Summer Secrets (30 page)

“Well, of
course
he is. Is there anything Eddie can’t do?” I say grumpily.

“I’m not sure he can knit,” Sam says eventually, after appearing to think about it very hard.

*   *   *

I have often thought that you know instantly when something very bad happens.

I have heard stories of people waking up in the middle of the night at the precise time that, on the other side of the world, their mother died. Or the phone will ring, and as you pick it up, you get a wave of premonition, a sense of dread about what it is that you are about to hear.

I am sitting at a trestle table, at the firemen’s fund-raiser, moving pasta salad around my paper plate with a plastic fork, when a couple of policemen walk into the room.

I notice them because they’re in uniform, and they seem to know everyone here, which is unsurprising, and I wonder if this is a fund-raiser for the police too, and if not, why they might be here.

They seem to be looking for someone, but everyone they ask seems to shrug and shake their heads, until a guy we were talking to earlier looks over in our direction and points, at least I think he points, to me.

And my blood runs cold.

“Are you the mother of Annie Halliwell?” I realize my mouth is filled with pasta salad that will not go down my throat, and I pick up my napkin and expel the salad into it as I start to shake. Whatever they are about to say, this cannot be real. This isn’t for me. This has to be a mistake.

“There’s been an accident,” they say. “You need to come with us.”

“Where is she?” My voice comes out as a shriek as Sam and Eddie jump to their feet, although I don’t see them, don’t see anything, the room closing in to a pinprick of black. “Is she okay?”

“She’s in the hospital,” one of them says gently, taking my arm. “We’re going to take you to see her now.”

*   *   *

I don’t want to ask. I sit in the back of the police car, Sam at my side, holding my hand, stroking my arm, and I can’t ask the question that’s whirring round and round in my head, waves of nausea each time I think of it.

They would have told me, I think. If she was dead they would have told me. They would have said something like
I’m so sorry but she didn’t make it.
They didn’t say that. She must be alive. And if she’s alive, there must be hope.

Nothing makes sense. A scooter accident? She doesn’t have a scooter. She knows she’s not allowed to go on a scooter. We’re here on holiday, for God’s sake, and she is thirteen years old. Where is she going to get a scooter from?

And why? Didn’t she text just an hour ago to say they were renting a movie and making popcorn? How did a movie and popcorn turn into a scooter? How did a movie and popcorn turn into police turning up at a firemen’s fund-raiser? How did a movie and popcorn turn into me sitting in a police car, about to throw up, more terrified than I have ever been in my life?

I am not,
was
not, a woman of faith. Religion was never part of my life when I was a child, although I always had a belief in God, in someone looking out for me. When I first went to AA, all those years ago, I thought everyone was crazy, talking about a Higher Power. I had no idea of the power of prayer, or of trusting that there is someone, something bigger, who is looking out for us. It seemed like a load of nonsense.

For a while, I talked about the group being my Higher Power. I had heard other people say this, and I felt less ridiculous, less “woo-woo,” having something substantive rather than a great bearded man in the sky.

But something shifted this last time I got sober, the last time, I hope, I get sober. I was at rock bottom, had lost my marriage, my child. When I started to pray, I really did feel that I wasn’t alone, that I would be okay, and even though I never thought of myself as religious, I have come to find enormous solace in prayer.

So I pray now. The prayers I know. The Serenity Prayer:
God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.

The Third Step Prayer:
God, I offer myself to thee, to build with me and to do with me as thou wilt. Relieve me of the bondage of self that I may better do thy will. Take away my difficulties that victory over them may bear witness to those I would help of thy power, thy love, and thy way of life. May I do thy will always.

And then simply
God, help her. Help her, God. Help her be okay.

I say them over and over, my eyes squeezed shut, my lips moving, my hand clutching Sam’s. Over and over.

We pull up, and I jump out of the car, edgy, jittery, desperate to see my daughter, terrified of what I will find. I am forced to slow down, to not burst in through the doors of the emergency room of this tiny cottage hospital, flanked as I am by the two police officers.

We are led to a room, a curtain is pulled aside, and there is Annie, alive, and I burst into tears.

“Ow!” she cries when I gather her in my arms, shocked at how scratched she is, her arms and legs covered in blood, her face, thankfully, unscathed.

“A broken arm,” says a doctor who suddenly appears in the room. “And a nasty gash on her head. We think she may have a concussion, so we’d like to keep her in for observation overnight. She’s remarkably lucky. Other than that, scratches and bruises. Her friend just got out of the operating room. We think we’ve saved the eye. We won’t know for sure for a few days. They’re both lucky girls. We can’t get hold of the other girl’s mom.”

“Friend?” I look at Annie, who starts to cry, the hiccupping, sobbing, hysterical crying of a child.

“Trudy,” she says. “She was driving the scooter.”

*   *   *

The story doesn’t come out until later. Their neighbor, who was away, has a scooter, and the movie was boring, and someone came up with the brilliant idea of “borrowing” the scooter and going for a ride around the island. Of course there was alcohol involved. I didn’t know that then, that both girls had blood drawn when they got to the hospital, that the police had the results, that there might be further action.

The keys were right there. Of course they were. This is Nantucket, not London. Trudy said she knew how to drive, and Annie climbed on behind her.

The car came out of nowhere. Sailed out of India Street and knocked the bike flying, Trudy diving face-first into a car, Annie on the cobblestones.

My little girl. My little girl buried in books, quiet, nerdy, painfully shy, now stealing scooters and getting into car accidents.

I think about my instincts that morning, how I knew it wasn’t a good idea, and I wonder, at what point will I start to listen? At what point will I trust my own voice?

*   *   *

Trudy has a bandage over half her face, is fast asleep. Oddly, she isn’t nearly as bloody as Annie, but her wound is more serious.
We think we’ve saved the eye.
Please God, let them have saved the eye, let this night, tonight, be nothing more than a bump in the road, something from which they will learn, something that will change them, but only for the better.

I pull a chair up to the side of her bed, astonished at how young she is when asleep. This little girl, who could have been Annie. I take her hand in mine and lean over to kiss her cheek, the one that is bandagefree. I stroke her hand and I stay there a while, knowing that if this were Annie, I would want someone, a mother, to sit with her, to stroke her hand, to kiss her cheek and whisper that she is going to be okay. I have no idea if she will ever know, but it is what I would want for my own child.

I go out to the waiting room and call Julia. Where is Julia? Did the hospital just not know to call Julia? There is no response; her phone rings and rings before going to voicemail. I leave a message. “Julia, this is Cat. It’s very important that you call me. Please. As soon as you get this. It’s about the girls.”

I try texting.

No response.

I have to try to reach Ellie. However furious she may be at having to speak to me, she has to know. I call Abigail, who says she will get hold of Ellie’s cell for me, and rings me back two minutes later with her number.

I phone, my blood running cold as the phone switches to the machine and I listen to Ellie’s voice. I don’t leave a message, knowing she will never call back, knowing she probably wouldn’t even listen if she knew it was me.

I try again ten minutes later, and again ten minutes after that. And on my fourth time, Ellie picks up, and I know, before she even says hello, that she is out somewhere drinking, and I suddenly realize that however perfect her image, however much she relays a cool, imperious, impervious persona, there are cracks, and weaknesses, and vulnerabilities, and maybe going to a bar and having a few drinks is her way to ease her pain.

God knows if that is the case, I understand it.

I am not judging. I feel compassion. As terrifying as I have found her, this is a woman who has discovered her husband is not who she thought, who has lost the life that was so important to her, who was humiliated in public. Drinking isn’t going to solve anything, but I understand why she might think it will.

But of all the nights to choose to leave the island, to be in the bar, to possibly be drinking, could it not have been any night other than this?

“Ellie, it’s Cat. I’m really sorry to be phoning you, but Trudy has been in an accident. I’m with her at the hospital. She’s going to be okay, but you need to get back as soon as you can.”

“What? I can’t hear you. Who is this?” I can hear the slurring in her voice. Perfect Ellie, not so perfect after all, and instead of feeling smug, I just feel sad.

“Ellie!” Now I am shouting. “Take the phone outside.”

“Okay, okay. Hang on.” I hear her shout to people, then the quiet as she walks out the door. “Who’s this?”

“This is Cat.”

“What the fuck do
you
want?” The hostility in her voice, in her real feelings coming out when drunk, is almost enough to send me reeling, but I keep going, willing myself to ignore it.

“The girls were in an accident. They borrowed a scooter and got hit by a car. They’re going to be okay, but you need to get back on the island as soon as possible. I’m at the hospital with them.”

There is a silence, and I know she is trying to digest it, know what a shock this is.

“What girls?” she says eventually, slurring.

“Our daughters. They were together. At Julia’s house. Trudy. Trudy has had an operation on her eye.”

And now she starts to shriek. “What? What? Oh my fucking God! My baby!” She starts to wail, and there is absolutely no point in continuing talking to her because I can hear the alcohol in her voice. Her wailing is getting louder, so I click off the phone, praying not only that she gets here, but that she is sober by the time that she does.

I go back in to see Trudy, and as I stroke her good cheek, she opens her eyes and stares at me, not quite registering who I am.

“It’s Annie’s mother,” I say. “You’re okay. You’re in the hospital. They did some surgery on your eye, but you’re going to be fine.”

“Where’s my mom?” she croaks, her one unbandaged eye darting round the room.

“She’s making her way back,” I say. “Remember she was off island tonight? I just spoke to her, and she’s coming back. Don’t worry about anything. I’ll look after you until she gets here.” Trudy nods and closes her eyes, and I stay until she falls asleep again, when I go back to see Annie.

Sam goes home to get me a toothbrush. The hospital sets up a cot in the room for me, and I go out to the corridor, still feeling dazed, grateful the girls are basically okay when it could have been so much worse, but furious with myself for letting Annie go.

Jason.

I have to tell Jason. It is now almost 4 a.m. in England. The last thing I want to do is disturb him in the middle of the night. Surely it can wait a few more hours, until morning.

And yet, if Annie was with Jason and something happened to her, even if she was going to be fine, as she is going to be fine, I would want to know. I would be furious if Jason didn’t tell me until the next day. I might never forgive him.

I go out to the car park and dial Jason’s home, praying the poison dwarf won’t pick up, taking a deep breath when I hear Jason’s familiar, sleepy voice.

“Jason? I’m so sorry I’m calling in the middle of the night. Annie was in a scooter accident today. She’s okay,” I say quickly, knowing adrenaline will be flooding through his body at the mention of the word “accident.” “I’m in the hospital with her now. She has a broken arm and possible concussion, but she’s going to be fine.”

“Oh my God. Scooter accident? What the hell was she doing on a scooter? She’s thirteen.”

“I know. I didn’t know.” Now is not the time to tell him she was also drinking, and the scooter was stolen. Keep It Simple. That’s what I learned in the rooms.

“Where are you exactly?”

“Nantucket Cottage Hospital.”

“I’m coming. I’ll start looking into flights now.”

“Jason, that’s silly. It’s really not serious enough to warrant you coming over here. She’ll be fine.”

“This is my daughter,” he says. “There’s absolutely no way I’m not going to be there.”

After I finish telling him the different methods of getting here, after I put the phone down knowing he is fully awake and will spend the next few hours organizing flights, organizing his life so he can leave it behind and come out to join us, I have to admit, I am glad he is coming.

Sam is an amazing friend, but no one loves Annie like I do other than Jason. No one understands how awful it is to see your child in pain, in a hospital bed, other than Jason. And even though she’ll probably be out of hospital by the time he gets here, even though she will be absolutely fine, there’s a part of me that simply wants him here by my side.

Thirty-one

Annie is discharged the next morning, with a list of all the concussion symptoms to look out for, things that would mean an immediate trip back to the hospital. I know we need to have a talk, but not yet; my daughter needs to heal before she deals with my upset.