn’t have to come,” Rose said, glancing back at the priest and her sister. “I didn’t expect any of you to come.”

  “All of us love Alex,” Emily said.

  “And we love you, too,” Ivy added, although Rose noticed how the comment prompted Emily’s mouth to press into a firm, flat line. “Did you get ahold of Sheldon yet?”

  “Yes, finally. He’s trying to get a flight, but the only nonstop one left today doesn’t leave until after ten tonight,” Rose said. “Driving’s the fastest way for him to get here, but even if he left right after we talked, he won’t be here until—”

  She stopped speaking as a man wearing scrubs and a surgical cap entered the waiting room. A white disposable mask was still tied around his neck, as if he had just pulled it down from his face.

  “Ms. Frye?” the man asked as he looked straight at her. It was the same surgeon who had spoken to her briefly when she’d signed the consent forms.

  “Yes? How’s Alex?”

  “He’s out of surgery, and everything went well. He’s heading into the recovery room right now, and you’ll be able to see him there very soon. One of the nurses should come get you in just a few minutes.”

  “Is he going to be okay?”

  “I wish I could give you a definitive answer, Ms. Frye, but it’s too soon to say. We were able to elevate his skull fracture and remove the blood clots that were putting the pressure on his brain. We also stabilized the skull with a microplate and screws and inserted a drain before we closed him up. Alex will be transferred to the pediatric intensive care unit once he is out of recovery. If all looks good after a day or so, we’ll slowly bring him out of sedation and attempt a neurological exam. Only then will we get a better idea of what kind of recovery to expect.�
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  Rose was fighting tears again. “Do you think he’ll recover completely?”

  “He very well could,” the surgeon said, “but, again, it’s too soon to make any assessments or predictions. It’s also very possible that Alex will have some permanent brain damage from the injury. You should prepare yourself for a range of potential outcomes.”

  Rose nodded. “Thank you, Doctor. Thank you so much, for all you’ve done for him.” The room started to swirl around her, and she tried to stay focused on the surgeon’s sympathetic eyes. He reached out and touched her arm.

  “You know, I have a son and a daughter. I know how difficult this must be for you, and I want you to know that there are a couple of things that may improve Alex’s chances. First, kids are resilient, and they heal quickly. And, time is always of the essence in cases like his. You got him here for surgery very quickly, which was crucial. It’s lucky for him that you were there.”

  But I wasn’t, Rose thought. I wasn’t. She barely registered the surgeon patting her arm before he left.

  “It’s gonna be okay,” her great-aunt said. She felt Ivy’s hand on her back, but just then, a nurse came through the double doors.

  “Ms. Frye?” she asked, and Rose nodded. “You can see your son now. Someone else can come with you, too, if you’d like.”

  Rose looked behind her, at Ivy and Emily and Father O’Brien. She met the priest’s gaze and raised her eyebrows. He nodded slightly at her unspoken question.

  “Could Father O’Brien come with me?” Rose asked.

  “Of course,” the nurse replied. “Please follow me.”

  Rose’s breath caught in her throat when she got her first look at Alex in the hospital bed. He seemed so small and weak as he lay in the center of it. His head was wrapped in a white bandage that extended down over his forehead. Tubes protruded from his mouth, held in place by white medical tape below his nose and on his cheeks. Several electrodes were also taped to his chest. The only sounds in the room were the beeps coming from the equipment surrounding his bed and the quiet hiss of the ventilator.