Here With Me (29 page)

There was a young girl sitting behind a desk.
Aunt Genevieve walked straight to her. “My name is Genevieve Song.
My sister and great-niece were in a car accident and brought to
this emergency room by ambulance.”

The girl did not look overly concerned and
George wondered if there were so many accidents with cars that one
more was not anything to warrant notice. “Names, please?” she
asked, pleasant enough.

“Pearl Song and Melody Song,” George said.
“Are they here?”

The woman pressed her fingers to some machine
that had all the letters of the alphabet as she stared at the
lighted box in front of her. Finally, she looked up.

“Are you both family?”

“Yes,” he answered. “Are they here?” he
repeated.

“I show that a Pearl Song arrived by
ambulance about a half hour ago. I have no record of a Melody
Song.”

She was dead. A heavy, crushing weight,
settled on his chest, making it hard to breathe. His vision turned
gray.

“Melody Johnson,” he heard Genevieve say.
“Check for Melody Johnson.”

“Yes. She’s here. I’ll let the nurse know
that family has arrived.”

The woman paused and he knew she was looking
at him, had perhaps even heard him gulping for air. “Sir,” she
said, “perhaps you should have a seat. You don’t look so good.”

He wasn’t sure he’d have made it to the
chairs if Genevieve hadn’t grabbed his hand and pulled him in that
direction. Once there, he sank down onto the hard plastic.

Genevieve patted his hand. “They’re both
going to be fine. Just keep thinking that.”

There was a clock mounted on the wall and
George watched the seconds tick into minutes. He focused his
attention on it, on the strict rhythm, and tried to sort out his
chaotic thoughts.

She wasn’t dead. That’s all the mattered.
Whatever else, they would handle.

He knew that he wouldn’t be any good to
Melody if he couldn’t think, couldn’t reason. As her husband, would
he be expected to make medical decisions for her? In his time,
that’s how it went. Husbands turned to wives, wives turned to
husbands. Children turned to parents.

He had no right to make decisions for Melody
and her child. He’d known her just days. It made him feel woefully
inadequate. But if not him, then who?

An older woman, her hair short and gray,
approached and stood in front of Genevieve. “Ms. Song?”

Genevieve nodded. “Yes, I’m Genevieve Song.
Pearl Song is my sister. This is George Johnson. Melody Johnson’s
husband.”

George tried to read the nurse’s face, to
know whether it was good or bad news, to prepare himself. But it
told him nothing. He reached for Genevieve’s hand and squeezed it
gently.

The nurse spoke to Genevieve. “Your sister
has some bruises and a badly sprained knee. She’s going to need
some help getting around for a few weeks.”

It was good news. “My wife?” he asked.

The woman turned to him and smiled. “She’s
bruised, but other than that, fine.”

“The child?” he managed.

“Everything looks very normal.”

He was grateful that he was sitting down
because if he’d have been standing, his legs would have surely
crumpled.

“Ms. Song should be done shortly and can go
home. They are admitting your wife for observation. She’ll need to
spend the night.”

He felt the blood drain out of his head. She
couldn’t be fine if they wouldn’t let her go home.

“It’s strictly a precaution,” she added.

“For her? For the child?” He had a thousand
questions.

“For both of them. I’ll check and see if
they’ve been assigned to a room yet.” She took a step away, then
stopped. “Mr. Johnson, are you all right? You look sort of pale.
Maybe you should put your head between your knees for just a
minute.”

He felt ashamed. The last thing Melody needed
was a husband who took to fainting. “I’m fine,” he said, sucking in
a breath to clear his head. “I’d just like to see my wife.”

***

She was asleep and he was grateful, because
he knew he couldn’t hide his fear when he saw the scrape on her
cheek or the one that started at her elbow and went almost to her
wrist. They’d put her in a faded blue nightdress that tied around
the neck. She had a white sheet pulled up almost to her breasts and
her hands rested on the round bulge of her growing child.

He lowered himself into the chair beside her
bed. That’s when he noticed the needle in her hand and the clear
small tube running up to a bag of clear fluid which hung from a
tall silver post with hooks.

And he knew. He was going to find the bastard
who’d caused this and make him pay.

He must have made a sound because she opened
her eyes. She blinked, then smiled. “Hi.”

“You’re going to be fine,” he assured her.
“Jingle, too.”

“They told me,” she said. Tears filled her
eyes. “I was scared. All the way to the hospital in the ambulance,
Jingle didn’t move. They kept telling me that they had a heartbeat
but I wanted. . .needed. . .to feel her.”

It made him crazy that she’d felt even a
moment of worry.

“And then, right as they were wheeling us in,
Jingle started doing cartwheels, like she somehow knew that I
needed to know.”

He reached out and took her hand, the one
without the needle. Her skin was warm and soft and very alive and
he wondered if God would think him too much of a hypocrite if he
were to say thank you. “Already watching out for her momma.”

“Did you talk to Grandmother?” she asked.

“No. Aunt Genevieve is with her. She’s going
to drive her home. Your grandmother is going to be fine. You know
that, don’t you?”

“I wouldn’t come up to a room until I got to
see her. I knew Aunt Genevieve would be so worried but I didn’t
want to call until I knew Grandmother was fine.”

For a minute he was angry that Genevieve
hadn’t said that she’d spoken to Melody. He’d still have been
worried but it might have taken the edge off.

“Then when I got the answering machine, I. .
.”

She stopped and looked at the clock on the
wall. “How did you get here so quickly?” She checked the timepiece
she wore on her wrist. “I left a message less than fifteen minutes
ago. You must have been at the house, practically in the car, to
make it here that fast.”

He’d been a good fifteen minutes from the
house, they’d driven for another fifteen, and then he and Aunt
Genevieve had sat for another ten before the nurse had come to talk
to them. What the hell was going on?

He’d worry about that later. He had more
important things on his mind. “Your aunt said a blue pickup truck
ran you off the road.”

She looked startled and he felt bad, like
maybe he shouldn’t be reminding her of it. “If you don’t want to
talk about it right now,” he said, “I understand.”

“I never told Aunt Genevieve about a
truck.”

Melody’s great-aunt had some explaining to do
when he got home. She had better be wearing feathers that prompted
truthfulness. But first things first. “Well, she must have talked
to someone. I just want to know if that’s what happened?”

“I think so. I mean, it happened so fast. I
looked down for just a second, I know it was just a second, and
then, when I looked up, the truck was coming towards me.” She
paused, like she wasn’t sure she should go on. Then, she licked her
lips and said, “I could see the driver. He was looking right at me.
He could have gotten back in his lane but he didn’t.”

“Describe him to me.”

It was like he hadn’t spoken. “Maybe he had a
heart attack,” she said. “I thought he was looking at me but maybe
he was really in pain, out of his mind. Maybe he’s an epileptic and
he had a seizure.”

Maybe he was some selfish bastard who got his
kicks out of scaring women. “Why he did it is a matter for the law
to decide.”

“I know,” she said, rolling her eyes. “That’s
why I already gave a report to the police.”

“Good. Now tell me what he looked like.”

“Why?”

Because I’m going to kill him.
“I told
you that I used to be a sheriff. I’m just one more set of eyes and
ears. If I know everything you told your police, then I can help
them.”

She stared at him. “You’re sure that’s the
only reason.”

“I’m waiting.”

“He was about thirty and dark-skinned. Maybe
Hispanic. He had a very round face and his hair was dark and very
short.”

“Anything else?”

“Not that I recall. I only saw him for a
second or two. But I’m generally good with faces.”

He was, too. And the face she described
didn’t match any of the men he’d met. “Tell me about the
truck.”

“It was an old one, like from the sixties. It
was big and I knew if it hit me, I was in trouble. It was light
blue but when I took the other lane, I think I saw some darker
blue, like maybe a fender was a different color.”

She was a good witness. Some people panicked
and couldn’t remember anything. “You said you took the other lane.
What happened?”

“I would have been okay. There was just
enough room for me to get by.”

“What happened?” he repeated.

She chewed on her lip. “I think what happened
is when he saw what I was trying to do, he edged over.”

“If that’s true,” he said, trying to keep his
voice even, “he literally ran you off the road.”

“That’s why I told the police. I wanted to
excuse it away as an accident but I couldn’t.” Her eyes filled with
tears. “Why would someone do that to me?”

He reached for her hand. “Could it be the
father of your baby? Is it possible that he doesn’t want you to
have this child?”

“I thought of that. But it’s too crazy. I
don’t think he cares one way or another about this baby. Look, I
should have probably told you before but I was embarrassed that I’d
used such poor judgement. Alexander is married, with two
children.”

“That bastard.”

She waved off his comment. “I haven’t seen or
heard from him for five months. Why would he come now? If he wanted
to harm me, it would have made more sense to do it before I came
home.”

It was quite a speech. But it made sense. “If
it was deliberate,” he said, “it had to have been someone who knew
that Pearl and you would be on that road, around that time.” As he
said it, he remembered the conversation between himself and
Bernard. He was about to tell Melody but knew that she’d dismiss
his suspicions right away. And even to him, it seemed crazy.
Bernard treated Melody like a daughter.

“I hate to even say it,” she said, “ but
after last night and seeing those strange men, do you think it
could possibly be Louis or Tilly? Are they that crazy?”

“I don’t know,” he said. He couldn’t dismiss
that he’d heard Louis and Tilly saying the night Melody had almost
been killed in the wine shed. But Tilly loved her mother. There was
no question about that. If they were trying to hurt Melody, he
didn’t think they’d do it with Pearl in the car.

Melody went to push her hair back from her
face and paused when she saw the scrape on her arm. “I can’t worry
about—”

She stopped when the door opened. A man, at
least ten years older than George, and wearing a white coat,
entered. He extended his hand to George. “Mr. Johnson, I presume.
I’m Dr. Lacardi. Your wife and I met briefly in the emergency room.
While she’s here, I’ll be supervising her care.”

“She tells me everything is fine.”

“It is,” he said. “The most serious concern
we have after a pregnant woman is in a car accident is placental
abruption. That’s when the placenta pulls away from wall of the
uterus. That can happen when there’s been a sudden trauma to the
stomach.”

“Placental abruption.” Melody repeated the
harsh words. “I read about that. Wouldn’t I be in a lot of
pain?”

“Yes. So it’s a good sign that you’re not.
The ultrasound we did in the ER looks fine so I’m feeling pretty
confident that you’re going to be fine.”

George thought he might be sick but he willed
himself to be strong for Melody. “What else do we need to know?” he
asked.

“Other than that, I’m a little concerned
about her blood pressure. It may just be up from the stress of the
accident but it’s important to watch it.”

She’d been so confident that everything was
fine that he’d stopped worrying. Now, it seemed like he’d been a
little too carefree. “Is it dangerous, this blood pressure?”

“It can be. And certainly as her pregnancy
advances, it becomes all the more important to keep it in check.
She needs to watch the usual things, like making sure she’s eating
healthy, getting a little moderate exercise every day, and trying
to avoid sudden shocks or stressful situations.”

She shouldn’t be worrying about somebody
trying to kill her. “I’ll make sure those things happen,” he
said.

“Hello. I’m in the room.” Melody waved her
hand.

The doctor shrugged his shoulders. “When it
comes to the safety of a pregnant woman and her unborn child, I’m
not above enlisting the help of a spouse.” He turned to George and
smiled. “That’s your job, right? Looking out for your wife?”

His job had been to be a pretend husband. But
that was before he’d realized that somebody might be trying to harm
her. “That’s right,” he said, looking at Melody. “It’s my job and I
damn well intend to do it.”

***

When Melody woke up just before sunrise,
George reached for her hand. Her skin was cool and soft. “Do you
want the nurse?” he asked.

She shook her head. “Some water,
perhaps?”

He held the plastic glass for her and she
sipped out of the straw. “Thanks,” she said. She looked at the big
wall clock across the small room. “I can’t believe you spent the
whole night in that chair, George. Your back has got to be killing
you. Have you had any sleep?”