Lost Innocents

by MacDonald, Patricia

  At that moment Doug appeared in the doorway of the lounge, trailed by Nurse McCarthy, who beamed at Father Nick.

  Maddy’s face lit up. She jumped up from her chair and rushed to her husband. “Honey,” she said, “are you okay? What did the doctor say?”

  Nick also rose and extended a hand to Doug, who declined to shake it, pointing to his shoulder. “I’m a bit stiff,” he explained.

  “How are you doing?” Nick asked, wondering if it was a snub.

  Doug shrugged. “I’m doing fine,” he said. “He thinks I just wrenched my shoulder. But they won’t let me leave yet. They’re waiting for X-rays.”

  “But nothing’s torn or broken?” Maddy asked urgently.

  Doug shook his head. “No, it doesn’t look that way.”

  “That’s great,” said Maddy, weak with relief.

  “Well, I’m going to get going,” said Nick. “I’ll say goodnight to both of you.”

  “Thanks for everything, Nick,” said Maddy. “And if I don’t see you…”

  Nick waved without looking back.

  Doug sat down heavily in the seat that Nick had just vacated.

  “Can I get you something?” Maddy asked. “Some coffee or a soda?”

  “What did he want?” Doug asked.

  In spite of herself, Maddy felt defensive. “He was keeping me company. I met him in the lobby when Ruth came to take Amy home.”

  “What a coincidence,” Doug said, staring after the departing clergyman.

  Maddy set her jaw. “He’s a priest,” she said. “He visits the sick.”

  Doug put a hand over his eyes. “I know,” he said wearily. “Never mind. I’m just in a bad mood. I can’t believe this happened. On top of everything else. It seems like it’s one thing after another.”

  Maddy nodded. “It does seem that way.”

  “All because of that damned cat. Blacky,” he said, shaking his head.

  “They’re bad luck. I tried to warn you,” she teased him, rubbing his arm consolingly. “But Doug, we really were lucky. I mean, nothing’s seriously wrong with you. That’s great. Amy’s okay. And we’ll have the car back tomorrow. The man from the garage said it was just a blowout.”

  He glanced at her, and for a moment there was a venomous look in his eyes. She recoiled from him as if she had been struck.

  The nurse reappeared in the doorway and beckoned.

  “I’ve got to go,” he said, getting up out of his seat. “Why don’t you head home? I don’t know how much longer this is going to take.”

  “I’ll wait,” she said in a small voice, avoiding his gaze.

  Doug patted her on the shoulder and followed the nurse out of the lounge.

  Maddy watched him go, feeling a little shaky. He’s just tired, she told herself. She knew that sometimes her optimism got on his nerves. That was all. She picked up an ancient issue of People and tried to read. A thin woman with fuzzy brown hair and glasses came in and sat across the aisle of seats, absentmindedly rocking her baby, who was asleep against her chest, a yellow pacifier dangling from his mouth, his little upper body swathed in a pale blue hooded sweatshirt. Even in slumber, the child looked utterly exhausted. She set a battered brown pocketbook and a gaily printed diaper bag against the leg of her chair. Maddy smiled briefly at her and went back to her magazine, trying to read the article she was looking at.

  Just then a doctor came into the room, and the middle-aged couple by the door stood up. “Mr. and Mrs. Sobranski?” the doctor asked.

  They clutched hands and nodded, looking petrified. “What is it?” asked the man. “How’s Cliff doing?”

  “He’s fine. He’s comfortable. I’ve got him in a cast. He’s got two torn ligaments in the ankle.”

  “That doesn’t sound too serious,” the woman said hopefully.

  “Not serious,” bellowed her husband. Everyone in the lounge looked up at them. Maddy watched curiously as the man buried his face in his hands and shook his head. “He’s ruined,” the man cried.

  “Let’s step outside,” said the doctor. Mrs. Sobranski, looking very confused, urged her husband along, following the doctor into the hall. Maddy peered out at them for a moment, then, with a shrug, returned to her article.

  “Bonnie Lewis?”

  Maddy looked up at a uniformed police officer who had entered the room and stood beside her chair, holding a pen and pad poised in his hand. He had shiny black hair and a smooth complexion and looked barely old enough to be a recruit.

  “No,” Maddy said.

  “I’m Mrs. Lewis,” said the woman with the baby.

  The young officer walked over to the other woman. “Mrs. Lewis, I’m Officer Termini. I’m here to find out about the accident. They tell me your husband is still in surgery. Can you tell me what happened?”

  The woman grimaced nervously. “Well, I can’t tell you exactly where it happened because we’re not from around here.”

  “You have Maine plates on your car? Is that right?”

  The woman nodded. “We just got to town. My husband has a new job lined up. We were on the River Road. It was bad out, you know. Rainy, and the roads were slick.” She paused to consider her words, pushing her glasses back up on her nose with the hand that wasn’t holding her baby. “All of a sudden…out of nowhere, this car that was coming toward us just swerved right into our path…”

  “You were driving…”

  “Yessir. I was taking a turn ’cause my husband was tired. I tried to avoid ‘em as best I could, but my van landed off the road in a ditch. My husband was hurt….”

  Maddy listened to the woman’s account with growing distress. She had not actually seen the other people involved. They’d ended up on the other side of the road, and before Maddy and Doug had had a chance to collect themselves, a driver in a Land Rover with a cell phone had stopped and phoned for help. With the rain, the emergency vehicles, and all the confusion…But it had to be their accident.

  “Excuse me,” said Maddy, standing up. The officer and the woman with the baby looked at her. She walked over to the woman and sat in the chair beside her. “I’m sorry, but I couldn’t help but overhear. I’m Maddy Blake,” she said. She bit her lip as Mrs. Lewis looked at her suspiciously. “We were in an accident on the River Road tonight.”

  The police officer consulted his pad. “Were you driving a gray Ford Taurus station wagon?”

  Maddy nodded and looked sadly at the woman beside her. “I’m so sorry,” she said to her. “It was our fault. Officer, it was our fault.” For a moment she hesitated, wondering if she shouldn’t have said that. The way people were with lawsuits these days. You could say it was the slippery road, the leaves…If only she hadn’t left that basket on the seat, where Amy could open it…. But she had, and it had caused an accident, and now this poor woman had a husband in surgery because of it. This was no time to be trying to shift the blame. She loathed that in other people. She wasn’t going to do it herself. “We had a kitten in the car, and he got loose and startled my husband,” Maddy said.

  The other woman blinked at her from behind her glasses and shielded her baby’s ears, as if Maddy were saying something obscene.

  “Mrs. Blake, I was about to try to hunt you down next,” said the officer. “You’ve saved me the trouble.”

  “Are you done with me?” Mrs. Lewis asked abruptly. “I think I want to go to the ladies’ room. And maybe…is there a cafeteria?”

  “There’s an all-night coffee shop, ma’am. Next to the lobby.”

  Maddy bent and gathered up the woman’s belongings, then handed them to her. “I hope your husband will be all right,” she said fervently.

  Bonnie Lewis nodded, but her eyes were wary. Clutching her bags and her sleeping son, she hurried for the door.

  Chapter Six

  Are you sure you’re all right?” Maddy said to Doug. “Do you need to sit? What did the doctor say?”

  “I’m fine,” he said. “Really. He gave me a prescription for painkillers, and basically
told me to take it easy. I’m going have this filled at the hospital pharmacy.”

  “Okay,” said Maddy. “If you’re sure, I think I’ll give Ruth a quick call. She’ll be wondering.”

  “I’m fine. Go ahead,” he said. “I’ll take care of this and get us a cab.”

  Maddy walked out to the lobby and looked around until she spotted a phone. She called Ruth, who reassured her that Amy was fast asleep. As she was talking, Maddy could see through the glass walls into the coffee shop. It was nearly deserted at this time of night. Over by the window she spotted Bonnie Lewis and her son seated at a little round table in the corner. The baby was awake and belted into a modular high chair. He was inserting food in and his around mouth with a tiny fist, while Bonnie sat tensely, her face a study in anxiety, nodding as a slim doctor dressed in green surgical scrubs talked to her. When the doctor stood up and turned around, Maddy saw was that it was a woman.

  She looked tired, but otherwise her attractive features wore the impenetrable mask of the physician. As the surgeon left the cafeteria, Maddy hung up the phone and hesitantly went in.

  “Mrs. Lewis?” she asked tentatively. “I don’t mean to bother you. But are you okay?”

  Bonnie looked at Maddy with a bleary, stunned expression. She was so thin, she looked birdlike. “Yes,” she said in a dull voice.

  “Was that your husband’s doctor?” Maddy asked.

  Bonnie nodded. “The surgeon. She said Terry is out of surgery.”

  “Is he going to be all right?” Maddy asked anxiously.

  “I guess so. He had a ruptured spleen. He got jerked forward when we hit the ditch. Anyway, they had to take it out. The doctor said it sounds worse than it is. She said he can live without it okay.”

  “Thank God for that,” said Maddy.

  “He’ll be in recovery most of the night.” Bonnie looked up at the cafeteria clock. “I’ve lost track of time,” she said apologetically.

  “It’s easy to do in this place,” said Maddy, sitting beside her and placing a hand briefly on Bonnie’s pale forearm. “Can I get you a fresh cup of tea or something?”

  Bonnie gazed at her untouched tray as if she didn’t recognize it. “No, I’m fine,” she said. Her lower lip started to tremble, but she struggled to regain control. “I’ll be able to see him in the morning.” She lifted the squat beige cup from the saucer and took a sip. Then she put down the cup, sighed, and looked out the windows of the cafeteria. Maddy could see that she was trying to blink back tears. The baby, who had wrung all the amusement he could out of a peanut-butter sandwich, suddenly began to wail and squirm in the high chair.

  “Don’t cry, Sean,” Bonnie said. “Daddy’s gonna be all right.”

  “It’s just so hard to sit around here and wait, isn’t it,” said Maddy.

  Bonnie reached into her diaper bag and pulled out a rattle in the shape of an elephant. Sean stopped wailing and studied it. “It’s going to be a long night,” Bonnie said grimly.

  Maddy frowned at her. “Where are you two going to stay?”

  Bonnie did not look at her. She shook the rattle again. “I guess that lounge will work all right for us. It’s got a couple of couches…”

  “But that would be miserable for you,” Maddy exclaimed. “Especially with this little one.”

  “Well, I haven’t got much choice,” Bonnie said matter-of-factly. “I can’t exactly afford a motel for us. Terry’s been out of work for a while, and now, I don’t know. This job may not wait for him…”

  Maddy hesitated for a moment and was ashamed of her own hesitation. She glanced out into the lobby and saw that Doug had emerged from the pharmacy and was looking around for her. She was exhausted; she wanted to just go home with her husband, crawl into bed, and hide from everything else. She also knew, weary as she was, there was only one right thing to do.

  “Now listen,” she said. “You’ll do no such thing. You’ll come home with us. We have plenty of room in our house, and I have a little girl who’s three who will be thrilled to see a baby there in the morning.”

  “Oh, we couldn’t do that,” Bonnie said hurriedly.

  “You absolutely have to,” said Maddy. “Because I won’t hear of anything else. I wouldn’t sleep a wink tonight, thinking of you and Sean being here. No, this is what we have to do. My husband’s just calling for a cab now. I’ll drive you back here in the morning, to see your husband. You’ll stay with us as long as you need to.”

  “I guess you have your own problems,” Bonnie demurred. “Your car was wrecked, too, wasn’t it?”

  “Ours wasn’t too bad,” Maddy said apologetically. “Just a flat. We’ll have it back in the morning. Besides, we have another car.”

  Bonnie looked almost embarrassed, as if she hadn’t realized a family could have two cars. This made Maddy feel even more guilty.

  “We’d be imposing,” Bonnie said weakly.

  “Nonsense,” said Maddy. “You’d be doing me a favor. It would ease my conscience.”

  “Well, you have no reason to feel that way, but…all right. I guess…all right. Thank you…”

  Despite her insistence, Maddy felt a little niggling sense of anxiety that her offer had been accepted. She wondered how Doug would react, remembering that flash of malice in his eyes earlier. But she was determined not to show her ambivalence. “All right, then,” she said. “That’s settled.”

  “Do I have time to run up and look in on Terry for a minute before we go?”

  “Of course,” said Maddy, wondering if Doug would mind the wait. He must be exhausted himself. “You go ahead. Why don’t you let me take Sean while you run up there. I don’t think they’ll let him into the recovery room.”

  Bonnie hesitated, and Maddy could see the wariness in her eyes, mixed with a reluctance to seem rude or ungrateful. Maddy instantly remembered the woman on TV, pleading for the return of her baby, and identified with Bonnie’s reluctance.

  “He might be scared being left with a stranger,” Bonnie said.

  “You’re right,” said Maddy. “Never mind.”

  Bonnie leaned over and lifted the child from the chair. He was fussing, but his sticky hands clutched the neck of her dress and the ends of her frizzy hair. “I won’t be long. We’ll just peek in at him.”

  “You go ahead. We’ll be right here in the lobby,” Maddy assured her. “There’s my husband. We’ll meet you back here as soon as you’re done,” she added as she saw Bonnie hesitate.

  Bonnie picked up her bags.

  “Do you want me to keep those?” Maddy asked.

  Bonnie shook her head.

  “Well, give me the diaper bag, at least.”

  Bonnie looked anxiously at the bag, as if she thought Maddy might just take her bag and walk off with it. “No, I’ll keep it,” she said. “I might need it.”

  Maddy felt a little insulted, though she tried not to show it. After all, it was one thing not to trust a stranger with your child. But a diaper bag? She stifled the urge to protest. “Okay, well, go on,” said Maddy. “And good luck.”

  As Bonnie rushed out of the coffee shop, her burdens bobbing in her thin arms, Maddy walked out to the lobby.

  Doug turned at her approach and smiled briefly, then glanced at his watch. “Are you ready?” he said.

  Maddy sighed. “Prepare yourself,” she said. “We’re having houseguests.”

  “Houseguests? Who?”

  Maddy glanced over her shoulder, as if to be sure no one was listening. “You know the people in the van?”

  Doug frowned at her as if she were speaking a foreign language.

  “In the accident,” she persisted. “Oh, honey, the man just got out of surgery, their car is in the garage, and they have nowhere to go. They’re from Maine somewhere. They don’t know a soul here. She’s up checking on him right now.”

  “Why can’t they go to a hotel?”

  “They haven’t got any money,” Maddy whispered. “He was headed here to see about a job. He’s been out of work. S
omething we can sympathize with.”

  Doug frowned. “Well, we can give them enough money for a hotel.”

  “And how will they get around? They can’t afford cabs. This woman has a tiny baby.”

  Doug sighed.

  “It’s our fault they’re in this mess, Doug,” Maddy pleaded. “I can’t just leave them here.”

  “Don’t say that, Maddy,” he snapped. “Don’t go claiming responsibility. You didn’t say that to her, did you?” he demanded.

  Maddy shook her head, which was a lie, and she knew it.

  “It was an accident,” he said. “That’s all anybody needs to know.”

  “All right, it was an accident. But can’t we do the decent thing?”

  “Maddy—” Doug’s response was interrupted when he was nearly toppled by an extremely tall young man on crutches far too short for him. He was hobbling across the lobby, his countenance a terrible combination of fury, pain, and sorrow.

  Doug looked at him curiously. “That’s Cliff Sobranski,” he whispered to Maddy.

  “Who’s he?” Maddy asked. Suddenly she saw the couple from the lounge hurrying to catch up with the young man. The woman called out to him, her voice full of motherly concern, but the father’s face was like a thundercloud.

  “He’s the top basketball prospect at the university. The NBA has been scouting him in his junior year,” Doug said.

  “I heard the doctor telling his parents he had two torn ligaments in his ankle,” Maddy whispered.

  “Oh no,” said Doug. He looked stricken as he watched the distressed family trail out into the night. “That poor kid. He had the whole world at his feet. He could have had it all. Unbelievable.” Maddy watched Doug, and she could see he was thinking of his own injury, his own truncated career. Part of her felt sorry for him, but part of her wanted to say, “So what? There are a lot worse things in life than that.” She held her tongue. There was no use trying to discuss it because he always told her that she simply didn’t understand.

  At that moment Bonnie appeared, looking frantically around the lobby, jiggling her fussing baby to try to quiet him. Her expression relaxed when she saw Maddy and Doug. She hurried over to them. “I thought you’d be gone,” she said.