Right to Life

by Jack Ketcham

November 10, 1998

  "Greg."

  "Hello, Sara."

  They'd spoken on the phone a few times though she'd yet to see him. It had been much too hard on her to have to see him.

  Now it was still hard. But she was glad to.

  He looked older somehow but then so did she. The hospital's bathroom mirror had revealed that very clearly to her this morning. The face that peered back at her was drawn and pale and lines she couldn't remember seeing only yesterday spiderwebbed her forehead. "Mother? Could you just give us a minute?"

  Her mother had stayed at the hospital throughout.

  Her father hadn't.

  "Certainly, dear." She patted Sara's hand and got up off the chair. "Nice to see you, Greg."

  "Nice to see you too. Mrs. Foster."

  The door closed behind her and then they just stared at each other, smiling.

  On the phone there had been too many tears. Too many regrets and apologies. He was staying on with his wife and son. He was committed to them. Of course he was. He blamed himself for not finding her, for giving up hope of ever finding her. He'd tried, god knows. He and her mother had harassed the police for months. Of course he had. He was a good man.

  It was good to be able to smile at him now.

  "You saw her?"

  "She's beautiful, Sara. She looks just like you. Just like her mom."

  "She really is beautiful, isn't she."

  "She is."

  She patted the bed. "Come sit. Talk to me."

  He walked over and sat down.

  "Are you all right?" she said.

  "I'm all right. Question is, are you all right?"

  "I'm fine. A little tired. I was only in there a little over two hours. With Daniel it was more like four. I think she wanted out. Hell, I don't blame her. But what I meant was, are you all right with… all this now?"

  "Sure I am."

  "Diane? Alan?"

  "Well, like I told you, Alan was pretty upset at first. But it was more knowing about the two of us than about you being pregnant. I think he's squared away, though. I know Diane is."

  "You sure?"

  "She says she wants to meet you. And the baby. How would you feel about that?"

  Just how civilized are we going to get? was what he was asking.

  "I don't know, Greg. Give me some time. Let me think about it, okay?"

  "Sure. Of course."

  He sat there looking at her a moment and she watched his eyes turn sad and he reached over and took her hand, the eyes saying, is this all right to do? and hers saying yes, it is while they pooled with tears, both of them still smiling and she thought, yes, I still love you too, always will even before he said it.

  "I still love you, Sara. Always will."

  "I know."

  He began to cry. She squeezed his hand.

  "It wasn't such a horrible thing we did, was it?"

  His voice breaking with sorrow.

  "No, Greg, no. What we did was love one another and I don't think that was horrible at all, do you? Do you really? In your heart? And you're doing the right thing now. You know you are. Alan needs you. Diane needs you. And we're okay, you and I. Aren't we?"

  He wiped the tears off his cheek and nodded.

  "What about you?"

  She laughed. "I think I'm going to be very busy for a while."

  She was going back to teaching when she could. Greg knew that too.

  "Yeah. I guess you are. You gonna need any help? Anything I can do, I mean?"

  "That's between you and Diane. But no, not at first, anyway. I've got my mother with me and we'll be fine. Talk it over with Diane if you want to. See how involved you really want to get. Then we'll talk, you and I. Take your time. We'll see."

  He nodded again and then he was silent for a while. "I hear she finally died," he said. "That bitch. Katherine."

  "She never came out of the coma."

  "Saves us a lot of trouble, doesn't it."

  "Trouble?"

  "Court and all."

  "Yes. I guess it does."

  "I just wish I could have…"

  "Greg. I'm sorry but I honestly don't want to talk about it, you know? It's over for me. It should be over for you too. Am I right?"

  "You're right. I just…"

  "Greg."

  He laughed and shook his head.

  "You're right. I'm talking like a fool. I'd probably better go. You need to get some rest."

  He squeezed her hand and leaned over and kissed her gently on the cheek and then stood beside the bed but would not release her yet, did not let go of her hand, seemed to want that one last minute holding her. She realized she wanted it too.

  "Have you got a name yet?" he said.

  She smiled. "I'm thinking Megan," she said. "It's Anglo-Saxon. It means strong."

  SEVENTEEN

  Her mother was asleep in the guest room. Her baby whose name was now indeed Megan slept beside her bed in the crib. She lay staring at the ceiling trying not to remember what was impossible not to remember but thankful for the soft warm bed and the quiet apartment and her all old familiar belongings gathered around her, all of it like a comforting womb of its own from which her life could go on and spread itself unconfined, grateful too for this other familiar presence at her feet who had somehow in those months taken the sting from out the whip, the edge off the knife.

  The cat sleeping beside her on the bed. The cat who now also had a name.

  Ruth. Ruthie. From the Hebrew.

  Friend.

  STORIES

  BRAVE GIRL

  "Police operator 321. Where's your emergency?"

  "It's my mommy."

  The voice on the other end was so small that even its sex was indeterminate. The usual questions were not going to apply.

  "What happened to your mommy?"

  "She fell."

  "Where did she fall?"

  "In the bathroom. In the tub."

  "Is she awake?"

  "Unh-unh."

  "Is there water in the tub?"

  "I made it go away."

  "You drained the tub?"

  "Uh-huh."

  "Good. Okay. My name is Officer Price. What's yours?"

  "Suzy."

  "Is there anybody else in the house, Suzy?"

  "Unh-unh."

  "Okay, Suzy. I want you to stay on the line, okay? Don't hang up. I'm going to transfer you to Emergency Services and they're going to help you and your mommy, all right? Don't hang up now, okay?"

  "Okay."

  He punched in EMS.

  "Dana, it's Tom. I've got a little girl, can't be more than four or five. Name's Suzy. She says her mother's unconscious. Fell in the bathroom."

  "Got it."

  ***

  It was barely ten o'clock and shaping up to be a busy summer day. Electrical fire at Knott's Hardware over on Elm and Main just under an hour ago. Earlier, a three-car pile-up on route 6 - somebody hurrying to get to work through a deceptive sudden pocket of Maine fog. A heart-attack at Bel Haven Rest Home only minutes after that. The little girl's address was up on the computer screen. 415 Whiting Road. Listing under the name L. Jackson.

  "Suzy?"

  "Uh-huh."

  "This is Officer Keeley, Suzy. I want you to stand by a moment, all right? I'm not going to put you on hold. Just stay on the phone. Sam? You with me?"

  "Yup."

  "Okay, Suzy. Your mommy fell, right? In the bathroom?"

  "Yeah."

  "And she's unconscious?"

  "Huh?"

  "She's not awake?"

  "Unh-uhn."

  "Can you tell if she's breathing?"

  "I… I think."

  "We're on it," said Sam.

  "Is your front door unlocked, Suzy?"

  "The door?"

  "Your front door."

  "I don't know."

  "Do you know how to lock and unlock the front door, Suzy?"

  "Yes. Mommy showed me."

  "Okay. I want you to put the p
hone down somewhere - don't hang up but just put it down somewhere, okay? and go see if the door's unlocked. And if it isn't unlocked, I want you to unlock it so that we can come in and help mommy, okay? But don't hang up the phone, all right? Promise?"

  "Promise."

  She heard a rattling sound. Telephone against wood. Excellent.

  In a moment she heard the girl pick up again.

  "Hi."

  "Did you unlock the door, Suzy?"

  "Uh-huh. It was locked."

  "But you unlocked it."

  "Uh-huh."

  I love this kid, she thought. This kid is terrific.

  "Great, Suzy. You're doing absolutely great. We'll be over there in a couple of minutes, okay? Just a few minutes now. Did you see what happened to your mommy? Did you see her fall?"

  "I was in my bedroom. I heard a big thump."

  "So you don't know why she fell?

  "Unh-unh. She just did."

  "Did she ever fall before, Suzy?"

  "Unh-unh."

  "Does mommy take any medicine?"

  "Huh?"

  "Does mommy take any medicine? Has she been sick at all?"

  "She takes aspirin sometimes."

  "Just aspirin?"

  "Uh-huh."

  "How old are you, Suzy?"

  "Four."

  "Four? Wow, that's pretty old!"

  Giggles. "Is not."

  "Listen, mommy's going to be just fine. We're on our way and we're going to take good care of her. You're not scared or anything, are you?"

  "Nope."

  "Good girl. 'Cause you don't need to be. Everything's going to be fine."

  "Okay."

  "Do you have any relatives who live nearby, Suzy? Maybe an aunt or an uncle? Somebody we can call to come and stay with you for a while, while we take care of mommy?"

  "Grandma. Grandma stays with me."

  "Okay, who's grandma? Can you give me her name?"

  Giggles again. "Grandma, silly."

  She heard sirens in the background. Good response time, she thought. Not bad at all.

  "Okay, Suzy. In a few minutes the police are going to come to your door…"

  "I can see them through the window!"

  She had to smile at the excitement in the voice. "Good. And they're going to ask you a lot of the same questions I just asked you. Okay?"

  "Yes."

  "You tell them just what you told me."

  "Okay."

  "And then there are going to be other people, they'll be dressed all in white, and they're going to come to the door in a few minutes. They'll bring mommy to the hospital so that a doctor can see her and make sure she's all better. All right?"

  "Yes."

  She heard voices, footfalls, a door closing. A feminine voice asking the little girl for the phone.

  " 'Bye."

  " 'Bye, Suzy. You did really, really good."

  "Thanks."

  And she had.

  ***

  "Minty, badge 457. We're on the scene."

  She told Minty about the grandmother and when it was over Officer Dana Keeley took a very deep breath and smiled. This was one to remember. A four-year-old kid who very likely just saved her mother from drowning. She'd check in with the hospital later to see about the condition of one L. Jackson but she felt morally certain they were in pretty good shape here. In the meantime she couldn't wait to tell Chuck. She knew her husband was going to be proud of her. Hell, she was proud of her. She thought she'd set just the right tone with the little girl - friendly and easy - plus she'd got the job done down to the last detail.

  The girl hadn't even seemed terribly frightened.

  That was the way it was supposed to go of course, she was there to keep things calm among other things but still it struck her as pretty amazing.

  Four years old. Little Suzy, she thought, was quite a child. She hoped that when the time came for her and Chuck they'd have the parenting skills and the sheer good luck to have kids who turned out as well as she did.

  She wondered if the story'd make the evening news.

  She thought it deserved a mention.

  "Incredible," Minty said. "Little girl's all of four years old. She knows enough to dial 911, gives the dispatcher everything she needs, has the good sense to turn off the tap and hit the drain lever so her mother doesn't drown, knows exactly where her mother's address book is so we can locate Mrs. Jackson over there, shows us up to the bathroom where mom's lying naked, with blood all over the place for godsakes…"

  "I know," said Crocker. "I wanna be just like her when I grow up."

  Minty laughed but it might easily have been no laughing matter. Apparently Liza Jackson had begun to draw her morning bath and when she stepped into the still-flowing water, slipped and fell, because when they found her she had one dry leg draped over the ledge of the tub and the other buckled under her. She'd hit the ceramic soap dish with sufficient force to splatter blood from her head-wound all the way up to the shower rod.

  Hell of a thing for a little kid to see.

  Odd that she hadn't mentioned all that blood to the dispatcher. Head-wounds - even ones like Liza Jackson's which didn't seem terribly serious - bled like crazy. For a four-year-old she'd imagine it would be pretty scary. But then she hadn't had a problem watching the EMS crew wheel her barely-conscious mother out into the ambulance either. This was one tough-minded little girl.

  "What did you get from the grandmother?"

  "She didn't want to say a whole lot in front of the girl but I gather the divorce wasn't pretty. He's moved all the way out to California, sends child support when he gets around to it. Liza Jackson's living on inherited money from the grandfather and a part-time salary at, uh, let's see…"

  He flipped through his pad, checked his notes.

  "… a place called It's the Berries…"

  "I know it. Country store kind of affair, caters to the tourist trade. Does most of its business during summer and leaf-season. Dried flower arrangements, potpourri, soaps and candles, jams and honey. That kind of thing."

  "She's got no brothers or sisters. But Mrs. Jackson has no problem with taking care of Suzy for the duration."

  "Fine."

  She glanced at them over on the sofa. Mrs. Jackson was smiling slightly, brushing out the girl's long straight honey-brown hair. A hospital's no place for a little girl, she'd said. We'll wait for word here. The EMS crew had assured them that while, yes, there was the possibility of concussion and concussions could be tricky, she'd come around very quickly, so that they doubted the head-wound was serious, her major problem at this point being loss of blood - and Mrs. Jackson was apparently willing take them at their word. Minty wouldn't have, had it been her daughter. But then Minty wasn't a Maine-iac born and bred and tough as a rail spike. Suzy had her back to the woman, her expression unreadable - a pretty, serious-looking little girl in a short blue-and-white checkered dress that was not quite a party dress but not quite the thing for pre-school either.

  When they'd arrived she'd still been in her pyjamas. She guessed the dress was grandma's idea.

  The press would like it. There was a local TV crew waiting outside - waiting patiently for a change. The grandmother had already okayed the interview.

  They were pretty much squared away here.

  She walked over to the couch.

  "Do you need us to stay, Mrs. Jackson? Until the interview's through I mean."

  "That's not necessary, Officer. We can handle this ourselves, I'm sure."

  She stood and extended her hand. Minty took it. The woman's grip was firm and dry.

  "I want to thank you for your efforts on my daughter's behalf," she said. "And for arriving as promptly as you did."

  "Thank you, ma'am. But the one we've all got to thank, really, is your granddaughter. Suzy? You take good care now, okay?"

  "I will."

  Minty believed her.

  ***

  Carole Belliver had rarely done an interview that went so smoothly. T
he little girl had no timidity whatsoever in front of the camera - she didn't fidget, she didn't stutter, she didn't weave back and forth or shift out of frame - all of which was typical behavior for adults on camera. She answered Carole's questions clearly and without hesitation. Plus she was pretty as all hell. The camera loved her.

  There was only one moment of unusable tape because of something the girl had done as opposed to their usual false stops and starts and that was when she dropped the little blonde doll she was holding and stooped to pick it up and the dress she was wearing was so short you could see her white panties which Carole glimpsed briefly and promptly glanced away from, and then wondered why. Was it that the little girl acted and sounded so much like a miniature adult that Carole was embarrassed for her, as you would be for an adult?

  It was possible. She'd done and thought sillier things in her life.

  The piece was fluff of course but it was good fluff. Not some flower-show or county fair but a real human interest story for a change. Unusual and touching. With a charming kid as its heroine. She could be proud of this one. This one wasn't going to make her cringe when it was broadcast.

  It occurred to her that they could all be proud of this one, everybody involved really, from the dispatchers god knows to the police and EMS team to the grandmother who'd no doubt helped raise this little wonder and finally, extending even to her and her crew. Everybody got to do their job, fulfill their responsibilities efficiently and well. And the one who had made all of this happen for them was a four-year-old.

  Quite a day.

  They had down all the reactions shots. All they needed now was her tag line.

  "This is Carole Bellaver - reporting to you on a brave, exceptional little girl - from Knottsville, Maine."

  "Got it," Bernie said.

  "You want to cover it?"

  "Why? I said I got it."

  "Okay. Jeez, fine."

  What the hell was that about? Bernie had just snapped at her. Bernie was the nicest, most easygoing cameraman she'd ever worked with. She couldn't believe it. It was totally out of character. He and Harold, her soundman, were packing their gear into the van as if they were in some big hurry to get out of there. And she realized now that they'd both been unusually silent ever since the interview. Normally when the camera stopped rolling you couldn't shut them up.