My Name Is River Blue (40 page)

After the
accident, I was in the ICU for a few days before I was alert enough to tell
anyone that a truck hit Ant's car and caused it to slide off the road. Until
then, everyone, including the cops, thought that we had hit an icy patch and
lost control of the car. The sheriff's department immediately put a deputy on
guard outside my door until they could investigate.

When the cops
found no evidence that I was in danger, they removed their officer but
recommended placing me in the hospital security section as a precaution. So
after ICU, the staff moved me to a floor where there were a few rooms used for
security cases at one end of the hall. The hall was covered by a security
camera and all visitors had to pass by the security station where a guard
checked their IDs and made them sign in and out on his log.

Papa smiled. "Good
thinking, River. The only problem you might have is how often they purge video
or even the sign-in logs for that matter. It's been over six months since the
day in question. I'm not sure they would have any reason to keep information
that long, but it's certainly worth a shot. Anything else you're thinking of
trying?"

My enthusiasm
dropped a little because I had no idea how long the hospital kept the visitor log
or video, but I agreed with Papa that it was still worth checking.

"Yes, sir,
I want to check with Expressions Floral Shop, the florist name on the card. They're
a chain store, but it would make sense to me that she bought the plant here, even
if she lives somewhere else, so I need to visit Expressions and ask if anyone
remembers a woman buying the prayer plant. They might, since it was so
expensive. Maybe she paid with a check or credit card, and they saw her name.
The people in this town are so nosey that it's possible someone might
remember."

"Good point.
Did you ask Mrs. Carson if any of her tellers remember accepting a
deposit for the money in your account?"

"No, sir, I
didn't. I guess I was too surprised to think well."

"So I
suppose you want to check out these places as soon as possible," said
Papa.

"Yes, sir,
I do. If it's okay with you, I would appreciate a little time."

"River, you
always have my support, but I hate to see you disappointed. You've dealt with
enough grief these past months."

"Papa, it's
always been important to me to find out who my parents are and why they left me.
No matter what else is happening in my life, that need is always there. I have
to try to answer my questions, and if it doesn't work out, I'll be no worse off
than I am now."

"Would it
be enough to know who your parents are and why they left you? Could you handle
the disappointment, if they didn't want a relationship with you?"

"The fact
that my mom came to see me in the hospital tells me that she cares at least a
little. If she didn't, why would she bother? I mean she said she loves me on
the floral card. I've been thinking that the reason she didn't try to talk to
me is that she's afraid that I will hate her for what she did. What if I can
reach her and tell her that I forgive her? That might be all it takes to have
her in my life or at least to get some answers."

Papa wore a sad
expression on his face but tried his best to sound positive. "Son, I hope
you're right. I want nothing more than for you to be happy."

"Thanks,
Papa." He looked so down at that moment that I wondered if his feelings
were more complicated than simply worrying about my disappointment. "You
know, if I had a relationship with my mother or even both parents, I would still
want you in my life, just as much as you are now. You're the only father I've
ever had, and nothing will ever change how I feel about you, Papa."

"And you're
like a son to me, River, so don't tell me not to worry. Anyway, I was up before
the chickens, so I'm going to bed early. I'll wake you up in time to get a few
things done here before we leave, and then we'll go chase your leads."

"You're
searching with me?"

"Sure. You
never know. I might be useful." Papa winked.

Before I walked back
to the barn, I hugged Papa and thanked him for caring about me. The big man ran
his hand up my back to my neck and tugged on my long, black hair. I knew
without seeing his face that he was grinning, and I think I would have been
disappointed had he ever stopped hinting that I needed to cut my hair.

***

The next
morning, Papa woke me for an early breakfast so that we would have time to
inventory and order supplies, which was the only pressing business we had to do
that morning before we left. I was thankful that Papa was not only setting me
free for the rest of the day, but also cheerfully joining me on my mission. Knowing
that driving was still uncomfortable for my back, Papa volunteered to take us
in his truck.

Our first stop
was Expressions Floral Shop located downtown on Main Street. When I picked the
prayer planter out of her catalogue, the manager informed me that only higher
volume shops in bigger towns sold the item. No one bought the planter at the
store in Harper Springs.

On the way to
the hospital, I called Mrs. Carson at the bank and asked if she would find out
if any of her tellers remembered the large deposit. She told me that after I left,
she was curious and asked everyone on her first and second shifts. No one
remembered waiting on a customer with that transaction. I thanked her and
apologized for taking so long to thank her for the flowers she sent while I was
in the hospital. She reminded me that she had raised a teenager.

Papa knew Larry
Edmunds, the hospital administrator, and within a few minutes after we walked
into the main lobby, Mrs. Palmer, Mr. Edmunds' administrative assistant, was
guiding us into the administrator's office. Papa explained what I wanted, and
Mr. Edmunds was very cooperative. He called security and in no more than thirty
minutes, a man walked into the office with the security log and a few video discs.
I was excited that they still had information from the period that I needed,
and Papa was surprised at how eager the men were to help us.

Mr. Edmunds
invited me to check the log while his security chief, Mr. Floyd, set up the first
disc to play on a monitor. I started with January 6, the day Jenny noted that the
plant arrived in my hospital room. I was disappointed that I recognized every
name on the log as someone that I knew from Harper Springs. From that date, I began
looking at the closest days around it. I did not give up until I had covered my
entire hospital stay without finding one name of a visitor that I didn't know.
I wondered how it was possible that I could have been so wrong.

I asked if I
could still see the security video just in case the guard might have missed
logging in a visitor. Both men smiled as if they were humoring me and agreed to
my request. Mr. Floyd found January 6 and fast-forwarded the video through the
day but not fast enough that I could not recognize the people. I would have
seen a stranger, but there was not one person I didn't know. It took almost two
hours, but we went through the other days on the video with the same results. My
mother was not on the video. Mr. Edmunds and Mr. Floyd told me how sorry they
were and offered their further assistance if needed.

My head was ready
to explode, and my back was throbbing as I crawled into Papa's truck. I felt
foolish for hoping to meet my mother after eighteen years. If she had visited
Harper Springs, she did so in such a secretive way that she left no traces by
which I could track her. Why was it so hard for me to admit that nothing had
changed? She still didn't want me.

As bad as I felt,
I was thankful for Papa. Unlike the ghost I was chasing, Papa was real.

"Papa?"

"Yep."

"Thanks.

CHAPTER
TWENTY-THREE

I slept soundly
for two hours after Papa and I returned from the hospital, but I woke up
startled as if someone had poured ice water in my face. How could I have been
so stupid when I watched the hospital surveillance video? There was an
embarrassingly, obvious question that I should have asked while I was at the
hospital. It surprised me that Papa failed to ask it as well.

How did the big,
religious-themed planter, which held a large arrangement of mixed plants, get
into my hospital room without appearing on the security video?

When I viewed
the video, I was looking for my mother, a stranger. I never focused on the
arrival of the prayer plant to my room, but I was sure that I would have
noticed it no matter who delivered it.

On the video of
January 7, I remembered seeing Jenny sign in with the guard, and then enter my
room, as she did each morning. Shortly after Jenny arrived, a porter delivered
an empty two-tiered rolling cart to my room. A few minutes later, they both
came out with the cart full of flower and plant arrangements. After searching
my memory of the video, I was convinced that I had seen the prayer plant on the
bottom of the cart. The video showed Jenny checking in with the guard about
thirty minutes later but without the cart.

Since the plant
left my room with Jenny, then it had to have arrived with someone prior to that
time. Who brought the plant to my room, and why wasn't it on the video?

It was five
o'clock when I called Tolley House. I knew that Jenny would probably be home
because her routine seldom varied. She would be preparing the boys' dinner,
which she would serve at six o'clock. I pictured her at the kitchen counter
between the oven and the refrigerator. She would hear the phone ring, wipe her
hands with the towel from the rack to her right, take two steps to her left,
and pull the phone from its base on the wall. She answered after the third
ring, just as I expected.

We took a minute
for polite inquiries about each other's day. She asked about my pain level, and
I brushed it off as minimal since talking about it always made me feel worse. I
asked about Hal and the boys. She asked about Papa. Everyone was fine.

I got to the
point of my call and asked her if she remembered using a rolling cart to take
some of the plants and flowers out of my hospital room. Naturally, she thought
that was an odd question. I assured her that if she would just help by answering
my question that I would explain my reason for asking. I didn't want to say anything
before she answered that would influence her to remember what I wanted to hear.

Jenny answered
quickly. "Yes, I do. I took plants out with that cart twice. Once when there
was no space for any more plants in your room and then on the day they
transferred you to rehab."

"Jenny, you
know the prayer plant that you keep on the dining room table? Do you remember
taking that plant out of my room the first time you used the cart?"

"I sure do."
She laughed.

"What's so
funny?"

"I remember
it like it was yesterday. I brought my car to the front of the hospital
entrance, so I could load the plants from the cart. It was only going to take a
few minutes, but this ugly man honked his horn and yelled profanities at me
because he couldn't drive around me. Nasty profanities, River. I had the big
planter in my hands and almost dropped it when he honked his horn. I got angry
and told him how rude he was. I would have been sick if I had dropped that beautiful
planter on the pavement."

"Oh, wow,
Jenny. I guess you would remember." I was excited that she verified my memory
of the video. "Another thing. You put little sticky notes on the floral
cards with the dates the flowers and plants were delivered. Are you sure on
those dates? You had January 6 as the day the big planter was delivered."

"I'm sure, River.
I know you don't remember much of the first week or two, but one of us was with
you all the time during visiting hours. It was mostly Papa Ray, Hal, Carlee,
and me. Sometimes, it was Amy Martin, Manny, or Max. After I got the boys off
to school, I would stay with you until three o'clock. That's when I had to
leave, so I could pick up the boys from school and be home with them. The
others took turns staying with you each night until visiting hours ended at ten.'

"I wrote down
the info for each flower or plant delivered while I was there, and then the
next morning, I made a note for anything delivered after I left the day before.
I specifically remember the first time I saw the prayer plant. It was on top of
your nightstand, and it was the same morning that I first loaded plants in the
car to take them home. That means that someone delivered it sometime after I
left the day before."

I had known it
for years, but it still amazed me how anal Jenny was about details that most
people wouldn't give a second thought. She was very proud of the organizational
skills that kept Tolley House running smoothly while I lived there. After
speaking with Jenny, I had no doubt that the mysterious prayer plant was delivered
to my room on January 6, the day before the bank deposit on January 7. The big
question remained unanswered. If Jenny was on video taking the plant out of my
room past the security checkpoint on January 7, how did the plant get into my room
on January 6 without also being on video?

Jenny didn't
intend to let me go before I explained the reasons for my strange questions. When
I finished telling her about the bank deposit, the matching handwriting, and
the hospital security log and video, she was into solving the mystery almost as
much as I was. She had more thoughts on the prayer plant.

When Jenny first
saw the plant, she thought it was very unusual for someone not to take credit
for such an expensive arrangement. On the same day she took the plant home, she
questioned Hal, who was with me the night of January 6 and should have seen the
prayer plant when it was delivered. When he saw the plant on the dining room
table, he told her that it was not in the room at ten o'clock when he left for
the night. With that information, Jenny deducted that the plant was delivered
after Hal left, but before she arrived at eight o'clock the next morning. She
assumed that someone dropped off the plant at reception on the first floor, and
that the person at the desk had someone on staff deliver it to my room after
visiting hours.

"Jenny, that
may be true, but it doesn't change anything," I reasoned. "The fact
is that whoever took the plant to my room and whatever time it was, it should
have been caught on the video camera that ran twenty-four hours a day."

"What if
you didn't see all the video?"

I let her question
hang for a moment while I thought. "You mean like the video skipped
somehow? Screwed up?"

"Maybe. Maybe
not." It didn't take me long to understand what Jenny was suggesting.

"Jenny,
that's kinda crazy, isn't it? You think the hospital doctored the video?"

"I think
that it's quite a coincidence that the person who delivered that plant is not on
the log or the video. Remember that whoever bought the expensive arrangement didn't
want to take credit for it. In addition, we have to assume that someone took a deposit
slip from your nightstand where the plant was placed, and anonymously deposited
a large amount of money in your account the following day."

"It's a lot
of coincidence, for sure," I agreed.

"If that
isn't strange enough, think of this, River. You said that the hospital
administrator and the security chief, with no prior notice, took hours out of
their days to help you search their records for someone who delivered a plant
to your room almost seven months ago. Even with Papa Ray with you, that's a
stretch. At most, I could see them having someone in the security department
help you in a place like the basement."

"So you're
saying that you think they're hiding something?"

"River, I
don't know for sure. I don't know why they would alter the video. All I'm
saying is that it appears someone had a reason for guarding information, and someone
had a reason for anonymously depositing money in your account. It's no stretch
for me to imagine the same person bribing a poorly paid security guard to look
the other way and lose any evidence of the visit."

"I have to
believe that it was my mother," I said. "If you saw how closely the
handwriting on the floral card matched the writing on the nametag from my baby
blanket, you would believe the same. It's possible that she bribed the
guard."

"Yes, it's
possible, but I hate to see you get your hopes up, River. Even if it was your
mother, and even if you were able to find her, it might not end the way you
want."

"Like I
told Papa, I'm not counting on us having a loving relationship as mother and
son, but I won't know what's possible if I don't try. It would mean a lot to me
just to have some answers. Just to know who my parents are and why they dumped
me."

"River, I
hate to cut you off, but I need to go before I ruin dinner. I'll give this some
more thought. Call me later if you need to talk."

"Thanks, Jenny.
Say hello to Hal and the boys for me."

***

At dinner, I asked
Papa the same question that had been on my mind since I woke up from my nap,
and I shared my phone conversation with Jenny. Just as I did, Papa felt dumb
that he had not noticed that the prayer plant delivery was missing from the
video. He was also puzzled when he attempted to find a logical and innocent
answer. Papa said that if we didn't mind stretching our imaginations that we
could believe the video system blinked at the exact time of the delivery and
then swiftly recovered. Neither of us believed that possibility.

Papa agreed with
Jenny that Mr. Edmunds was more helpful than he expected, and he proposed that we
visit the hospital again the following day to ask for his explanation of the
missing plant delivery.

Putting the
mystery to bed for the night, we relaxed in the den and attempted to watch television.
Papa sat in his stuffed rocker, and I curled up on the couch with a pillow
under my head and one between my legs to relieve pressure from my spine.

We watched an
old sports movie about a freshman college basketball player struggling to fit
into his new world and maintain his scholarship, despite the fact that his
coach wants him to renounce it. The freshman has a beautiful girl as his tutor.
They fall in love, and love conquers all when his grades go up along with his
jump shot, which saves the team's undefeated season. The auburn-haired girl was
beautiful enough to succeed in temporarily distracting me from thoughts about
the plant, the video, and my mother, but it made me miss Carlee even more.

I had just
drifted off to sleep when the doorbell startled me. It was almost ten o'clock,
so I thought it had to be one of the farmhands, but when Papa answered the door,
I heard a young woman's voice. It sounded so familiar that I sat up. I turned
to see Jean Simmons, my favorite nurse during my hospital stay. I was surprised
to see her and curious about why she would come out to the farm so late. Papa
knew Jean from the hospital and didn't hesitate to invite her into his house.

After I offered
Jean a seat with me on the sofa, Papa asked if he could get her something to drink.
It was funny to me that Papa always offered a drink as if he thought that visitors
needed liquids to sustain life for the hour they were there. If he had caught a
burglar in his home, he would have offered him tea or coffee while waiting for
the cops. Jean declined and said that she was only staying long enough to give
me a little information. Suddenly, she was not smiling nearly as much as she
was.

"What is
it, Jean?" I leaned closer to her, anxious to hear what she would say.

"I think I'll
read in the study a while," said Papa.

Jean put her
hand up as if to pull Papa back. "No need to do that. It's concerning River,
but I know he would share it with you anyway." Papa nodded and sat in his
chair.

"Jean?"
I was growing impatient.

"Okay,
first, I'm begging you not to involve me or my sister in what I'm going to tell
you. I don't know if you realize that Mr. Edmunds' administrative assistant is
Jan Palmer, my sister. If it gets back to the hospital that we told you any of
this, we will lose our jobs."

"Okay, Jean,"
I agreed. "Tell me."

Jean glanced at
Papa and he nodded, indicating that he agreed not to cause them trouble.

"Jan told
me about your meeting with Mr. Edmunds and Mr. Floyd, and I know what they
showed you. Earlier tonight, Jenny Mackey called me and asked questions about
hospital procedures. She specifically asked about a certain plant that someone
delivered to your room. It wasn't until Jenny called me that I realized how
important it is for you to find out what I know."

My muscles tensed,
as I tried to be patient enough not to grab Jean and shake the information out
of her. "You can trust me, Jean. Just tell me what you're talking
about."

"On January
6, I worked second shift, which you know ends at ten, same as visiting hours,
but that night, the head nurse asked me to work over a couple of hours. I was
helping at the other end of the hall, and when I checked the patients at your
end, I started with the two rooms past yours. When I came from the second one,
I saw a woman walk out of your room. I only saw her from behind, and I called
out to her, but she didn't turn around or stop. I checked on you and saw
nothing wrong. You were asleep, and the only thing different from the previous time
I checked you was a huge, new plant on your nightstand. The fancy one with the
praying hands."