Just Over The Mountain (20 page)

“It’s okay, I can do it,” Tanya yelled back.

June realized she wouldn’t have even thought twice about it, that’s how far from her senses her personal issues were during an emergency. She took the IV bag from Mary Lou and walked beside the backboard toward the waiting chopper. Members of the medevac crew were running toward them, silhouetted in the spotlight from the helicopter.

Beside June, Brad was crying, “Mama! Mama!”

When Chris drove up to his house, it was dark. There were no trash cans at the curb and he began to seethe. Damn brats couldn’t do the smallest thing to help out. When it was his wife or mother complaining about the laziness of the twins, Chris blew them off, but when he needed a little help and the boys ignored him, the truth began to sink in.

He carried the take-out burgers, fries and shakes into the kitchen, flicked on the light with his elbow and shouted. “Brad! Brent!” No answer. He stomped toward the bedrooms they occupied and saw that their clothes and shoes, as usual, were strewn all over the room. Back in the kitchen, he put the food on the counter and pulled his cell phone out of his pocket. He had run out of juice before leaving the office and had left his auto attachment at home that morning. He plugged the cell into the wall and dialed his mother’s house. If they had gone back there after all they’d done to wear out their welcome, he’d tan their hides. But the phone rang and rang. No answer.

He went out to the car to get his briefcase for phone numbers. As much as he hated to, he was going to have to call the Toopeeks. They were only a couple of miles away, and although the twins had complained of a falling-out with Johnny, chances were they’d patched things up. The boys were hurting for snacks, music and TV. They could probably swallow their pride and make amends if the Toopeeks would extend some hospitality.

He wanted to slap them senseless.

“Mrs. Toopeek, this is Chris Forrest,” he said to a voice he thought belonged to Tom’s mother. “I was wondering…”

“Oh, Mr. Christopher, I’m so sorry for the accident! Are your boys going to be all right?”

“Accident? What accident?” he asked, his blood running cold. His stomach gave a sudden lurch and he knew, beyond any doubt, that the worst had happened.

“Not too far from here, they drove off the road.”

“They
drove?
”

“Mrs. Birdie’s car. They drove off the road. My Lincoln walked down there on 482 to see. The helicopter took them to the hospital.”

Stay calm, he told himself. “Mrs. Toopeek, what hospital?”

“We don’t know that, Mr. Christopher, but you can call the police. Tom and Ricky were both there.”

He didn’t even bother to say goodbye, but punched in the number for the police department. In a recorded message that moved too slowly, the caller was asked to either leave a message or, in the case of an emergency, dial the number of the police chief’s pager. Which he did.

His cell phone rang almost immediately. “What the hell happened?” he shouted into the phone.

“The boys decided to take your mother’s car for a spin and they drove off the road into the ravine just down 482 from my house. They’ve been airlifted to Ukiah to the county hospital. Chris, drive carefully.”

“Tom, tell me the truth. Are they all right?”

There was a pause, a deep breath. “No. But they’re alive.”

Mary Lou Granger took her kids home, Ursula drove Tanya and Johnny up to the Toopeek house, and Ricky Rios closed 482 at the crossroads both north and south so the scene of the accident would remain relatively undisturbed until daylight.

June, John and Tom stood at the highway’s edge in
the stillness of a dark and cold night. Tom walked a few paces down the road and picked up the deformed handlebars of his son’s destroyed bike. “It’s hard to believe the accident could have been even worse,” he said. “They gonna make it?” he asked anyone who would hazard a guess.

“They have a pretty good chance,” John said. “But it wouldn’t hurt to pray.” He kicked a pebble in the dirt. “I’m going to take the ambulance back to the clinic and clean it up and restock. Then I’m going home to hug my little girl.”

“I’ll follow you and help,” June said. “Then I’m going to bed.”

“You feel okay? Did I hear something about a back problem in the middle of all this?” Tom asked.

“It’s a small thing,” she shrugged. “I just can’t afford to let it get worse.”

“Understandable. The road is closed, so let’s shut this place down. Thank you, everyone. Thank you very much.”

Tom walked to his Range Rover with the mangled handlebars still in his hand.

Chris really didn’t know how he couldn’t have known it would get this bad. It should have been obvious the first time they waxed someone’s window, egged someone’s car. No matter how many times they denied a wrongful act, he knew they were lying. Every time they talked to their mother as though she were a lowly servant in their house, he knew he should step in.
But he hadn’t. He wanted them to grow up and turn into nice men who respected their parents and others.

And that was the respect he showed his wife, parents and others—he let his incorrigible children abuse every rule they came into contact with and never corrected their actions. In the end, he may have assisted them in their own deaths.

They were both in surgery. They had been in surgery for a long time. Brent had two broken legs and a skull fracture, and Brad had a fractured pelvis and a broken collarbone. Both had internal injuries. The surgeons had warned that they might find even more once they were in there, operating.

Chris had sent his parents home. They would have stayed through the night, but at their ages, and with the trauma of it being his mother’s car that was stolen, he didn’t want the situation made even worse by having them exhausted and sick. The emergency physician had given them mild sedatives to take once they were at home, in bed. Chris promised that when he did leave the hospital, he would go to their house and fill them in.

Possibly the hardest call he’d ever had to make in his life was the one to Nancy. There was a time, he supposed, when she thought herself the winner, to have snagged him, married him. She had certainly gotten over that. She must now hate him. To hear her softly sobbing into the phone as she tried to ask all the right questions tore his heart out. Worse than that, she took the blame. “This is my fault. I should have found help
for parenting them a long, long time ago.” That just made him sick. She had begged him to be a more involved parent.

He lifted his head at the sound of footfalls approaching, at first hopeful that he might see medical personnel bearing news. But it was Tom and Johnny Toopeek. Johnny was almost as large as his father, broad-shouldered and flat-bellied. He also wore the long ponytail, hat and boots.

Chris stood, but hung his head. His shame could not be more complete.

“They gonna make it?” Johnny wanted to know.

“They’re pretty beat up…lots of broken bones… lots of internal injuries.”

“I was there, you know.”

Chris lifted his head finally, questions in his eyes.

“I was fishing down in the ravine when the car exploded through the trees. It’s still there, Mr. Forrest, hanging in those trees like it fell out of the sky.”

“They’re not going to pull it out till morning,” Tom said. “We’ll get photos for the accident report and you can have copies for the insurance. Is there anything I can do to help you now?”

“There’s nothing. I sent my parents home and called Nancy. She’ll be here on the earliest flight tomorrow. Now we just wait to see if they pull through.”

“Will you call if there’s anything we can do?”

Chris nodded. “Thank you, Tom. I have a lot of amends to make, and you’re way up on the list. You tried to tell me.”

“This is not a time for regrets or amends, but for prayer. My father has made a fire for your boys. The whole family prays.”

“Thank you.”

They stood awkwardly for a moment. “We should go then, if there’s nothing we can do,” Tom said. He put an arm around his son’s shoulders.

“Dad, I’d like to wait here with Mr. Forrest, if that’s okay with him.”

Chris and Tom both looked surprised.

“It’s okay, Johnny…but…I don’t know why you’d even want to. Didn’t the boys make life pretty tough for you? Didn’t they jump you, beat on you?”

Johnny shrugged. “This kind of changes everything, don’t you think?”

Chris put a hand on the boy’s shoulder and gave it a squeeze. “Yeah. Everything.”

The Forrest twins each had their spleens removed. Brad was in traction for his fractured pelvis and in a great deal of pain. Brent had multiple fractures in his legs but he had escaped any brain damage resulting from his skull fracture. Both boys were going to be in physical therapy for a long, long time. There was no question, they were lucky to be alive.

At ten in the morning, Chris stood with his wife and a small group of townsfolk looking at the amazing and terrifying visage of a yellow Plymouth hanging in the trees over a deep ravine.

“I wish we could leave it there,” Tom told Chris. “I’d
like to show my boys and every junior-high and high-school kid who comes through Grace Valley.”

“Take some good pictures,” Chris said. “And show it to their parents.”

T
uesday at the clinic had been long and dreary for June for a number of reasons. There was the accident the night before, an event that was exhausting both physically and emotionally. June winced each time she saw John Stone take a painful step. His rear end and thighs were painfully bruised and he was popping ibuprofen as if they were Chiclets. If there was one positive aspect, it was that Susan was being nicer than usual to him.

Then there was the fact that, of course, Jim was unable to call her back. Well, she hadn’t really thought he’d be able to. His calls were spaced by days, if not weeks, at the best of times. But there was this nagging at the back of her pregnant mind that perhaps he would never call again. She wouldn’t know how to find him if he did that. If this idea of a baby was not of his choosing, he could easily disappear into thin air.

With that issue clouding her thoughts, she was getting mentally ready for the mother of all meat-loaf nights with Elmer.

The sounds of reunion issued from the front of the clinic and June followed the voices to find Charlotte Burnham embracing Jessie.

“Well, look who’s up and about,” June said, next to give her a welcoming hug. “Getting your daily exercise walk?”

“Something like that,” the gruff old nurse said. “I’m bored out of my skull.”

“But how are you feeling?”

“Old, useless and in dire need of a dye job,” she said, touching her hair, more gray than June had ever seen it.

Maybe it was the hair, or the fact that she didn’t blow in with the usual cloud of cigarette smoke, but Charlotte looked different. She seemed softer somehow, perhaps more vulnerable.

“Jessica, I happened into your father at the farmers’ market. He says you’re going back to school.”

“Mostly nights,” she said, nodding. “I got my GED and I’m going to study sciences. If it turns out I like it as much as I think I will, I’m going to go into some kind of medicine. Nursing, physician’s assistant, maybe even medical school. We’ll see.”

“Well, that’s why I’m here,” Charlotte said. “I can’t work as a nurse anymore—don’t have the stamina for it. And I’ll be damned if I can sit around the house with Bud all day. He’s about to drive me crazy. So maybe you need someone to spell you now and then? For
classes or for study?” She smiled at Jessie. “I was sure proud to hear you’re going to finish school.”

Jessie was speechless. While they had worked together, Charlotte and Jessie were constantly on each other’s nerves. And what was this? Charlotte actually offering to
help?
“Are you sure?” Jessie asked.

“Oh, I’m sure. Do you have any idea how awful daytime TV is?”

June laughed and gave her old nurse a playful punch in the arm. “I wouldn’t mind having you boss us around in here now and then. If Jessie needs you, that is.”

“I just can’t believe it,” Jessie said.

“Can’t believe what? That I’d be
nice?
”

“No, no, not that. Well, yes, that, too. But what I meant is, I can’t believe how perfectly things seem to be working out for me.”

“Me too,” Charlotte said.

June opened a bottle of good cabernet and let it breathe. She went the extra mile and whipped the potatoes. Instead of putting plates on the kitchen breakfast bar, she appointed the dining table. She sliced a late-season beefsteak tomato, sprinkled it with wine vinegar and basil, and steamed fresh asparagus. And sitting near the oven to capture its warmth was one of Burt Crandall’s very best apple pies.

Ever since John told her she was farther along than she thought, she had been famished and couldn’t button her pants. She had seen this happen to women before. They would enter the clinic their slim selves and upon
learning they were already four months pregnant, they would blossom. Stomach muscles appeared to be controlled by the mentality of pregnancy.

Elmer knew immediately that this was no ordinary meat-loaf night. If not the pie and the breathing wine, the look on June’s face would have tipped him off. “What’s wrong?” he wanted to know.

“Nothing’s wrong. Have a glass of wine.”

“Gladly.” He lifted the lid on the stove and saw that the potatoes had been whipped. He glanced into the dining room and saw plates on a crispy white tablecloth. He reached for the glass of wine she was handing him. “You’re softening me up for something.”

“That’s right. And if you don’t take this well, I don’t know what I’m going to do.”

“Well, spit it out,” he said. “Have you ever known me to be unreasonable?”

“Have a little wine, please.” He took a sip. “It seems I’m going to have a baby.”

He dropped the glass. It shattered, splattering wine. Sadie skittered out of the way. Elmer bent down to retrieve the largest pieces. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I thought you said you were going to have a baby.”

June went for the paper towels and started soaking up the spill. “I knew you’d be surprised, but I thought you had better nerves than that.”

“So that
is
what you said?”

“Uh-huh.”

“Are you married?”

“You know I’m not married!”

“I just want to be sure I wasn’t having blackouts or something. I guess you have some kind of story to tell me.”

“Yes, but I’m not sure which one,” she said. “Let’s clean this up while I think.”

Elmer swept up the glass shards while June mopped up the red splatters. When things were under control, Elmer got himself a new wineglass. “Sure am glad I didn’t drop the bottle. I think I’m going to need it.”

June poured for him. “Come on. Let’s sit down. I’ll tell you what I can about this, then we’ll have a nice dinner to celebrate.”

“Whatever you say.”

They sat at the dining table and she told him that she’d been having a relationship with a gentleman from out of town. She’d met him when he stopped by the clinic after hours, looking for first aid for his companion. They’d been hunting and had a minor accident, which wasn’t that far from the truth. She didn’t expect to ever see him again, but he kept turning up because, it turned out, he was as taken with her as she with him. She hadn’t told anybody about him, nor had she introduced him to anyone, because he never had much time. He was always just passing through.

“He’s starting to sound like Morton Claypool. Maybe he’s married,” Elmer supplied.

“He’s not,” she said. “I…ah…had him checked out, sort of. I have connections, you know.”

“So, what’s his name? What’s he do for a living?”

“Here’s the thing, Dad. I just found out I’m pregnant. I mean, I knew it in the back of my mind, but I hadn’t
been paying attention, so I didn’t know it officially. John just confirmed it for me yesterday. I was able to tell the gentleman the news last night, about five seconds before John rang in on the other line to tell me about the Forrest twins being in a car accident.” She shrugged. “I didn’t have time to talk to him about it. I don’t even know if he took it as good news. Until I know the answer to that, I think I’ll keep the news to myself.”

“What are you going to tell people?”

“That I’m pregnant.”

“And when they ask who the father is?”

“Do people ask questions like that?” she replied, aghast.

“This is Grace Valley. They want to know which nights of the week you did it. Don’t act like you don’t know where you live.”

“Well, then, I guess I’ll tell them it’s none of their business.”

“They’ll all think it’s Chris Forrest.”

“No, they won’t,” she said with a smile. “I have to schedule an ultrasound for the details, like when I’m due, but I’m already feeling little flutters.” She touched her stomach. “This baby was conceived before Chris Forrest came to town.” She touched Elmer’s hand. “Dad, does this make you disappointed in me?”

“Are you disappointed in you, June?”

“No, Dad. I was actually thinking about having a baby alone. I talked to the quilters about it once. You know, using an anonymous donor.”

“So this man—”

“Oh, I didn’t plan this at all,” she said, shaking her head. “In fact, I’d just broken it to him that I was pretty sure I was infertile, and I asked him if that would make a difference in how he felt about me, about having a future with me. And he’d said he was very flexible.” She smiled a melancholy smile. “We’ll see.”

“June, what if he abandons you?” Elmer wanted to know.

“Don’t you think I’ll be okay? I have you. I have Aunt Myrna. I have the Toopeeks, the Stones, Judge and Birdie. Don’t you think I’ll be okay?” she repeated.

“It’s hard enough to be a doctor and a parent when you have a spouse.”

The phone rang. “Oh, please don’t let this be an emergency. I’m so tired and I think I might have made the best meat loaf yet. June Hudson,” she said into the phone.

“Is it meat-loaf night?” Jim asked.

“It is! How are you?”

“Forget me. How are you? Are you telling him?”

“I just did.”

“How’s he taking it?”

“He dropped his wineglass. It was a terrible mess, but I think we’ll be okay. How are you taking it?”

A laugh rumbled low in his throat. “Like a man. Like a man who can’t wait to hold you.”

June let out a sigh of relief and contentment. “Are you almost done there? There are people I want you to meet.”

“Almost. I’m trying. I’m trying even harder now.”

“He wants to know what your name is and what you do for a living.”

“Tell him my name is Jim. And I fish.”

In the end, Elmer thought it was her best meat loaf ever. And the idea of having a grandchild after this many years was welcome news too, especially now that it appeared June was not going to be abandoned by the baby’s father. “He’s not here yet, however,” Elmer added, trying to keep perspective, trying to guard against the potential of disappointment.

One difficult thing for him was that he wasn’t going to be able to tell anyone. At least not until after the ultrasound. Perhaps until June began to show, which was going to be soon. “It’s damn tough on an old guy,” he told her, “to have to keep a secret like this one. Especially when the shock of it would be so much fun to watch settle over the town.”

“Very funny,” June said.

“Think about it, June. It’s going to be
fun.
”

If June already felt fluttering, then this baby might have happened back when Jim escaped from the drug farms in the Trinity Alps. Or even earlier. Which meant that, not far after Christmas, she was going to be a mother for real. And that’s what was going to be
fun.

June was on call the next night, so she had dinner at the café and then went to the clinic. Her ultrasound was scheduled for the next morning; she would be getting in to the clinic late. She hoped she would be able to sleep. As she walked, her feet never touched the ground.
Though she longed for Jim’s arms, waiting for him had never been more luxurious, for she felt as if she kept their secret warm and safe within her. And now she knew that once he arrived, everything would be different. Three times that day she’d been asked if she was all right—once by George, once by Tom and once by Harry Shipton.

June heard the clinic door open and footsteps come lightly down the hall. Nancy Forrest tapped lightly on June’s opened office door. “June?” she said, asking to come in.

Any other time in her life, June might have resented the intrusion. She might have looked at Nancy, seen that she was still looking young, very attractive and fit and hated her for it. But on this night she felt nothing negative toward her lifelong rival. Rather, she leaped to her feet and rushed to embrace her. “Nancy,” she said, giving her a welcoming hug. “I’ve been checking with the Ukiah hospital. I’m told the boys can expect a full recovery.”

“Yes,” she said, “though not a quick one. It’s thanks to you and Dr. Stone that they’re alive.”

“We did our part, but we owe Johnny Toopeek the real credit.” Nancy frowned. “You don’t know?” Nancy shook her head. “Johnny was fishing in that stream when the car came crashing through. The first thing he did was climb a tree to pull Brad out of it. He was dangling ten feet off the ground, hooked onto the branches. Had Johnny left him there, he might’ve fallen the rest of the way down that rocky ravine. He carried him to safety. Then he ran back into the ravine because
the car was on fire. He searched for and found Brent and held his hand over a gushing head wound until help arrived.”

“I had no idea,” Nancy said weakly. “Every time I hear the story, it just keeps getting worse!”

“Did you see the car before they pulled it out of the trees?”

“I did,” she said with a shudder. Her hand automatically went to her chest as if the mere thought made her heart stop beating for a moment. “I’ve never seen anything so terrifying.”

For the very first time, June’s heart jumped at the thought of raising a child. From her years as the town’s doctor she’d learned one indisputable fact about being a parent—there were lots of people who did their best and one or more of their kids, despite all efforts to the contrary, turned out bad. By the same token, there were gems in this town who had nearly raised themselves. Here was a job with no guarantees and no promise of benefits.

“Am I interrupting anything?” Nancy wanted to know.

“Just a little paperwork. I’m coming in late tomorrow morning so I thought I’d better look at what Jessie, the clinic receptionist, has stacked up on my desk. What to sit down a minute?”

“Thanks,” she said, taking the chair in front of June’s desk. “I spent the afternoon with Birdie, and after comparing notes, I thought I’d better talk to you. You might have gotten some misinformation.”

“Oh?”

“It’s about our divorce….”

“Oh, Nancy, I was so sorry to hear about it. Really.”

“Well, that’s just it. We’re not divorced. We’re barely separated.”

Stunned speechless, June found herself leaning across her desk, staring.

“Chris wanted a separation. He thought he’d get himself an apartment. Our home was too stressful, he said. By now I’m sure you’ve figured out that most of the stress was due to teenage twins who were constantly in trouble. So, he thought the answer might lie with him visiting them on weekends!” She shrugged. “I turned the tables on him. I told him that I thought maybe I should get a job, an apartment, and he could be responsible for the twins. I would visit
them
on weekends!”