Just as she had every fifteen minutes since she’d arrived, Amanda approached the nurses’ station to ask if they had any further information. The nurse responded patiently that she had already given Amanda all the information she had: Jared had been admitted, he was being seen by a cardiologist, and the doctor knew they were waiting. As soon as she learned anything, Amanda would be the first to know. There was compassion in her voice as she said it, and Amanda nodded her thanks before turning away.
Even with the reality of her surroundings, she still couldn’t make sense of what she was doing here or how any of this had happened. Though Frank and the nurse had tried to explain it to her, their words meant nothing in the here and now. She didn’t want Frank or the nurse to tell her what was going on, she wanted to talk to Jared. She needed to see Jared, she needed to hear his voice to know that he was okay and when Frank had tried to put a comforting hand on her back, she’d jerked away as if scalded.
Because it was his fault that Jared was here in the first place. If he hadn’t been drinking, Jared would have stayed at home, or been out with a girl, or at a friend’s house. Jared would never have been anywhere near that intersection, would never have ended up in the hospital. He’d just been trying to help. He was being the responsible one.
But Frank…
She couldn’t bear to look at him. It was all she could do not to scream at him.
The clock on the wall seemed to be keeping time in slow motion.
Finally, after an eternity, she heard the door that led to the patients’ rooms swing open, and she turned to see a doctor emerge wearing surgical scrubs. She watched as he approached the duty nurse, who nodded and pointed in her direction. Amanda was paralyzed with trepidation as the doctor came toward her. She searched his face for a sign of what he might say. His expression gave nothing away.
She stood, Frank following her lead. “I’m Doctor Mills,” he said, and he signaled them to follow him through a set of double doors that led to another corridor. When the doors closed behind them, Dr. Mills turned to face them. Despite the gray in his hair, she could see that he was probably younger than her.
It would take more than one conversation for her to fully absorb what he told them, but this much she grasped: Jared, while appearing fine, had been injured by the blunt impact of the smashed car door. The attending physician had detected a trauma-induced heart murmur, and they’d taken him in for evaluation. While there, Jared’s condition had deteriorated markedly and rapidly. The doctor went on to mention words like cyanosis and told them that a transvenous pacemaker had been inserted, but that Jared’s heart capacity kept diminishing. The doctor suspected that the tricuspid valve had ruptured, that her son needed valve replacement surgery. Jared was already on bypass, he explained, but they now needed permission to perform heart surgery. Without surgery, he told them bluntly, their son was going to die.
Jared was going to die.
She reached for the wall to keep from falling down as the doctor glanced from her to Frank and back again.
“I need you to sign the consent form,” Dr. Mills said. In that instant, Amanda knew that he’d also smelled the booze on Frank’s breath. She began to hate her husband then, truly hate him. Moving as though in a dream, she deliberately and carefully signed her name on the form with a hand that barely seemed her own.
Dr. Mills led them to another part of the hospital and left them in an empty waiting room. Her mind was numb with shock.
Jared needed surgery, or he would die.
He couldn’t die. Jared was only nineteen years old. He had his whole life in front of him.
Closing her eyes, she sank into a chair, trying and failing to make sense of the world crumbling around her.
Candy didn’t need this. Not tonight.
The young guy at the end of the bar, Alan or Alvin or whatever his name was, was practically panting to ask her out. Even worse, business was so slow tonight, she probably wouldn’t make enough to fill her car with gas. Great. Just great.
“Hey, Candy?” It was the young guy again, leaning over the bar like a needy puppy. “Can I have another beer, please?”
She forced a smile as she popped the top off a bottle and walked it down to him. As she neared the end of the bar, he called out a question, but headlights suddenly flashed on the door, either from a passing car or someone pulling into the lot, and she found herself glancing toward the entrance. Waiting.
When no one came in, she heaved a sigh of relief.
“Candy?”
His voice brought him back to her. He pushed his shiny black hair off his forehead.
“I’m sorry. What?”
“I asked how your day’s been going so far.”
“Peachy,” she answered with a sigh. “Just peachy.”
Frank sat in a chair across from her, still slightly swaying, his gaze unfocused. Amanda did her best to pretend he wasn’t there.
Other than that, she couldn’t concentrate on anything except her fear and thoughts of Jared. In the silence of the room, entire years of her son’s life were magically compressed. She remembered how small he’d felt when she’d held him in her arms in his first weeks of life. She remembered combing his hair and packing a sandwich in a Jurassic Park lunch box on his first day of kindergarten. She recalled his nervousness before his first middle school dance; the way he drank milk from the carton, no matter how many times she’d asked him not to. Every now and then, she’d be startled from her memories by the sounds of the hospital and remember where she was and what was happening. And then the dread would take hold of her once again.
Before he’d left, the doctor had told them the surgery might take hours, might even last until midnight, but she wondered whether someone would give them an update before then. She wanted to know what was happening. She wanted someone to explain it to her in a way she’d understand, but what she really wanted was for someone to hold her and promise that her little boy — even if he was now almost a man — was going to be okay.
Abee stood in Candy’s bedroom, his lips forming a tight line as he took it all in.
Her closet was empty. Her drawers were empty. The damn bathroom vanity was empty.
No wonder she hadn’t answered the phone earlier. Candy had been busy packing her things. And when she had finally answered the phone? Why, she must have forgotten to mention anything about her little plans to leave town.
But no one left Abee Cole. No one.
And what if it was because of that new boyfriend of hers? What if they planned to run off together?
The idea was enough to make him bolt out the shattered back door. Rounding the house, he hurried to the truck, knowing he had to get to the Tidewater now.
Candy and her little boy were going to learn a lesson tonight. Both of them. The kind of lesson neither was likely to forget.
20
The night was as dark as any Dawson could remember. No moon, only endless black above, punctuated by the faint flicker of stars.
He was getting close to Oriental now and couldn’t escape the feeling that he was somehow making a mistake by returning. He’d have to pass through the town to reach Tuck’s, and he knew his cousins could be waiting for him anywhere.
Up ahead, beyond the curve where his life had changed forever, Dawson noticed the glow of Oriental’s lights, rising beyond the tree line. If he was going to change his mind, he needed to do it now.