Travis ran through the small urgent care clinic toward the emergency room, his mind frozen, still locked on the shaky panic in Beatrice Fulton’s voice when she’d called him on his cell phone.
“Travis, your mother—your son—oh, hurry! Get over to the clinic,
now
!”
He’d been ass deep in online registration forms not only for Radford, but also the student loan he’d be required to take out for his final two semesters. It was a wonder he even responded to his cell phone since he had set it on vibrate. But today it had been resting in his shirt pocket, thank God.
His mother. Hank. In a car accident. How bad, he had no idea. But Beatrice, the Turner’s neighbor, witnessed it herself. Before he’d shoved the phone in his pocket and taken off at a dead run, he heard Beatrice say Mary was also wounded.
Mary, wounded? How the hell could this have happened? He’d been gone less than two hours! Thankfully Susan had been behind the wheel when Travis called Annie. Otherwise she would surely have driven right off the road when she heard his panicked voice. They’d reach the clinic within the hour. Henry was on his way home from Weston. Susan had called him.
What had his mother been doing, that she was in a car with Hank? None of it made any sense. For Christ’s sake, his mother couldn’t even drive a damned car!
He rounded the corner into the compact emergency room and strode up to the first nurse he saw. “Hank Turner and Ruth Quincy, where are they?”
She looked him over. “You’re family?”
“Yes, damn it! I’m the boy’s father, and Ruth Quincy is my mother.”
She nodded and pointed toward an open doorway. “In there.” Travis ran through the door, his knees buckling when he saw Hank in a hospital crib, asleep. A nurse and a police officer stood by the crib, and they turned when Travis approached.
“I’m his father, Travis Quincy. What happened?” Travis reached for his son’s hand, shock almost immobilizing him as he took in the sight of the bruises and cuts on Hank’s pale cheeks. His left arm was in a child-sized sling, his right leg encased in an inflatable cast. An ace bandage compressed his ribcage. Hooked up to an IV drip, the sight of his boy in this condition brought Travis to tears, and he sank onto the nearest chair, holding onto Hank’s tiny fingers for dear life.
The police officer spoke up. “The child’s grandmother was in a vehicular accident. Your son was unrestrained in the back seat. She ran through the intersection at Spring Street and Maple Hollow, and hit a car head-on. It was a miracle the child didn’t suffer worse injuries.” He took out a notebook and flipped it open. “My partner and I were first on scene, and we took your mother into custody after we brought her here to be treated for facial lacerations and a concussion. She also broke her wrist.”
“My mother doesn’t know how to drive. She’s never had a license. What was she doing on that side of town? What was she doing with my son? I don’t understand any of this.” He pressed a hand to his head. It pounded as though he’d been knocked seven ways to sideways himself.
“Travis? Oh, I’m so glad you’re here!” Beatrice rushed into the room and hugged him, patting his back. “Hank’s going to be fine. So is Mary—”
“What happened to Mary? Where is she?” He looked around as if she’d magically appear.
Beatrice removed her eyeglasses and wiped her damp eyes. “Honey, your mama came to the house and caused a horrible scene. I heard some of the ruckus, but by the time I ran outside, most of it had already happened. Your mama wanted Hank. She had a knife. Mary tried to protect Hank, and Ruth cut Mary’s shoulder. Then she got hold of Hank and drove off. But she ran right through the stop sign and there was another car coming up Maple Hollow. I don’t know, maybe she tried to stop. It was all very fast and confusing.” Beatrice sighed and squeezed his arm comfortingly as he tried to take it all in. “She wasn’t right in the head, Travis. It was like she snapped or something. And I would bet she put her foot down thinking she had it on the brake, but actually she hit the gas.”
“I can’t even believe this.” He took a ragged breath. “I want to know how seriously injured my son is.” Travis made the demand in the general vicinity of the nurse, who hurried away to find a doctor. Beatrice knelt at Travis’s side when he dropped his face into his hands. His shoulders shook with sobs.
“Now, don’t you take on so, Travis. Children are resilient, they truly are. Things that would knock an adult flat on their butt, well, children just breeze right through it. Hank’s going to be fine.”
Travis raised his head and looked at her. Beatrice and Arthur Fulton had lived on Spring Street for a lot of years, and when he and Annie were kids she often had a smile and a wave for him when he came to the Turners’ house. She was a sweet lady, and trying her best to calm him down, but he didn’t want to be placated. He could feel himself rapidly filling with anger. With fury.
“What was my mother doing at the house, Mrs. Fulton? What did you hear?” He grabbed hold of her hand.
“Honey, your mama’s not—” Beatrice started to say. She must have seen the ferocity in Travis’s eyes, because she sighed and amended, “Your mama seems to have some troubles, and I think she might need to see someone, you know, professionally.”
“Christ. Why did she have a knife? How badly is Mary hurt?” Travis gripped her fingers so hard, Beatrice winced. He mumbled an apology and released her. “Where’s Mary right now?”
“Well, I expect she’s getting her shoulder looked after, honey. It wasn’t bad, kind of shallow, I suppose you’d say. It looked a lot worse than it is, I promise you.”
Just then Annie came tearing around the corner, her face streaked with tears. He scrambled to his feet and caught her as she flung herself at him, one hand immediately reaching for Hank.
“Shh, he’s all right, Annie. He’s going to be all right.” Travis went from helpless boy to strong protector as he held Annie. Her breath snagged on a sob.
Beatrice whispered, “I’ll go find your mama, Annie,” and she tiptoed out, passing a weary-looking doctor in a rumpled white lab coat.
He looked at them hovering over Hank. “I’m Doctor Bledsoe. And you’re no doubt this young man’s folks, right?” They nodded as Bledsoe hastened to assure them, “He’s going to be fine. The worst of it was a dislocated knee. Sometimes they can be tricky. His arm is broken but it was a clean break. Should knit back together well. He has a cracked rib and some colorful bruises. But all in all, your son was lucky. It could have been a lot worse.”
“Lucky. You call
this
lucky? I want to talk to my mother. She’s the cause of this. Where is she?” Travis started forward blindly, beside himself with fury, and Annie wrapped her arms around him, putting herself in his path. His eyes glittered down at her. “Let me go, Annie. She’s my mother, and she could have killed our son. I have to talk to her.”
“Travis, just wait—” Annie wouldn’t let go.
“I want to talk to her!”
“Not like this, you won’t.” Bledsoe retorted. “She’s my patient too, regardless of what she’s done. Right now she’s under police escort. She’s not going anywhere. They’re trying to get the story out of her, son, and you need to let them do their job.”
He checked Hank’s chart, adjusted the IV drip. “Now, your boy is going to be sore for a few days. I’d like to keep him overnight at the very least, as he’s going to be sleeping a lot and I want to check on him often to make sure he’s not in too much pain. I can prescribe a gentle painkiller that’ll make him sleepy, and really that’s the best thing for him, anyhow. Young bones have a lot of flexibility to them, you know. If everything looks good, you can take him home tomorrow afternoon.”
“We want to stay. Can we stay?” As Annie slowly released him, Travis cupped his hand protectively over Hank’s bandaged chest.
“I’ll have one of those reclining chairs brought in. No sense moving the boy into a regular room, anyhow. They’re on the cramped side. Better to keep him down here.” Bledsoe replied.
He moved toward the open doorway but turned and cautioned, “No hysterics, Mr. Quincy. Not on my shift or anyone else’s, you hear? There’ll be time enough for confrontation, later.”
As the doctor’s steps echoed down the hallway, Travis slumped into the chair closest to the hospital crib. “God. I don’t know what—I can’t think, Annie! Why would my mother do this?”
“I don’t know.” She bent to him, curled her arms around him, resting her cheek against his hair. “I just don’t know. But we’re going to find out.” She brushed a kiss across his forehead. “Stay with him, okay? I’ve got to find my mama.”
“I’m here, honey.” Mary appeared in the doorway, dressed in her usual blue jeans, a short hospital gown covering her to the waist. She looked exhausted but steady. Susan stood behind her, a supporting arm about her waist.
“Mama.” Annie rushed to her side, her hands fluttering as if unsure where to place them without hurting her further. Mary got hold of all ten fingers and pulled Annie into a careful embrace. Annie promptly burst into tears.
“I’m all right! I am.” She lifted Annie’s face to hers and gave her a reassuring smile, which Annie couldn’t return. Mary glanced over her shoulder at the crib where Hank lay. “Poor little boy. He’s had a rough day, hasn’t he? But he’s tough. He’ll be fine, too.”
With Annie in her arms, Mary glanced over at Travis. Softly she spoke his name and his body jerked. “Travis, are you all right?”
He shook his head, mutely.
Mary sighed. “Travis, won’t you talk to me?”
His shoulders hunched as he wrapped his arms around his waist. He couldn’t meet her eyes, he just couldn’t. She might have bled to death, right in her own back yard. And it would have been his fault. If he’d gone with his mother that first time, when she’d come to the house and demanded he leave with her, if he’d listened to his instincts that told him his mother was losing touch with reality—
“Travis?” Mary’s voice was as loving as ever. He shuddered with the need to be held and comforted by someone he’d always known was there for him. But he didn’t deserve to be comforted by her.
“I don’t know what to say to you.” Guilt-stricken, he could hardly get the words out.
Mary stepped away from Annie and moved to his side. One hand slipped around his neck, stroking gently, until with a harsh sob Travis turned to her and buried his face against her. She placed her other hand on his back.
She bent to him. “Travis, it was a shallow cut. Just a few stitches. And none of this was your fault, you hear me? Not one second of it. I told you once before not to take on the things in life you have no control over, and I’m telling you again.” She held him close as he cried hot tears. “Your mama has problems and she’s the only one who can deal with them. She’s got to be willing to accept help to get over them. Some things can’t be fixed, honey. Not by you or anyone else.”
“She hurt you. She hurt Hank. She could have killed—”
“But she didn’t. And now, she’ll get the help she needs, won’t she? Maybe it had to go this far, Travis. God works His miracles in ways we can’t begin to understand. All we can do is have faith.” Mary kissed his cheek and reached for Annie, pulling her close, until the three of them were connected as a family unit. Annie grabbed for Susan, drawing her into the huddle. For almost a minute, no one moved.
Finally, Susan kissed Travis’s other cheek, then her habitual need to add some kind of levity kicked in. “Listen to her, Travis. Or she’ll never let go of us. We might freeze in position like this.”
He uttered a rough chuckle. It wasn’t much, but it was better than tears. He let go of Mary, gave Susan’s waist a grateful squeeze, and stood up, retaining hold of Annie’s hand. A glance at Hank assured him their boy was still sleeping peacefully, and Susan plopped herself down in the chair next to his crib and laid her hand on his tummy.
She nodded at them both. “I’d like to sit with him for a while.”
Travis moved closer to Mary. “Annie and I
need to see my mother. Do you know where she is?”
Mary watched him steadily for a few seconds, as if gauging his emotional stability. Without a word, she led them out of the room and down the short hallway. She pointed toward a closed door. A uniformed policeman stood in front of it. “In there. I don’t know if they’ll let you see her, Travis.”
It was too cold in the room. Thermal blankets covered Ruth, yet she shivered violently.
Voices prodded at her, asking her things her ears were too muffled to comprehend. After a while, she refused to raise her head and look in the direction of those voices. It was all jumbled-up sounds, anyway.