It was ten o'clock in the morning, almost fourteen hours after the mall had collapsed and she had been trapped there. She tried to ask someone if the baby was okay, but there was so much chaos around her that no one seemed to hear her. Others were still being pulled out, and there were bodies under tarps, crying people waiting for news of their families, rescue workers shouting to each other, and suddenly in the midst of it all, she saw him standing there, waiting for her. It was Bill, and he was almost as filthy as she was, from his efforts to help the others. But as he saw her, he was wracked by sobs, and grabbed her from the man who was holding her. All he could do was cling to her and cry, as she did. There were no words to tell her what he had felt, how vast his fears had been, how terrible her terrors. It would take years to explain it to each other, and all they had now was the single instant of love and relief of this unforgettable moment.
“Thank God,” he whispered as she clung to him, and he handed her gingerly to a team of paramedics. But she appeared miraculously undamaged, and then forgetting Bill for an instant, but still holding tightly to his hand, she turned to one of the rescue workers.
“Where's Annie? Is she okay?”
“They're working on it,” he said, looking grim. He had seen too much that night, as they all had. But each survivor was a victory. Each one saved a gift they had all prayed for.
“Tell her I love her,” Maddy said fervently, and then turned back to Bill, her eyes filled with everything they felt for each other. And for one terrible instant, she wondered if this was her punishment for falling in love with him, if she had no right to this. But she pushed the thought away as though it had been a boulder trying to crush her, and she wouldn't let it, as she hadn't let the walls of their tiny cave crush Annie or the baby. She was Bill's now. She had a right to be. She had lived for this. For him. And for Lizzie. And with that, they put her in an ambulance, and without hesitating, Bill climbed in with her. And as he looked out the window at the back of the ambulance as they drove away, Bill saw Rafe, watching them, and crying. He was happy for both of them.
Chapter 21
WHEN MADDY GOT TO THE HOSPITAL, they put her in the trauma unit where the others were who had been rescued from the mall, and she asked instantly about the baby. She was told he was doing fine. And the doctors were amazed to find she had no broken bones, no internal injuries. She had a concussion, a few scrapes, and minor bruises. Bill couldn't believe how lucky she'd been, and as he sat with her, he told her what he knew of what had happened. All anyone knew so far was that a group of militants had exploded the bomb. In a message to the President only an hour before, they had said it was their statement against the government. They sounded like lunatics. And they had killed more than three hundred people, almost half of them children. The sheer horror of it made Maddy shudder.
She told Bill what she'd seen as the ceiling collapsed, and what it had been like being trapped with Annie and the baby. And all she hoped now was that they would both survive it. She was worried about Annie, but not nearly as worried as Bill had been about Maddy. It had been just as bad as what he had gone through with Margaret, and Maddy told him sympathetically that no one should have to go through that twice in a lifetime.
They talked for a few more minutes then, and the doctors wanted to do some more tests on her, just to be thorough in their evaluation, and she and Bill agreed that he should leave, in case Jack came to see her. Bill didn't want to cause her any trouble at this point.
“I'll come back in a few hours,” he said, as he leaned over and kissed her. “Take it easy.”
“You too. Get some sleep.” She kissed him again, and could hardly bring herself to relinquish his fingers. As soon as he left, the doctors took her away and completed their examination. And when she was brought back to her room, Rafe came in with a news crew. Jack had sent them. Rafe didn't tell Maddy what a bastard he thought Jack was for not coming to see her himself, and he didn't ask her about Bill. He didn't need to. Whatever else might have been happening between them, it was obvious to the producer of her show that the guy really loved her, and just as obvious to him now that Maddy loved him.
She told them what she could about what had happened, from her perspective, and told them, on camera, how brave Annie had been. “She's sixteen years old,” Maddy said, impressed and proud, and then she saw an odd look in Rafe's eyes, and when they turned the camera off, she asked him a question.
“She's okay, isn't she, Rafe? Did you hear something?”
He hesitated, wanting to lie to her, but he couldn't bring himself to do it. She'd find out anyway, and it didn't seem fair not to tell her. “The baby is going to be okay, Mad. But they couldn't get his mom out.”
“What do you mean, they couldn't get her out?” She was almost shrieking as she said it. She had kept her alive for fourteen hours and now they were telling her they couldn't free her? That was impossible. She refused to believe it.
“They'd have had to use dynamite. She was in a coma when they took you out, Maddy. They gave her life support, but she died half an hour later. Her lungs were crushed, and she had bled so much internally the rescue docs said they could never have saved her.” Maddy made a sound like an animal as she heard him. It was a keening, groaning sound, as though the girl had been her own child. She couldn't bear to think of it. And what was going to happen to her baby? Rafe said he didn't know anything about that, and they left her to rest shortly after. But not before he told her, choking on sobs himself, how glad he was that she had made it.
Everyone was. Lizzie cried hopelessly when Maddy called her in Memphis to tell her she was all right. Lizzie had stayed up all night to watch the news coverage and when she didn't see Maddy on camera with the news crews, she called her at home, but no one answered. She had sensed somehow that Maddy was trapped there.
And Phyllis Armstrong called her and told her how relieved she and Jim were, and what a tragedy it was, particularly the deaths of all those children. They both cried, thinking of it, and after she hung up, Maddy asked a nurse about the baby. Andy was still at the hospital, being observed, as he would be for the next few days. The child protection authorities hadn't picked him up yet. And after the nurse left the room, Maddy got up quietly and went to the nursery to see him. He barely looked like more than a newborn, and Maddy asked a nurse if she could hold him. They had bathed him and combed his hair. He was blond and had big blue eyes, and they had wrapped him in a blue blanket. He looked immaculate and Maddy could see how pretty Annie must have been as she looked at her baby. And as she held him, all she could think of was Annie, asking her to take care of her baby. And soon he would be left to the same fate her own had been, going from orphanages to foster homes into the hands of strangers, with no real parents to love or claim him. It made Maddy's heart ache as she held him.