Her Name in the Sky (36 page)

Baker swallows hard. She turns to Hannah, and her expression is tortured. Their eyes lock.

“I wrote it,” Baker says, her eyes on Hannah.

“What?” Michele says.

“The e-mail,” Baker says, her eyes watering. “I wrote it. I sent it. It wasn’t Hannah. It was me.”

“No,” Clay says from his spot in the crowd.

“I’m sorry,” Baker rasps, her voice barely audible, but she’s not apologizing to the crowd: she is apologizing to Hannah. Her eyes fill with tears, and the soul shining forth from those eyes is so beaten and bare, so afflicted and terrified, but still so very much the girl Hannah loves. Baker reaches over with trembling fingers and, for the first time in an eternity, she touches Hannah. She trails her fingers lightly over Hannah’s smarting cheek, her expression still tortured, before she drops her arm to take Hannah’s hand.

“Oh my God, is this a freaking joke?” Michele shrieks.

Everything happens very slowly. Hannah looks up to see Michele running at her, her ugly face blazing with rage, and in the same instant, in her peripheral vision, she sees Baker throw herself behind her with the same speed and skill she had on the volleyball court—

And the next thing Hannah feels is a barreling into her chest, a blow that knocks all the breath out of her, and yet in the same instant she feels her body knock into something behind her, something solid and strong, something that feels like a human body—

And then Hannah is on the ground, and there are splinters of wood falling onto her limbs. She looks up, dizzy, to see a break in the fence. The crowd of people starts to scream into the night, their panicked voices mixing on the heat. Hannah rolls onto her side and crawls toward the broken fence, her breath coming in short gasps. She peers out over the edge of the yard with her very soul caught in her throat.

“Where is she?” someone’s panicked voice shouts, and then Clay is kneeling next to the broken fence with Hannah, his hands clawing on the edge of the yard like frightened crabs in the sand.

Hannah crawls headfirst down the slope of the yard, the weight of her body leaning forward on her elbows, her knees scraping against the earth beneath her, her hands combing over plants and stones and dirt, her heart screaming in her throat. She crawls farther and farther down, the force of gravity pulling her torso before her legs, and then she hears Clay’s voice behind her again, hears it erupt from his throat in a mangled cry, and she knows he’s crawling down the slope, too, and that Wally and Luke and Joanie must be as well—that they’re all crawling down this slope, poised to fall, desperate to stay upright if only to find their friend—

Something catches Hannah’s attention, and a few yards to her right, she sees the trunk of a mammoth tree with a dark shape twitching in front of it.

“HERE!” she shouts, her voice desperate and wet.

She can still hear people yelling, and now she hears police sirens blaring distantly in the night, but all she cares about is the girl in front of her, the girl whose body has been pinned against this massive tree—this tree that broke her fall—

“Baker,” Hannah whispers, reaching her at last. “Can you hear me?”

“Han,” Baker whispers.

“Are you okay?”

Baker takes a breath, and her whole body seems to rattle with it.

“HELP!” Hannah screams up toward the yard. “HELP! Call an ambulance!”

“Han,” Baker says.

“I’m here. I’m here. You’re going to be okay. You’re fine. You’re fine.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be sorry. There’s nothing to worry about.” Hannah wipes furiously at her eyes, the tears wetting her hands. She bends forward and kisses Baker’s forehead. “Everything’s okay, Bake. Everything’s okay. Just hang in there. Stay with me, okay? Stay with me.”

Then Clay appears, his strong body crumpled in fear. “Baker,” he cries, reaching out an arm to her, “Baker—I’m sorry—Baker—”

Hannah’s not sure what makes her do it, but she reaches toward him and clasps his hand. He jerks his head toward her, his tears glistening in the darkness, and Hannah doesn’t look away.

And they stay like that, holding hands, each of them holding one of Baker’s hands, until the paramedics reach them.

Chapter Fifteen: The Tree

The EMT workers tell them to stay back as they wheel Baker’s stretcher out to the ambulance. But Hannah follows them anyway, and so does Clay, and so do Joanie and Wally and Luke. They file past the policemen, who speak into their radios with weary expressions on their faces, and past dozens of St. Mary’s kids, all of whom call out to them in confusion in-between their breathalyzer tests. The police car sirens light up the street, casting everyone’s faces in blue, and the nosy neighbors in the cul-de-sac stand on their front porches and watch the scene, clad in bathrobes and frayed LSU shirts.

One of the EMTs, a middle-aged guy with a ponytail, turns back toward the group of them. “You can’t ride with us,” he says. “You have to stay with the police until your parents pick you up.”

“No!” Hannah says. “No, I have to go with you!” 

“Not our rules,” the ponytailed guy says.

“But I haven’t even been drinking! I was just trying to help her! Please! You have to let me go with you—she’s my best friend!”

The EMT gives her a hard look. Behind him, his coworker loads Baker’s stretcher into the ambulance.

“I’d better not see you get in,” he says, “or my neck’s on the line.”

“No, sir,” Hannah says hastily. “Thank you.”

Joanie approaches her as soon as the EMT worker walks away. “We’ll meet you there as soon as we can,” she says, her face blotchy and tear-streaked. “I already called Mom and Dad.”

“Bring the boys,” Hannah says, glancing beyond Joanie to where Wally, Clay, and Luke stand uncertainly on the sidewalk. Clay meets Hannah’s eyes and heaves a great breath, his expression broken.

Baker has passed out by the time Hannah takes her place next to her. The EMTs have secured an oxygen mask over her mouth. In the yellow lights of the ambulance interior, Hannah can see her clearly for the first time since her fall. Her face is covered in cuts and abrasions and there are thorns of blood all along her hairline. Her neck, shoulders, arms, legs—anywhere there is skin, Hannah can see streaks of red mixed with dirt.

“Hey,” Hannah whispers, taking her hand.

The ponytailed EMT slams the ambulance doors shut and a moment later the vehicle lurches with movement, reminding Hannah that her heart still works. The siren on the roof wails its desperate song, and Hannah’s mind takes up the familiar refrain of
Please, please, please
while the ambulance speeds them toward salvation.

The hospital waiting room is so devoid of sound that Hannah feels like she might be underwater. The only other person in the vicinity is a middle-aged nurse posted at the front desk with her eyes closed and her hand around a coffee mug.

Hannah’s heart drills so fast that she might pass out from it. She sits erectly in the waiting room chair, perched to react to news at any moment, while Baker’s name circles around her head over and over and over.

She stands up and paces the lobby for a few minutes. The front desk nurse opens one bleary eye to watch her. “It’s gonna be okay, sweetheart,” she says.

“I don’t know if it will be,” Hannah says. When she hears how her voice sounds, she stops walking and stares at the nurse. “That’s not what I usually sound like,” she says stupidly.

The nurse’s cheeks move with a tired laugh. “I don’t think anyone sounds the same when they’re waiting in here. Is that girl your friend?”

The tears prick at her eyes. “Yes, ma’am,” she answers, her throat aching.

She paces all around the waiting room, her mind hopscotching through hundreds of images, her muscles trying to jump out of her skin. Her lungs tighten every time she breathes. When she looks down at her arms, she can almost see the blood rushing through her veins, sweeping through everything like a great flood.

She startles when the automatic doors open and Mrs. Shackleford hurries into the room, dressed in loose jeans and an over-large sweater, her eyes glassy and her face wan.

“Are you alright?” Mrs. Shackleford asks, hurrying over to her. “Hannah, you’re bleeding!”

Hannah opens her mouth to answer, but the lobby doors open again and Mrs. Hadley comes running in. “Ginny!” Mrs. Shackleford calls, but Mrs. Hadley only raises a hand in response and rushes toward the nurse’s desk. “My daughter is here,” she says, her voice panicky, her eyes wet, her fingers shaking as they grip the top of the desk. “Baker Hadley. Please tell me where she is.”

“Let me go speak to the doctor, ma’am,” the nurse says.

“I’m coming with you.”

“Ma’am, I’m afraid you’ll have to—”

But Mrs. Hadley rushes past her and through the doors to the emergency rooms. The nurse heaves an irritated sigh and follows her at a much slower pace. Mr. Hadley runs into the lobby a moment later, car keys shaking in his hands, his dark hair windswept and his temples glistening with sweat. “Where?” he says abruptly, looking toward Mrs. Shackleford, and Mrs. Shackleford simply points toward the ward Mrs. Hadley just rushed into, and Mr. Hadley goes running through the same doors.

Then Hannah’s parents and Joanie arrive, and Hannah’s mom pulls her into a hug and holds her tight. “You smell like beer,” she says, her tone more a worried question than an accusation, and Hannah can’t help the way her voice breaks when she whispers, without even planning to, that someone threw one on her. Her mom’s eyes are broken when she pulls away, and Hannah doesn’t want to see that, doesn’t want to remember the shame she felt when it happened, so she turns away and hugs her dad instead. Her mom says nothing else, just accepts the chair that Mrs. Shackleford pulls over for her and sits down with her hand resting over Hannah’s arm.

Luke and Mr. Broussard are next, and Wally and Ms. Sumner after that. Mrs. Shackleford gasps at Luke’s and Wally’s bruised faces, at Wally’s broken glasses, at the blood on their button-down shirts. “I can’t understand how this happened,” Mrs. Shackleford says, her normally strong persona withering away before them, and Mr. Broussard and Ms. Sumner and Hannah’s parents swallow and shake their heads, at a loss for what to say.

And then Father Simon sweeps through the waiting room doors, his bald head shining with sweat. He touches their shoulders paternally and asks to know what happened. No one answers him. Finally, Mrs. Shackleford rubs the bridge of her nose and starts to recount everything the police told her over the phone. Father Simon’s eyes widen in shock, and he looks at them and mutters their names—“
Luke
”—“
Joanie
”—“
Wally
”—“
Hannah
”—like he doesn’t want to believe they could have fallen so far.

“And I thought we’d already hit the heart of our struggle,” he says, knocking his folded hands against his forehead. His face is grave when he raises it to address them. “This is not the life I want for you.”

“But I don’t understand how this whole thing started,” Ms. Sumner says desperately. “What were you all fighting about?”

Hannah’s heart pounds so fast that she can’t breathe. She keeps her head bowed, waiting for someone to explain, waiting for it all to come back to her. But no one speaks. The silence between them all is heavier than Hannah has ever known. Until—

“One of our students has been struggling with same-sex attraction,” Father Simon says, and Hannah’s stomach splits open. She feels her mom’s hand tighten on her arm and Joanie’s posture stiffen next to her.

“And I’m assuming, from everything I’ve heard just now, that there was a clash over this issue,” Father Simon continues, his voice despondent, “and our student body resorted to violence rather than compassion.”

“But what about Baker?” Ms. Sumner says. “What does she have to do with this?” Her voice drops all of a sudden, and she looks back to Father Simon. “Was she the student? The one that—?”

“No,” Hannah says firmly. She raises her eyes to meet Wally’s mom’s. “I am, Ms. Sumner.”

“Oh—Hannah—”

“And there’s nothing wrong with that,” Hannah’s mom says loudly. “And as far as I’m concerned, Mrs. Shackleford, all of the kids who were bullying Hannah should be expelled!”

“We’re going to take care of it, I promise you, Anne,” Mrs. Shackleford says. “But first I want to make sure everyone is okay. Especially Baker.”

“We’ve seen a lot of brokenness over the last month,” Father Simon says. “Our whole community needs to work through it together.” He pauses. “I think the sacrament of Reconciliation would be a good place to start. Would any of you like to come to Confession now, while we’re waiting?”

No one answers him.

“Hannah?” he prompts. “Maybe we could start with you?”

“No,” Hannah says.

Father Simon licks his lips. “Hannah…” he says patiently. “This brokenness is going to continue until you make your peace with—”

“I’m not going to Confession!” Hannah screams at him. “I’m not going anywhere! I’m staying right here until Baker walks out of those doors!”