Forever Bound

by Deanna Roy

  He nodded grimly.

  The air burst with color as the first responders approached, their sirens a brutal whine. Redmond climbed back out the window, but I didn’t move, waiting for them to arrive.

  “Take it easy,” I said when a man opened the driver’s door, jostling her.

  “Is she conscious?” he asked.

  “No,” I said. “But she has a pulse.”

  He checked her himself and motioned for another guy to come forward with a stretcher. They took a board from it and slid part of it behind her. “Come on out so we can get her information,” they said to me.

  I obeyed, ducking out of the car and hurrying around. A third guy was over by Carl’s truck, talking to him.

  My vision went red then, and without even thinking, I mucked over to his door and pushed the guy out of the way.

  “You motherfucker,” I said, and punched his bloody face.

  The uniformed man grabbed my arms and dragged me down. Headlights flashed into my eyes as I hit the mud. I fought him off, but he was trained and strong.

  There were more shouts and people rushed from all around. I saw more colored lights and felt the bite of something hard around my wrists. I managed to turn my head and saw a different uniform, dark blue, the police, I reckoned.

  Shit.

  “You’re not doing your sister any good like this,” a voice said, and after a minute, I recognized it and relaxed. Don Hopper had lived three doors down since I was born. He was a longtime police officer in Chattanooga.

  “He…hit her,” I said through gritted teeth, turning my face to keep it out of the slick ripples of mud.

  “I know it,” he said. “We’ll sort it all out.” His voice was soothing and calm. “Let him out of these cuffs,” he told somebody else.

  My hands were released. I pushed up to my knees. I was covered in a solid inch of mud from ankle to shoulder.

  “I want to go with her,” I said.

  “Not the way you’re looking right now,” Don said. “Get yourself cleaned up. I’ll call your mama and you can meet her up at Erlanger.”

  “Why are they taking her all the way there?”

  “She’s under eighteen. That’s where pediatric cases go.” He walked me over to his squad car. “Looks to me like you need a driver. You got somebody here to take you or you want to ride with me?”

  I squinted my eyes in the glare of the headlights to find Barbie. I spotted her, over by Carl’s truck, hanging on to his arm. Great. So that was going on right now, it seemed. I didn’t have the time to even wonder why she hadn’t bothered to break it off with me. It didn’t matter. I was done with all of them.

  “I’ll take him,” Redmond said.

  Don sized him up for a second. “How much you had to drink?”

  “I skipped the whiskey. I’m all right.”

  Don nodded. “Take him home, get him cleaned up. Then to Erlanger.” He turned away.

  The ambulance started bumping across the rough terrain of the muddy field. I winced with every bounce of the wheels. Hannah was in there, but at that moment, as bad as it seemed, I felt like she’d be okay. I thought I’d go and see her and find her lying in white sheets, a bandage on her head, complaining about how long it would be before she got home.

  I was wrong.

  Chapter 46: Chance

  Jenny hadn’t eaten much of anything, and now the food was all cold. I reached across and grabbed a bit of toast and showed it to her. “That waitress is gonna blame me if you don’t eat this.”

  She turned her face toward my arm a moment, like she was going to refuse, then shifted away. She took the bread from me and took a bite.

  There didn’t seem to be much else to say. She knew the worst thing about me. Maybe now that she knew, she wouldn’t want me around the baby at all.

  “I’m kind of no good,” I said. “You might be better off with nothing but a support check from cross country.”

  She set the crust of her toast on the plate. “Please don’t say that. It’s not your fault this happened.”

  “I was the one out there drinking and acting stupid. She came out there because of me.”

  “Why DID she go out there? For one, why did she show up at all? For two, why did she drive into the field and not stay with the friends?”

  These were questions that had bothered me for half a year. “She found out from my mother that we were out there. Mom sent her to save my soul from eternal damnation over the evils of drinking. She used to come herself. When Hannah got old enough to drive, she started sending her. Probably in hopes that Hannah wouldn’t turn out just as wild.”

  “Was Hannah like her? Religious and stuff?”

  “Yes and no. She was Mom’s perfect little church girl. But she had her own life aside from that. She just wanted to please Mom in a way I never cared about.”

  “Sounds like she was a lovely girl.”

  “I don’t know what to do about her. Lying there like that was just about her worst nightmare. I know this. Mother knows this. I don’t know why she lets it go on and on.”

  “Maybe she’s just like you,” I said. “And me. Unable to let her go.”

  I hadn’t realized this might be the thing Mom and I had in common. That she was just hiding it under the Bible.

  The waitress stopped by and frowned at Jenny’s plate. “Poor little mite.”

  She seemed to finally notice I hadn’t ordered. “Two eggs, bacon, ham, and toast?” she asked me.

  “That sounds fine. Over easy.”

  The waitress nodded. “I couldn’t bring anything that might smell up the table and upset her stomach,” she said.

  Huh. That actually made sense.

  Jenny laughed a little. “I don’t know nothin’ about birthin’ no babies.”

  “I guess we’ll figure it out together,” I told her.

  The waitress smiled. “That’s all any of us do.”

  Jenny stayed close against me as we finished out the breakfast. I liked the feel of her next to me. Sometimes I thought about her belly, and what was swimming in there.

  One thing I knew for sure. It was time to grow the hell up.

  Chapter 47: Jenny

  Chance drove me around Chattanooga for the day, showing me the river running through the city and some of the parks along the shore. We had lunch at a sandwich shop, much easier for me to manage without all the intense smells of a restaurant with hot food, and talked about our pasts.

  I learned he had gone to junior college and hated it, then worked in construction. All along, he’d played guitar, sometimes being part of one temporary band or another. They didn’t play a lot of gigs, and things always fell apart when somebody wouldn’t practice, or somebody got a girlfriend who took too much time. But something else always came along.

  He found out I had started coloring my hair in high school because some fool boy called my eyes “the most boring color ever stuck on a girl.” My nickname became BW for black and white.

  My mother, worried because I had become this sulky sad girl who holed up in her room with punk music, moved across town to a more liberal school without a dress code so I could change my hair and wear whatever I wanted.

  He was impressed that she was willing to do that for me.

  We wound up at the house where he’d lived before he left town that night. Redmond was there, and Pete. The short guy, Ace, who clearly didn’t care for Chance, took off to go drinking with friends.

  Redmond and Pete brought a bunch of beer out and plunked it on the scratched-up coffee table. When Redmond tried to hand me one, I waved it away. Then when Chance did the same, Redmond shook his head. “What’s happened to everybody?”

  Pete popped the top off his bottle with his boot. “They decided not to go down our highway to hell,” he said.

  I could tell Chance used to talk and act just like these boys. But he’d changed. I tried to imagine leaving everything behind and striking out with nothing but your guitar and some songs in your head. I couldn�
�t see it.

  “So what’s your plan, bro?” Redmond asked Chance. “You want me to kick out Pete so you can have your room back?”

  “Nah,” Chance said. “I haven’t decided if I’m staying.”

  Redmond aimed his bottle at me. “You see what an indecisive loser this guy is? Run, girl. Run fast.”

  I smiled at them. I was waiting on Chance to decide things myself. I wasn’t sure I wanted to move to Tennessee after graduation, since I had a job and help with the baby in San Diego. But I remembered what my mom told me before I left. Babies take a long time to arrive. I had time to figure it out.

  “I’m going to grab some more of my things,” Chance said. “You want to hang here with these delinquents a sec?”

  “Sure,” I said. I guessed this meant he was going to leave with me again. I tried to suppress my hope that we’d work something out together, but it wouldn’t let go. This was no fairy-tale situation, but I could still see the pretty version of the picture, a baby in a pink crib with ruffles all around, me standing over, and Chance playing his guitar and singing her to sleep.

  “So whatcha do over there in Cali?” Pete asked.

  “I’m about to finish my degree,” I said.

  “Job market is crap for most things,” Pete said.

  “I have a few connections,” I said. “I think I’ll get by.”

  “Like that movie director dude?” Pete asked.

  Redmond nudged him.

  “What?” Pete elbowed him back. “I can’t ask questions before this girl runs off with our sensitive boy again?” He laughed.

  I didn’t really want to tell anybody else about Frankie, so I just kept quiet. If these guys thought I was some sort of Hollywood whore, so be it.

  “Have you met a lot of famous people?” Redmond asked.

  “Sure,” I said. I rattled off a long list of names.

  “Whooee,” Pete said. “If I went to Cali, you think you could get me into one of those parties?”

  I didn’t bother to answer that. People dragging in gawkers was a source of annoyance for the industry people who attended the premieres and after-parties.

  Chance popped back in the living room, and I couldn’t be more relieved to see him. He had a duffel bag that looked to be pretty stuffed. This also made me feel better.

  “Ready?” he asked.

  I could not jump up from my chair fast enough.

  “Aww, man, you just got here,” Pete said. “I was worming my way into an invitation to a Hollywood party.”

  “In your dreams, man,” Chance said. He took my hand. “Let’s go.”

  “Hey, before you go,” Redmond said. “You might want to check your messages. You haven’t answered any of mine since last night.” He looked at Chance pointedly. “But Charlie’s been trying to get you. She finally bit the bullet and wrote me to track you down.”

  Chance frowned. “Is something going on?”

  “Wouldn’t say. Probably just wants to bitch at you some more.”

  Chance tugged me toward the door. “Thanks.”

  “Your funeral,” he said, then realized what he’d said and frowned.

  We went outside and loaded into Chance’s truck. He pulled his phone out. “I didn’t want to talk to anybody, so I ignored it all,” he said.

  I hadn’t paid a lot of attention to mine either, although I had sent a message to Corabelle that I was okay and one to Mom saying I had found Chance. Whatever follow-up questions they might have had, I ignored.

  “What is it?” I asked, a hollow feeling in my chest.

  “Apparently some infection is going around the facility where Hannah is,” he said.

  “Charlie mentioned that yesterday. She made us wash our hands and put on masks.”

  Chance’s face was grim in the glow of the light of his screen. “Hannah is spiking fevers. They think she has it.”

  “They can give her medicine, right?”

  “For the fever, I’m sure. But Charlie always warned us that this would happen. When you’re on a ventilator, this is bad. Real bad.”

  He fired up his truck. “We’re going.”

  I held on to the seat belt as we roared out into the night.

  Chapter 48: Chance

  The entrance to the facility was locked, and I tapped my boot impatiently as I waited for someone inside to buzz me in.

  Charlie met me at the door. She glanced briefly over at Jenny, then walked behind us as I hurried across the visitors’ area. I wanted to kick myself for not visiting Hannah the minute I got in town. I should have done that.

  “She’s in the same wing, but a different room,” Charlie said. “We moved her about three months ago.”

  Her words made me feel worse. All this time I hadn’t been here for my sister. Now we had a crisis.

  Jenny snagged my wildly swinging hand and squeezed, like she knew what I was thinking.

  When we got to the hall, Hannah’s door was open.

  An aide stood just inside. “Scrub up,” she said, pointing toward a sink. Then she looked at Jenny. “Family only.”

  Jenny stayed out in the hall as I walked in to wash my hands.

  I accepted the blue mask she handed me after. I stuck it on, turning to take in the scene.

  My mother was there, holding Hannah’s hand. A nurse in gray scrubs was pushing buttons on a monitor by the head of the bed.

  Hannah looked so much different than she had when I left. Her arms were thinner, but her neck was wide, like it had swelled. Her hair was thin and clung to her head. I had a hard time connecting this person with the girl before the accident, both serious and silly, always dashing around in a hurry.

  Nobody talked. We watched the nurse write on a clipboard. Finally I asked, “Why aren’t we taking her to a hospital?”

  She turned around. “You must be Chance.” She jotted something else down and set the clipboard back on top of the monitor. “Let’s go out in the hall.”

  I followed her out. Jenny and Charlie were still out there. The corridor was dim for nighttime.

  “I don’t think you all can handle this here,” I said.

  “Chance,” the woman said. “I was led to believe you were not in agreement with your mother about your sister’s continued use of life support.”

  My eyes bored into hers, but she held the gaze, unflinching. She was right.

  I looked past her at the wall, my jaw tight. “I don’t know anything anymore,” I said. “Why isn’t she someplace with real docs?”

  We moved a little farther away from the door. “We will not transport her to an acute care hospital until we know what the wishes of the family are.”

  “My mom is her guardian,” I said. “That’s why Hannah is still hooked up to begin with.”

  “We can file a motion in the courts. If there is a conflict in the family, and the new therapies we have to introduce due to the illness reduce her quality of life even further, we can probably get a judge to issue an order.”

  My eyes met Jenny’s, then Charlie’s. “My mother will never speak to me again.”

  The nurse nodded. “All right, then. I’ll go ahead and get the doctor on call to order treatment.”

  She headed off down the hall. I turned to Charlie. “What happens if they don’t treat her?”

  “She gets pneumonia and dies,” she said. “It would be over.”

  “Will she be in pain?” I asked.

  Charlie drew in a deep breath. “We got that brain death certification within days of the accident, Chance. She can’t feel anything.”

  I remembered being sick as a kid, having a fever and feeling like hell. Shivering and miserable, half out of it. How could Hannah not be feeling something?

  I went back to the room. My mother had pulled a chair close to the bed and was humming some little song.

  My rage started to peak. This was totally wrong, all of it. This was not the way it was supposed to be.

  “Chance, be a dear and wet a towel for your sister. I’m going to put i
t on her forehead until they can get her something for the fever.”

  I didn’t move. “We’re not at home, and she doesn’t just have a little cold.”

  Mom didn’t look at me. “That’s fine. I’ll get it myself.”

  “Mother, look at me. She’s gone. She’s been gone for months. We can’t just let her sit here and be sick.”

  Mom continued to look at Hannah’s face. “It is not to us to question God’s timeline.”

  I wanted to punch the wall. “It wasn’t exactly God who sent her out there to find me, now, was it?”

  She reached over and tucked a stray corner of the sheet beneath Hannah’s arm. “I’ve asked forgiveness for my part in this,” she said quietly. “Have you?”

  That’s when I realized I didn’t care at all if she hated me. I was going to end this. For Hannah. For me. For all of us to move on with our lives. I spun around and hurried out the door.

  Chapter 49: Jenny

  I sat on the bed of the hotel room while Chance showered. We hadn’t really slept, getting updates on Hannah from Charlie. The doctor had ordered a fever reducer and an antibiotic and both had been administered. It seemed like her condition was going to settle.

  Chance came out, and my breath caught. He wore dark jeans, a button-down shirt, and a sports jacket. It was a huge difference from the T-shirts, and I couldn’t help but admire the fit.

  “I’m sorry all this is happening now,” Chance said. “Sometimes I don’t understand the laws of the universe.”

  I stood up and brushed along the sleeves of his jacket, just to touch him. “I’m glad I could be here.”

  “I hate deserting you,” he said. “You want me to take you somewhere? The aquarium is a nice place to visit.”

  I shook my head. “I don’t think I could focus on something like that right now.”

  He stepped forward and kissed the top of my head. We had already begun to feel like a couple somehow, maybe through the tough experiences we’d been flung into so quickly. This all made my old life of hooking up with college boys and going to parties seem ridiculously far away, like a whole different world.