The Dark Light of Day (34 page)

“Open the fucking door!” Jake yelled.

Bethany swung open the passenger side, and I jumped up into her car. Jake laid Georgia over my lap carefully, so carefully. He jumped behind the wheel as Bethany fell into the back seat.

Instead of using the main roads, Jake drove through a
strawberry field and the dairy queen parking lot before turning onto the dirt road that led to the back of the hospital.

“Jake, I don’t think she’s breathing!” I shouted. I couldn’t feel air coming through her nose, and I couldn’t see her chest rising.

I wished the hospital were closer.

Jake accelerated Bethany’s car to speeds his old truck could’ve never come close to. He reached out and grabbed Georgia’s hand. “We’re almost there baby, hold on, Gee.”

She wasn’t responding anymore.

“Dear God... what has he done?” Bethany cried from the back
seat.

Jake managed to turn the thirty minute ride to the hospital into a
little over ten minutes. They were still the longest ten minutes of my life.

The SUV was barely in park in front of the hospital when Jake
hopped out and ran around to my side opening my door, removing Georgia from my lap. “Daddy’s got you, baby girl. Daddy’s got you. You’re gonna be okay, Gee.”

We ran through the sliding doors to an empty waiting room and an even emptier reception area. Jake burst through a door marked
Hospital Staff Only
and I followed quickly. We ran until we saw a group of nurses sitting around a vending machine. “
We need help!”
he roared. “
Get a fucking doctor now!
”

The nurses sprang to life when they laid eyes on my lifeless daughter. One wheeled out a gurney while another paged a doctor. He arrived seconds later and helped us lay her on the gurney. “She was shot. That bastard shot her,” I told them. Somehow I didn’t think it would be as obvious to them as it was to me.

They placed a mask over her face with a blue ball pump attached
to it. Then they were running, the nurses wheeling her down the
hallway and squeezing the pump while the doctor shouted more instructions. They disappeared behind a set of double doors.

When we tried to follow them through, another nurse stopped us. “Let them help her,” she said, halting us with her hand.

“Get out of my fucking way!” Jake yelled. The nurse held her
position, even under Jake’s intimidation.

“They can’t help her with you hovering over her, sir,” she said calmly. “Please, have a seat in the waiting room. The second we know something, I will come tell you myself. I promise.” It was a
fight we couldn’t win. I needed to be in there. I needed to tell her it was all going to be okay. What if it wasn’t? What if the last thing my baby girl saw was the doctor and nurses working over her? What if her last feeling in life was fear?

We relented, but only because we didn’t have any other options. The nurse led us to a small room with a worn-out pink love seat with frayed edges and a faded white wicker coffee table. Instead of magazines, there were bibles scattered on the table, in three different versions. A beige phone hung on the wall with a long tangled cord dangling beneath, and a rotary dial that had no numbers.

Bethany met us in the waiting room and started dialing on her phone, “I’m going to call Cole. He needs to find Owen and lock him up before he does anything else.”

Jake swept the bibles onto the floor and shook the table. “He
needs
to do more than fucking lock him up. He needs to put the
motherfucker
down
!” Bethany flinched, nodding and running toward the entrance as she barked orders into her phone.

I sat on the couch and held my head in my hands. I couldn’t lose
my baby. She was my reason for being. I loved her more than I
thought was possible for anyone to love, not just myself.

“What the fuck happened?” Jake asked, pacing the room.

“It’s my fault,” I said. “I should have protected her.”

“It’s not your fault he’s fucking insane.”

“If I would have just told you the truth, if you would have known…”

“What truth?”

“The truth about Georgia,” I said. “The truth about Owen.”

“The pictures,” he said.

Then, I remembered the black and white photos he’d dropped earlier. They were the pictures I’d taken after Owen raped me. The pictures I had taken for Jake, to fuel his hatred of Owen.

It was fitting for Jake to be the one who found them. I should
have
just been brave enough to show him all those years ago. We
wouldn’t have been waiting for news if my daughter was dead or alive if I could have just sucked up my fucking self-pitying bullshit and told him everything.

“Yes.” There was no more denying. No more reasons to keep it to myself.

“When?”

“The night you left.”

Jake sucked in his breath.

“I went to lock the storage unit for Reggie. I wanted to walk. Owen showed up near the boat house. He dragged me down to the beach under the bridge.”

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

“I tried to. I wanted to. I was going to. But when you came back, you were so fucking angry at me. No one had trusted me my entire life, Jake – no one had ever taken me seriously, never believed in me. No one but Nan. ”

“I didn’t trust you either, did I?” Jake pulled me off the couch and into his arms. He sobbed into my hair and spoke between gulps of breath. “I was such an ass. Willie Ray had come up to talk to me when I was filling the bike at the station. I bought you flowers. He asked who they were for. I was practically giddy to see you again. Never felt that way in my whole life. I told him they were for you. There was no point in denying us. Most of them already knew about
us anyway. I wanted everyone to know you were mine.” Jake
squeezed me tighter. “That’s when he told me he saw Owen coming out from under the bridge with his zipper down, his hair a mess. Willie Rae asked him what he was doing. Owen told him he was down there with you.”

“He was, just not the way you thought.” I tried to be strong as I told him. “I put up a fight. I swear I did. He was so strong, and I was barely conscious....”

“I know you fought him, Bee. I know you did. And I wasn’t
fucking here for you. It’s all my fucking fault.”

“No. If you hadn’t left, I wouldn’t have kept her. I would have
known she was Owen’s, and I would have gotten rid of her because
of you. I was so close to doing it anyway. But since I had nothing and she was already such a survivor, I kept her. I needed her because I didn’t have you. It was such a fucking selfish reason, but she was the good that came out of you leaving. As much as it hurt, I wouldn’t have had it any other way. I should have told you everything after Frank’s funeral, on the very first day you came back.” My thoughts were back with Georgia, wondering where they’d taken her and how long it would be before someone let us know how she was. “I just can’t believe this is happening. I can’t believe I
let
it happen.”

“We can’t blame ourselves right now. We have to be strong for her, for our little girl.” Jake tucked a stray hair behind my ears and kissed my forehead.

We both jumped when the same nurse from earlier came into the
waiting room. She had no news for us. She just needed my
permission
to give Georgia a transfusion and to ask what our religious
preferences were.

“Religious preferences? For what?” I asked.

“Just in case ma’am,” the nurse answered politely. I sank down on the floor while Jake talked to the nurse. Their conversation was a muted blur.

Bethany had come back in. She’d been taking up a seat in the corner. I could see the horror in her face over what her son did. It
was mixed with genuine fear over Georgia’s condition. She was tortured, just like us. She stood up anytime she heard the sound of shoes squeaking on the linoleum.

It wasn’t until the sun rose high above the windows of the
waiting room that the doctor finally came in and addressed us. We all stood at attention. He looked past us as he spoke. “She’s awake now but won’t be for long. Her little body has been through a lot, and she’s going to need a lot of rest.”

“But how is she?” I demanded.

“It wasn’t a direct hit, just scattered buck shots. Miraculously,
none of it hit any major arteries or vital organs. There were a few
fragments that narrowly missed her spine, but we got them out. She lost a lot of blood during all of this, so we gave her a transfusion.” I couldn’t believe we were discussing my little girl in terms like these. “Barring any unforeseen circumstances, and even though it’ll take a
little time, it looks like she’s going to make a full recovery.” Jake
caught me before my knees gave out, and I almost fell to the floor. We’ll keep her for a few nights in the ICU under observation, just to make sure everything stays as it should.”

Full recovery.
Georgia was going to be okay. She was going to
live. “Can I see her?” I asked eagerly.

“Yes, but only for a few minutes. And just one person, please. Also, I don’t want her upset because you are upset so stay calm in
front of her. We need her relaxed and comfortable. She’s a little
loopy from the pain medicine, but you can go in.”

I bolted past the doctor and left him explaining something to
Jake. I realized I didn’t ask what room in the ICU she was in, so I found a nurse I recognized from earlier, and she pointed the way. When I got into the room, there was a white curtain pulled around the bed; on the left was an IV drip and a dozen flashing and beeping machines.

I pulled the curtain back, there in the bed, looking so tiny and
frail, was my little girl. She was pale, dark blue circles around her eyes,
but she was alive and she was going to be ok. I had to keep
reminding myself of that or I was going to break down right in front of her.

I put my hand over hers and felt the place where her IV was
connected to her hand.

Her eyes fluttered open. “Hi, Mama.” Her voice was weak and scratchy, but it was the best sound I’d ever heard.

“Hi, baby girl.” I felt the tears coming, but I held them back and showed her nothing but calm confidence.

“What happened?”

“You had a little accident, baby girl, but you’re okay now. You’ll be home very soon.”

“Is Daddy here?”

I suddenly realized how much that word meant, and exactly
who it referred to. There was only one man who fit that description. “Yes, baby girl, he’s here. You can see him after you get some rest.”

“Wanna hear a secret, Mama?” she asked me, her eyes now
closed.

“Sure, baby.” I lay next to her on the bed, careful not to squish
any of the wires or tubes. “Tell me a secret.” I held her to my side
without moving her. I needed her to feel me there, to know she
wasn’t alone as she drifted off to sleep.

“Jake lets me call him Daddy when you aren’t around.” Even with her eyes closed she was smiling.

“Oh, does he?”

“Yeah. He says I can call him Daddy in front of you only when
you say it’s okay.” I leaned down and kissed my sweet girl on her
cheek. “Is it okay, Mama?” It came on a shallow breath. She was
asleep before I could answer.

I smoothed down her hair and whispered to her, “You get some sleep now.” I was finally coming to accept that there were some things in life that were just meant to be. Not all of them are good. But Jake being Georgia’s father was meant to be.

Two souls who bonded because of love, and love alone.

My parents didn’t choose me. They ended up with me after my mother got pregnant. They’d never wanted children. They reminded me every day what a burden I was to their drugged-out lives. I never felt anything even close to love.

Then, Nan came and showed me that someone could truly care about me and love me for who I was and what I was. She took me in because I was her flesh and blood, but she loved me because she wanted to, not because she had to.

Then, there was Jake and Georgia. They had chosen one another. It hadn’t been all that long, but they already knew they wanted to be a family, and regardless of what my feelings were initially, they knew it was meant to happen.

A family by choice, not chance. A choice to love, and to be loved in return. A choice to take care of and enjoy one another, not to put up with or to suffer through one another.

It was the best kind of family. A family on our own terms.

I whispered to my baby girl— my entire world, the centerpiece
of the family we’d all chosen to be part of. “You can call him
Daddy.”

***

Bethany was the only one in the waiting room when I came back out. She was sipping from the tiny straw of an orange juice box.

“Where’s Jake?” I asked.

“The nurse with the attitude came back in and asked for blood donations.” She showed me a small round Band-Aid on the inside of her arm. “He’s in there now. How is she?”

“She’s tired. They’ve got her on a lot of meds, but she’s going to be okay.” It felt good to say it, and after seeing her, I truly believed it. My legs suddenly felt very heavy and weak. I plopped down next to Bethany.

“I’m so sorry, Abby.”

I saw the tears fill her eyes, the quivering of her lip. “Stop,
Bethany.” I made a move to put my hand over hers. It burned, but I ignored it. I needed to comfort her, and that was far more important than my
own pain. “You gave birth to him. You didn’t put the gun in his
hand, and you didn’t tell him to pull the trigger. Just like you didn’t make him rape me.” It was so odd saying it like that, so bluntly, to the
woman who helped carry me back to Jake’s apartment after it
happened. She was probably as much a victim of her son as I had been. “You made a lot of mistakes, but we all have. I don’t blame you—for any of it. So stop apologizing.”