Rebecca's Return (2 page)

“What’s on the list to do before we open?” John asked.

“The lists of shipments from yesterday’s sales are on the counter, left side,” Aden said. “Those need to be packed up. Roadway comes at one.”

“Is Sharon coming in?”

“Yes, around nine or so. She’ll dust the furniture and take care of the customers.”

“I wouldn’t want to do the dusting anyway.”

Aden chuckled. “Neither do I, but we do what we have to do.”

“You’re right on that,” John agreed.

“Say, how’s that girl of yours?” Aden asked, without looking up.

“Same as always, I guess,” John said, hoping the conversation would end there. With Rebecca absent and no word from her, John felt uneasy when asked about their engagement. And then too, there were those nagging doubts about Rebecca.

“She’s still taking care of her aunt’s baby in Milroy?”

“Yes.”

Aden shrugged his shoulders. “Ought to be back soon, eh?”

John said nothing, which just made things worse.

“Oh, you don’t know?” Aden asked, surprised. “She hasn’t called?”

“She probably didn’t have time,” John said, convincing no one.

“Maybe she has someone she’s seeing in Milroy? Someone you should know about?” Aden’s twinkle was gone.

“Why would she?” John snapped. “We just got engaged.”

“You ever ask her?”

After a hesitation, John said, “Yes.”

“What’d she say?”

“There’s no one else.”

“Was she telling the truth?”

“You know something I don’t?”

“No, just asking.” Aden shrugged his shoulders. “They came from the old community. Did you ever talk to anyone from there about her past?”

“No,” John replied, “it didn’t seem necessary.”

“You going by your own feelings then?”

“Yes.”

“Not the best choice, especially when you like the girl.”

“Well, I do.”

Aden turned to his nephew. “Well, don’t lose your head just because you’ve lost your heart.”

“But she’s…” John said, searching for words, “wonderful.”

“Wonderful is as wonderful does,” his uncle said gravely. “Like the good book says, ‘Beauty is vain, but a woman that feareth the Lord, she shall be praised.’”

John numbly nodded his head in agreement, then reached for the stack of invoices to begin the packing.

C
HAPTER
T
WO

H
ow am I to figure that one out? Is my uncle right with his concerns about Rebecca? Why has she not contacted me from Indiana? When is she coming home?
John pondered the situation, the invoices in hand. Noticing that his uncle was watching him, John walked toward the storeroom to begin the packing.

He hoped to be finished by opening time, but if the packing took longer, perhaps he could continue it between waiting on customers. John got to work, forcing himself to stop worrying about Rebecca.

At exactly five till nine, time for the first customers to show up, a dull thud was heard from the direction of the highway. It was a solid sound, a boom as if a barrel were covering it.

Pausing from securing a rail-backed oak dining chair in its cardboard crate, he stood up straight and listened.

“You hear that?” John hollered to Aden, who was still in his office.

The muffled answer was unintelligible, at least from where John stood.

John finished the wrapping on the inside of the crate, making sure there was no room for movement that could break the delicate spines on the chairs.

Hearing the door open, John glanced up. It was Sharon, Aden’s sixteen-year-old daughter and his cousin. She was tall for her age and had blue eyes that twinkled in the same way her father’s did…but they weren’t twinkling now.

She stood in the doorway holding the exterior door open, the vapor from the outside cold wrapping itself toward the ceiling. “There’s been an accident on the highway,” she said, clearly shaken. “They need help.”

“How bad is it?” Aden asked, coming out of the office.

Sharon’s blue eyes flashed with concern. “I don’t know. I just saw it as I was coming in. The car is off the road and in the trees.”

“I’d better call it in,” Aden said. “John, you can go on down to see if you can help. Sharon and I will stay here to watch the store.”

Sharon held the door open for John. “There’s no use me going,” she said. “I can’t do anything.”

“Have you got your buggy blanket?” he asked. “The blanket might keep the people warm, if they’re hurt.”

“Yes, it’s in my buggy, on the seat.”

Walking quickly John gathered up the blankets from both his buggy and Sharon’s and ran out the driveway. Halfway there he heard the cries for help coming from the car, hidden out of sight over the slight knoll toward Highway 41.

It was clearly a woman’s voice, and John quickened his pace. As he came to the blacktop, he quickly looked for tire or skid marks on the pavement but noticed nothing unusual. In the ditch though, a single set of marks disappeared over the knoll. Apparently whoever it was had not tried to stop.

Following the sound of the cries, he went to the ditch and jumped across to avoid the slush at the bottom. Cresting the knoll, John saw the car off to the side in a clump of trees. The trees’ barks were peeled away, and the blue, four-door Chevy Impala lay where it had fallen beside them. Still upright, its front bumper nearly pushed halfway into the engine compartment, the driver’s side door was crushed inward.

The woman was clearly disheveled and frantic with fear. Her head was thrown back against the top of the seat. She saw John and cried, “Please help me…Please. Please help me.”

He approached, uncertain what to do. The English were very particular about accident scenes, he had heard. A person could get into real trouble trying to help or move injured persons without the proper training.

“Please help me,” the woman cried again, her eyes glazed with fear.

John had never seen anything like this and searched his mind for solutions. Carefully he examined the woman’s condition, while standing close to the car door. There was no blood, although the woman was obviously trapped. John could see that it would be impossible for him to open that crushed door. The only other way out was through the passenger side door on the other side, and that was out of the question because it was lodged against a tree.

With the woman’s eyes on him, looking through him as if he were not there, John spoke quietly, “There’s help on the way. They will get you out of here.”

“Oh, help me…Please help me. Somebody help me. I’m going to die.” The woman’s voice was raspy by now.

“You have to breathe,” John said, seeing that her breath was coming in short jerks, her body shivering. “Here’s a blanket.” He unfolded one of the blankets and offered it through the broken window. The woman made no effort to take the blanket, so John reached in and laid it gently over her. She closed her eyes, pressing her head back against the headrest, drawing in deep breaths.

“What’s your name?” he asked. Cars were stopping along the road now. John could hear their tires crunching to a halt, but the sound he was listening for was not yet wailing in the distance.

“Cindy,” she told him weakly, trembling under the blanket.

“What happened?” John asked, wanting to keep her conscious. The woman’s breathing was slowing down and she looked like she wanted to drop off to sleep. What that meant, he wasn’t sure, but it couldn’t be good.

“I fell asleep. Up too late last night,” Cindy said through drooping eyelids.

That would explain the lack of skid marks. Hearing someone behind him, John turned around. Two people were standing on the knoll, and a woman was approaching.

“I’m a nurse,” the woman said. “Let me talk to her.”

John was more than glad to step away from his spot by the window. “Her name is Cindy.”

“Help is on the way, Cindy,” the nurse said soothingly. “Is there someone you would like us to call?”

“Yes, call Maggie,” the trapped Cindy said.

“Is she family?”

“Just a friend.”

“Can you give me that number?”

“Yes,” John heard Cindy say, but missed the numbers. The nurse got out her cell phone and punched in the numbers rapidly.

When the nurse stepped away to make the call, Cindy was left unattended. John saw her head go back against the headrest, her eyes rolling back into her head. Afraid this meant Cindy was going into shock, he started talking to her again. “The ambulance has been called. They’re on their way. Just hold on a little longer.” Cindy seemed not to hear him.

Flipping the cell shut, the nurse came back. “She’s not answering, Cindy.” The the nurse stuck her head in through the smashed window, little jagged pieces of glass above and below her. Cindy didn’t respond.

“Uh-oh,” the nurse said. “Cindy, wake up. Cindy, just a little longer. Hold on, dear.” She took Cindy’s hand and lightly shook her shoulder.

Cindy snapped forward as if she was awakening from sleep. “Come on,
breathe,
” the nurse said in her ear. “Just hold on.”

John turned toward the road when he heard the sound of sirens. “They’re coming.”

“Thank God.” The nurse continued shaking Cindy’s shoulder every time she seemed to be on the verge of dropping off.

The fire department truck from West Union arrived first. They were all young men, moving quickly and cautiously down from the knoll and toward the car. Right away they determined that they needed the “Jaws of Life.” While those were being unloaded, a temporary oxygen mask was fitted on Cindy. Immediately Cindy laid her head back on the headrest, seeming to relax considerably.

As the firemen began their work, John noticed the tool they used to spread the metal apart. A fireman inserted it between the door hinges and turned it on. To the groans of creaking metal, it created a space where they could use a pair of giant snips to cut through the metal that was in the way. John watched in fascination as they used a smaller version to snap off the main arms of the door.

John walked back up the knoll, hearing more sirens and seeing a state patrol car following an ambulance up the hill from 41. John waited until a stretcher was taken down to the site and Cindy was slid on to it before deciding that he really should get back to the store.

When he walked in through the doorway, Aden was taking care of customers. Sharon, clearly in over her head, was showing a young couple the grandfather clocks. Relief showed all over her face, at the sight of him.

“Anything serious?” Aden asked John, interrupting his conversation with the customers. All eyes turned in John’s direction.

“She’s conscious,” he answered. “A woman, the only person involved, was injured. They just took her out on a stretcher. She said she fell asleep while driving to work.”

“That’s too bad. Good that it’s not worse,” Aden said, turning back to his customers. The place immediately fell back into its normal routine, as if the world, having paused in concern, now continued on.

John stepped over to the grandfather clocks to help Sharon. “Can I be of assistance?” he asked.

“Yes,” Sharon said, almost gushing with relief. Then turning to the customer, she said, “This is John Miller. He can answer your questions much better than I can.”

“I’ll try,” John told the young couple. “So what are you looking for?”

Their foyer needed a clock, they told him. It needed to be somewhere between eighty and ninety-six inches tall, fit into an alcove that measured forty-two inches wide, and have an elegant design but not too fancy. He got a tape measure from the counter and had a sale in ten minutes, arranging for shipping into the suburb of Delhi Hills on the southern edge of Cincinnati.

After they left and John had a moment to relax, he was annoyed to find that the troublesome thoughts of Rebecca were back in his mind. The accident he had just witnessed heightened his sense of uncertainty. The world was a dangerous place, he thought, able to change drastically in a moment of time.

He wished he knew when Rebecca was coming home. But what if his feelings of doubt were justified. What if she
did
have a secret in Milroy? A boy she had loved. Or still loved. What if she told him something he’d rather not know? Something that would break up their engagement. Was the Rebecca he loved even capable of something that bad?