A Year Without Autumn (11 page)

Clanking and heaving, the elevator slowly takes me back downstairs.

Once outside, I find myself walking up a lane at the back of Riverside Village. I don’t even know where I’m going. I’m just walking along in a blind daze, trying to work out what’s happened to my life — where it’s gone, if I’ll ever get it back.

How can I have lost a whole year?

My thoughts jangle as I walk and walk. After a while I realize I’ve come to an unfamiliar patch at the start of the woods. I’d better get back. Dad said not to stay out long. I need to get back and look after Craig — and Thea. The thought of my little baby sister almost makes me smile.

I quicken my pace and head back to the condo.

“Where on earth have you
been
?” Dad yells before I’m even halfway through the door. He slams it behind me after practically pulling me into the condo. What is his
problem
?

“Sheesh, Dad, I’m not late, am I?”

“Not late? Not
late
?” Dad sputters. “Lydia, get your coat!” he calls to Mom.

“You’ve got hours still,” I say. “What time’s the table booked for, anyway?”

“Table? What table?”

“Your anniversary dinner.”

Dad stares at me. “You think we’re going out for a meal? Craig, come on!”

“I thought it was just the two of you?”

“The two of us? What are you talking about?”

Mom appears in the hall. She leans back against the doorway. “Jenni, where’ve you been?” she asks gently. Her face is starched white and streaked with damp marks. But that’s not the weirdest thing.

The weirdest thing is her stomach. Her huge, round, eight-months-pregnant stomach. “Thea,” I say simply, staring at her belly.

Mom pulls a strand of hair out of her eyes. “What?”

“The — the baby.”

Mom’s hands are wrapped around her stomach, and she winces and closes her eyes.

“Are you OK?” I ask.

She nods, breathing tightly. “Just a bit of cramp,” she says. “Come on. We need to go.”

I look at Mom, then at Dad. “Go where?” I ask. “Mom, Dad, what’s going on?”

“Craig! Turn that television off
now
!” Dad yells. Turning to me, he snaps, “We’ll tell you in the car.”

“For heaven’s sake, Tom. This isn’t the kids’ fault, you know,” Mom says gently.

“
What’s
not our fault? Where are we going?” I ask.

They both ignore me. “I know it’s not the children’s fault,” he says. “I’m sorry, all of you. I just think we should get there. They’re our best friends.”

Mom nods, still holding on to her stomach.

“Mom?” I reach out toward her. “What is it?”

“I’m OK,” she says, breathing quickly. “Just a bit of — just the stress. I’m tired. I’m fine, honestly.”

Craig finally appears from the living room. Little Craig. The six-year-old Craig of this morning — not the taller Craig I saw the last time I was in this room.

I reach up to touch my hair. I clutch at my head. Long. Tied back. But it’s
impossible
!

“Are you ready?” Dad says to Craig, totally unaware of the growing panic snarling in my chest.

As he grabs the car keys from the mantelpiece, Dad says, “Where were you anyway, Jenni? All that fuss you made about going horseback riding, and you didn’t even show up.”

Horseback riding?
My head starts to spin.

“Where were you, Jenni?” Mom and Dad are asking me. I can hear their words, over and over again, blurring, slowing down, speeding up, washing over me.
Where were you, Jenni?

“I don’t know!” I scream eventually, slamming my hands over my ears as Craig walks by me and out onto the path. “I don’t
know
where I was! OK? I don’t know!”

Dad looks at me and shakes his head. “I don’t understand what’s going on with you,” he says quietly.

Yeah, you and me both, Dad.

Mom suddenly lets out a sharp gasp and grips her stomach again. “Tom, can we get going?” she says. “I’m not doing too good here, and this isn’t helping.”

Craig runs back into the hallway. “Can I have a cookie?” he pipes up before Dad can answer Mom.

Mom smiles as best she can. “Of course you can, darling.”

Dad puts an arm around Mom. “You OK, dear?”

Mom nods. “Let’s just get there.”

“Yes, let’s.” He follows Craig into the kitchen. “Come on. Just one, OK?”

“Mom. Will you tell me what’s happened?” My voice is coming out about ten octaves higher than usual, and my throat feels as if it’s tightened into a narrow knot. “Please. Do you two have to go out somewhere before the meal? I’ll stay here with Craig if you want. Do you and Dad need to talk? Have you had a fight?” I’m searching my brain for anything I can think of that could explain the crazy panic around here. “You can go for your dinner on your own if you like, just the two of you. I don’t mind.”

Mom’s looking at me as though I just spoke in a foreign language. Maybe I did. Nothing would surprise me today.

Almost nothing.

“There’s been an accident,” Mom says carefully. “Don’t get too anxious. I’m sure it’ll all be OK, but . . .” She pauses.

“But what?” The blood is racing through me, pounding in my temples as I clap a hand over my mouth. I know what she’s going to say.

“It’s Mikey.” She reaches for my free hand, wrapping hers around it. “He went riding with Autumn. His horse. It threw him off.”

I nod, squeezing my lips tightly shut.

“We don’t really know how badly hurt he is, but he —” Mom breaks off. A strange sound comes out of her throat, as though she’s choking. She swallows. “They thought he was all right. He got worse, very quickly — and then they had to wait. The ambulance was late; no one was there. Jenni, poor little Mikey ended up waiting
two hours.
” This time the choke turns into a sob.

“Two hours for what?” I hold my breath as the hallway starts to spin away from me.

“To get to the hospital.”

I don’t respond. My body has turned to stone.

“I should have been there,” Mom whispers. “I could have helped. I could have done something. I was late. The candle museum — it took longer than I thought, and with the baby . . .” Her voice trails away.

“He’s in the right place now,” I say woodenly.

She shakes her head. “I’m trained in first aid. Your dad and I did the course together. That’s the whole point of it. To be there. And I wasn’t. I wasn’t,” she croaks.

I force myself to speak. “You didn’t know, Mom. It’s not your fault,” I say, numb and frozen.

She nods, then pulls a tissue from her pocket. “We need to go now. Are you ready? Are you OK?”

Am I OK?
I nearly laugh. The only thing that stops me is that if I do, I think I’ll scream and scream and I won’t be able to stop. “Yeah,” I make myself say eventually. “Are you?”

She smiles and dabs at her eyes. “Come on. Let’s get going.”

Dad and Craig are back. “Ready?” Dad asks, then he opens the front door and takes Mom’s arm.

Two minutes later, we’re on the road. Craig gets a couple of Matchbox cars out of his little backpack. Running them up and down his legs, he crashes them into each other, shouting out action-film sound effects. Dad grips the wheel with white fists and drives to the hospital at nearly twice the speed limit.

No one asks him to slow down.

Dad’s
at the reception desk, asking for information about Mikey. I’m waiting in the foyer on some blue plastic seats with Mom, who’s pretty much doubled over in her seat.

“Mom, are you OK?” I ask.

“I’m fine, hon,” she says. “I just want to know that Mikey’s all right.”

I don’t think she looks fine at all, but she obviously doesn’t want to talk about it.

Craig’s racing his cars up and down along the floor. No one stops him.

Dad’s back from the reception desk with a piece of paper in his hand. “Ward eleven,” he says. “Follow the orange signs.”

We make our way to Ward 11 — but when we get there, they tell us that Mikey’s been transferred to the Critical Care Unit. Mom makes that choking noise again when we hear this. “Tom, I need to sit down,” she says. She looks really pale.

“Mom, I think you could do with seeing a doctor yourself,” I say.

Dad takes her hand. “Lyd, what’s wrong?”

“I’m fine. Please stop fussing, everyone. It’s only a bit of indigestion; I’m sure I’ll live. My best friend’s son has just had a terrible accident. Nothing matters right now except that, all right?”

Dad and I exchange glances, and he shrugs. “As long as you’re sure.”

All I can think about is her words.
Just had an accident.
My head is spinning so hard I’m beginning to feel dizzy. I’ve seen my baby sister, who Mom probably still thinks is a boy. I’ve seen Autumn and her parents, their lives in tatters because of what’s happening in front of my eyes. But when I saw them, this had happened a year ago!

Even if I’ve now got my memory back, it would still have happened a year ago. So I know my problem isn’t that I’ve got amnesia. Which just leaves me with one question.

If I didn’t lose my memory — what on earth happened to me?

The thoughts fizz and crash in my head, eventually grinding into nothingness. I walk through white corridors, my mind blank like the walls.

“This is it. The Critical Care Unit,” Dad reads from a sign over two pale-blue fire doors.

“Are we allowed in?” I ask.

Mom looks around. “I’ll check with the nurse.” She goes over to the reception desk and talks to a nurse who smiles briskly, tucking her blond hair into a barrette as she nods and points to the fire doors.

Mom comes back toward us. “She says we can see him for a little bit, but he’s not awake.” She pauses as her voice catches. “His parents have just stepped out to call their families. Autumn’s inside.”

The nurse is behind her. “I’ll come in with you.”

“You go,” Dad says. “I’ll stay out here with Craig.”

My legs start to give way as we walk toward the doors. Mikey’s going to be on the other side. In a hospital bed. Autumn beside him, not knowing what’s going to happen to him.

Mom takes my hand. “You ready to be there for her, Jenni?”

How can I be ready to be there, ready to see what’s on the other side of the door, to see the effect it’s going to have on Autumn, on her whole family, when one single thought is making my body tremble and almost cave in on itself?

I’ve already seen it.

Mikey’s lying in a bed in the middle of a dark room. He looks tiny, swamped by monitors and machines with dancing lights, jagged lines darting up and down on a computer. Autumn’s beside him, leaning over and holding tightly on to his hand. She looks up when we come in, and I rush over and wrap my arms around her.

“Oh, Autumn, I’m so sorry,” I say.

Just then an alarm bleeps beside the bed, and I turn to the nurse, panicked. The nurse pats my arm. “It’s OK. The beeping is just to give us information. There’s nothing wrong.”

Nothing wrong?
My best friend’s brother is lying on his back in a hospital bed, an IV sticking out of his hand, a brace around his neck, bandages on his head. Nothing wrong?

Tears rush into my eyes, spilling out, flowing down my cheeks. I can taste salt as they run into my mouth. Mom’s standing next to me, and I grab hold of her hand.

“We can talk to him,” Autumn says. “He’s asleep at the moment, so he won’t reply. But they’ve said he can probably hear us. They’re taking him away for some tests in a bit.”

“Sometimes it can help the patient to hear voices of their friends and family,” the nurse says.

I nod as she backs away from the bed, leaving the three of us huddled around Mikey’s bed.

I don’t know what to say, and I feel so stupid at the thought of speaking to Mikey while he’s lying there like this. I try to remember what I normally talk to him about. Computer games? TV shows?

“Hey, apparently there’s going to be a new
Star Trek
soon,” I say. I look at Autumn and clear my throat, suddenly scared and empty. I’ve got no words.

“It’s OK,” Autumn says, trying to smile. She squeezes my hand, and I feel even worse. She shouldn’t have to be looking after
me
!

Just then the doors open again, and Mr. and Mrs. Leonard come in.

“Oh, Abby,” Mom cries, rushing over to throw her arms around Autumn’s mom. She’s wearing jeans and a shawl wrapped around her shoulders. It falls loose as they part, but she doesn’t adjust it. “I’m so sorry,” my mom says.

Mrs. Leonard just looks at her blankly for a minute. “Not your fault,” she says eventually, her voice thick and dark. It sounds so lifeless, like one of those electronic voice machines. She stares down at her son, two solitary tears making wet tracks down her pale face.

The nurse comes up to us. “I’m sorry. We can’t have this many people in here at the same time.”

“I’ll come out with you for a minute,” Mrs. Leonard says as Autumn’s dad pulls a chair as close to the bed as possible and sits down, lifting Mikey’s hand. “My baby boy,” he says, his voice choked and raw as the nurse leads the rest of us back outside.

Dad and Craig are sitting across the corridor, reading a comic together. Craig jumps up when he sees us.