Man of His Word

by Cynthia Reese

  It made sense, what Ma said, even if Kimberly couldn’t completely follow her advice. Ma had seen that and put her to work. “I promise—it will help. Keep your phone with you, check in with them all you want, but keep your hands busy, Kimberly. Take it for what it’s worth from a woman with three grown boys who run into burning buildings when everybody else has the good sense to run out.”

  Now Kimberly wandered down the long picnic table, clad in its red-checked tablecloth, making sure the plates and napkins and everything else needed for the cookout were there. So what if she had to count everything twice because she kept losing track?

  Already off-duty firefighters and their families and other friends of the Monroes were showing up. There was Pax, holding court over by the grill, telling horror stories of EMS runs while he flipped burgers. Tim, off tonight from the police department, was there, too, helping set out folding chairs and card tables.

  Ma came out with a huge platter of lettuce, tomatoes and onions. “Still no word?” she asked Kimberly. When Kimberly could manage only a curt shake of her head, Ma frowned, set the platter down on the table and shaded her eyes with her hand. She stared out across the pastures. “Now, where could that girl be?”

  “Daniel went to check the mill house...Wait, wait! There they are!” Kimberly clapped her hand to her mouth as she spotted them coming down the rise from the far pasture. She pushed through a crowd of people and ran to meet them.

  She buried Marissa in a bear hug, then, as she had with Daniel after the fire, her anger got the better of her. She held her daughter at arm’s length. “I’ve been worried sick! Where were you?”

  Marissa’s eyes flickered up to Daniel’s, and Kimberly detected an unspoken message telegraphed between them. It made the gratitude she’d felt toward Daniel curdle in her belly. “Lots of places. I just kept running.”

  “Where’d you find her?” she demanded.

  Daniel didn’t quite meet her eyes. “I found her up in the far pasture, near the fence,” he said.

  She could tell he was holding something back. Before she could launch into him, Taylor came galloping up the rise to meet them. “Hey, Uncle Daniel, Ma says come quick, because Pax is going to turn the burgers into charcoal! Hey, Marissa! Everybody’s been looking for you! Wow! How’d you get so dirty? Want to go in and change? Did you know Ma made a birthday cake for you?”

  With that, still talking a mile a minute, Taylor yanked Marissa toward the house and clean clothes, and Daniel headed over to rescue the burgers. Kimberly stood alone in the pasture, feeling forgotten and overlooked.

  And lied to. Obviously Daniel must have extended another one of his famous promises to Marissa.

  Swallowing her anger, she told herself that this was the last night she’d have to put up with him. Tomorrow she and Marissa would be gone, and she could begin the hard job of getting on with her life and forgetting about Daniel. He didn’t really care about her. Regardless of what he’d said in that ER, she didn’t count—not if he couldn’t see how, when you gave away a promise to someone, you were closing off communication with everyone else.

  Back at the cookout, she plastered a smile on her face and gritted her teeth. Staying here for her birthday was what Marissa had asked for—so Kimberly would do that. She could endure anything for a few hours.

  The burgers were heaped on platters, and people around her were laughing and settling down on the long bench seats of the picnic table and at the card tables Tim had finished setting up. The night air was thick and humid, punctuated by tiki torches to keep the mosquitos away.

  “Hey, where’s the birthday girl?” Maegan asked. “I didn’t know if we were doing presents, but I got her something small.”

  Kimberly looked around. Where were Marissa and Taylor? They’d been holed up in the house for ages, and now it was almost time to eat. If they didn’t hurry, they’d miss the fireworks. Already, she could see Daniel glancing at his watch. As fire chief, he had to head in and be on hand where the fireworks firm was shooting off the explosives.

  Then over the hubbub of laughter and small talk, another sound ripped through the night: the slamming of a screen door, followed by Taylor’s agonized voice.

  “Help! Somebody help! Marissa’s real bad sick! You’ve got to come help!”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  MARISSA LAY DOUBLED over on Ma’s wedding-ring quilt, her face a grayish pale, sweat beading on her forehead. Pax straightened up from his quick assessment. “Pulse is tachy. She’s going into shock. We’ve got to get a bus here now.”

  Without waiting, he yanked his phone off his belt, punched at the keypad, then barked at the person on the other end, identifying himself and ordering them to send an ambulance ASAP.

  Hanging up, he bent back over Marissa. “Marissa? You’re not allergic to anything, are you? Not like Taylor? This isn’t anaphylaxis, is it?”

  She shook her head, unable to speak.

  “She has a bleeding disorder,” Kimberly answered for her. “Is she hurt? Is she bleeding? Marissa, you’ve got to tell us what happened! When did you get sick?”

  She whirled around to Taylor. “What happened?”

  “I—I don’t know... She got real tired, and sick and then she said she felt like she was gonna faint. I got her to the bed, and she told me not to get you, that you’d freak...but I was scared, Ms. Kim. I was bad scared.”

  Daniel pushed past Taylor and stood by Kimberly. “She fell. When I found her—she fell.”

  Pax narrowed his eyes. “How? How far?”

  Daniel swallowed, then set his jaw. “From about halfway down the oak with the tree house. That’s where I found her.”

  “She what?” Kimberly stared at him in disbelief. “And you didn’t tell me? She could have been killed— She could die—”

  “I know. She didn’t want to worry you—so I told her I wouldn’t say anything.” Before Kimberly could light into him, he held up both hands. “I know, Kimberly, I shouldn’t have. It was stupid. But she seemed fine—I checked. I ran through a neuro, checked her pulse, checked to make sure she wasn’t cut— Made sure nothing was broken—” Daniel’s voice cracked.

  “Don’t you get it?” Kimberly cried. “With a bleeding disorder, it’s not the blood you see that you worry about—it’s the blood you can’t see!”

  Meanwhile Pax had lifted up Marissa’s shirt. “Sorry, honey, let me take a peek—oh. Yeah—significant bruising and guarding in the upper left quadrant. Daniel, was that there earlier?”

  He lifted his hands. “I—I didn’t check there. She said she wasn’t hurt.”

  Kimberly connected the dots in a flash. “You think it’s her spleen?” she asked Pax.

  “Yeah, I think it’s her spleen.” He craned his head toward the window and peered out. “Where’s that ambulance?”

  Daniel shook his head. “No. She needs more than that. Doesn’t she, Kimberly? Get a helicopter, Pax. Now. We’ve got to get her to Atlanta. To her doctors.”

  “Okay, but I’m not turning the bus around. I need an IV started. I don’t have the supplies with me. And—what’s her blood type? I should have told the EMTs to bring a couple of bags to hang. Daniel, I just don’t know. Maybe we should get her stabilized here?” Pax stared first at Marissa, then at Kimberly. “It’s your call.”

  Kimberly clasped her hands, tried to fight the urge to go down on her knees and shriek. She had to be calm; she had to think. She had to be like Ma, because Marissa needed her now.

  “Helicopter.” The word was a near whisper, but her voice grew stronger. “I’ll call her doctors. They know her case—the hospital here might not have the medicine she needs,” Kimberly spluttered.

  The next few minutes were a blur to Kimberly—lights flashing, sirens sounding, the gurney clacking over the back porch boards and across the gravel. Pax and the EMTs bent over Marissa’s now-still body, rushing, rushing, rushing. And then somewhere out of the approaching darkness, Kimberly heard the thwack-thwack-thwack of helicopter blades so
loud and close it reverberated in her chest. The aircraft dropped like a stone into Ma’s pasture, Maegan’s horses skittering in fear on the other side of the fence.

  They wouldn’t let her ride in the chopper, no matter how much she begged them. No room, they said, and against policy. She had time to squeeze Marissa’s still, limp hand just once before the helicopter crew tore after the chopper and hoisted the gurney into it.

  And then the huge machine rocked to and fro, lifted up and disappeared into the night sky.

  Shaking and jerking, Kimberly hit her knees, sobbing, keening. She knew she had to stop, she knew she had to get hold of herself. But no matter how much she ordered herself to stay calm, she could not quiet the powerful tremors that rumbled through her.

  Strong hands lifted her up—Pax and Tim. Ma was there, wrapping her in a blanket against the night air that suddenly chilled her.

  And Daniel?

  Daniel sat crumpled on the porch steps, his head in his hands.

  The sight of him steeled her. This was his fault. He’d never taken Marissa’s illness seriously. He’d undermined her and gone behind her back and now he was the one who was to blame.

  “I have to go. I have to get to Atlanta.” She made for the house and her keys.

  Pax stepped in front of her, his hand on her arm. “Hey, Kimberly, you’re not in any shape to drive ten minutes, much less three hours. Let somebody drive you—I’ll bet Daniel would be glad—”

  “I don’t want Daniel. I don’t want Daniel Monroe anywhere near my daughter,” she whispered. “He’s done quite enough.” She shook off Pax’s hand and stalked past Daniel without another word.

  * * *

  DANIEL SAT HUDDLED over a cup of coffee, finally alone in the kitchen. He’d run Pax out. Then he’d run Tim out. Then Rob and Andrew had come in, and he’d run them out. Maybe sometime in the next century somebody would get the message that he wasn’t fit for company.

  He wasn’t fit to be a father, either. Kimberly’s mouth had curled in contempt as she’d tossed a bag and her purse in her car and then tore down the drive. He’d tried to stop her, to tell her he was sorry. Oh, was he sorry—

  He had lost them.

  The screen door creaked open again, and he swore. “I said—”

  But then he saw Ma standing there, her hands on her hips.

  “Daniel Monroe. You care to explain yourself?”

  “Ma, I—” He couldn’t bear to meet her eyes. He tightened his fingers around the coffee cup, itching to smash it against the wall.

  “I’m not talking about Marissa falling. That was an accident,” she said. “I’m talking about you not being there for Kimberly, you not telling her about the fall.”

  “Ma...I promised Marissa.”

  “You sound as though you’re about ten years old, Daniel.” Sighing, she dragged out the chair across from him and peeled his fingers away from the mug. Holding them, she met his eyes. “I know your dad set a store by promises. But people can’t expect you to keep them if they’re going to hurt somebody. That’s when a promise becomes a secret—and you know the only secrets I abide by are happy secrets.”

  “It doesn’t matter, Ma. She was leaving anyway. I wouldn’t tell her—”

  “About that girl. I know. Ditto what I just said. Now, you listen to me, son. Your father, if he had the power to save someone’s life, would move heaven and earth to do it. That’s what he meant by keeping promises and being a man. He died doing that. And he would not think any less of you if you did whatever it took to do right by a child.”

  Something in her words shifted a heavy burden off Daniel’s shoulders, one he felt as though he’d been toting forever. He saw his promise to Miriam and his refusal to tell Kimberly for what it was—an exercise in pride, at least partly, and a way to hold on to that last bit of his father.

  He straightened, gripped her hands. “I shouldn’t have taken no for an answer. I should have gone with her—I should have never let her drive by herself—”

  “Darn tootin’, you shouldn’t have. Now, that’s the Daniel I raised.”

  Tim barreled through the back door. “Daniel—one of my officers pulled Kimberly over for speeding. She was going nearly eighty in a fifty-five. You want me to drive her up to Atlanta?”

  Daniel looked at Ma and shook his head. “No. I want you to call that buddy of yours with the airplane and tell him we need to fly to Atlanta. Eighty’s not nearly fast enough.”

  * * *

  KIMBERLY WAITED IMPATIENTLY for the police officer to come back in the room. The woman had taken her keys and put her in the back of the squad car, then driven her in the opposite direction from the interstate. Now she was penned up in an interrogation room, waiting for Tim to come and spring her. If she had to pay a thousand-dollar fine and a tow bill to match, it would be worth it—she’d pay anything, just later. Later, after she’d seen Marissa.

  But where was he? Were they arresting her? They couldn’t keep her—she had to get to Atlanta.

  In the quiet of the cramped, airless room, the image of Marissa, so pale and limp and lifeless, flooded back to her.

  She’d fallen out of the oak tree. Kimberly shuddered at the imagined impact. Marissa had been up in that tree house, after Kimberly had ordered her not to go there. She’d even told Daniel to take down the ladder—

  He’d taken down the ladder.

  And that was why Marissa had fallen.

  Because there was no ladder.

  And Kimberly had never let Marissa learn how to climb a tree.

  A wrenching sob tore through her and she collapsed back into the hard plastic chair. Her fault. It was her fault.

  The door opened, but Kimberly couldn’t lift her face from her hands.

  “Kimberly?”

  She choked out a laugh as she recognized who it was. “Man, Daniel Monroe, do you have this town wired or what? What sort of favors did you call in to get me pulled over, huh?”

  He kneeled down in front of her. “I did wrong. I made a bad decision, and I regret it. But are you going to waste time yelling at me, or are you going to come with me to the plane Tim’s got waiting for us? And by the way, if you know anybody who could pick us up at the airport in Atlanta, you can tell them we’ll be there in about thirty minutes.”

  * * *

  IT WAS CLOSER to forty-five minutes by the time they were actually on the ground and in the car of the one friend she could find who hadn’t left town for the Fourth. She hadn’t been able to speak in that entire forty-five minutes, just prayed and hoped. They seemed to be landing as quick as they’d taken off.

  Daniel hadn’t offered any conversation, either. He’d been quiet in the plane, looking more than a little green around the gills. In the car, he was as quiet as she was.

  Kimberly could barely look at him—not because she blamed him, but because she blamed herself. If she’d listened to him in the first place, Marissa would have had a ladder to get down from that tree house—a ladder she had safely climbed before.

  At the hospital, they were ushered to a surgery waiting room. Marissa’s hem/onc found them and sat down across from them.

  “She’s being prepped for surgery as we speak,” the doctor told her. “But all we can do is fly by the seat of our pants here, Kimberly. There’s a lot we don’t know. I know you’ve been looking for the birth mother—have you found anything?”

  Kimberly hung her head to hide the tears. She shook her head. “No. I tried—I really, really tried, but a judge wouldn’t let me have the records—”

  “Sir.” It was Daniel, his voice crisp. “I think I can help you. If you’ll hold on for a moment, there’s someone I’m hoping will be able to fill in some gaps.”

  She lifted her head, not daring to hope. Yes, he was dialing a number. His jaw was set as he waited for the phone to ring.

  “Miriam? It’s Daniel again. I have the doctor here, like I said I would when I called before. He needs to talk to you. I know you’re scared, but I swear, I would not
ask this if there were any other way. You trusted me back then to keep her safe—you made me promise to keep her safe. And this is the best way I know to save her life.”

  Miriam. Her baby’s birth mother’s name was Miriam.

  And then, miracle of miracles, Daniel stood and extended the phone to the doctor, who began asking detailed questions. Kimberly stared at Daniel, not bothering to even attempt to quell the tears running down her face.

  “You broke your promise,” she whispered.

  His eyes were dark and stormy, a far cry from the blue they usually were. “No. I kept it. Maybe not like I thought I should—thought I needed to, but I am keeping that promise. I’m sorry it took me so long to figure that out. She could die— She could die—” Daniel’s face crumpled. “And it’s all my fault.”

  Kimberly wrapped her arms around him. “No. It was me, Daniel. I told you to take that ladder down. Yeah, you should have told me about the fall. Yeah, Marissa shouldn’t have been in that blasted tree house to begin with, but I smothered her. You would have taught her how to climb a tree.”

  “I will. I will teach her how to climb a tree,” he said fiercely. “And if you’ll have me, I’ll take care of you both and never ever promise anything to anybody that will stop me from keeping either of you safe. I promise.”

  Kimberly laughed, a painful laugh that made her cry all the harder. “Ma says—Ma says I can take what you say to the bank...and I know how you are. But, Daniel—”

  The doctor cleared his throat, drawing them apart. He was smiling, relief wreathing his face. “Marissa’s birth mother has PAI-1 deficiency, so it’s a good bet that she does, too. Lots of questions got answered just now, Kimberly. I’ve got to tell the trauma surgeon what protocol he needs to follow, and we’ll be in touch with Dr. Fischer in Indiana. It will be a long road to recovery, but we can save her.”