The Reading Circle (12 page)

“But it didn't happen that way. Why torture yourself with the ‘almosts' and the ‘what-ifs' and such?”

She looked him straight in the eye and spoke with intensity. “Because being an unmarried woman under any circumstances is not the way I want to go out, no matter how many years I have left.”

He looked almost amused. “I think we've gotten pretty good at reading each other's minds, Voncille. Why did I think you were going to go there again?”

She dropped the Kleenex into her lap and inched closer to him. “Then it's been on your mind, too.”

“Yes, I can't lie to you. I've been seriously considering everything you brought up a while back. Ceremony in the library, ceremony in a church, maybe a justice of the peace—all of it. I just haven't made a decision yet.”

She kept at it, sensing his lack of resistance. “Do you think you might anytime soon?”

He looked more amused than anything else and gave her a sweet little peck on the cheek. “I promise to give you my decision soon.”

“Maybe by the next Cherry Cola Book Club meeting?”

He laughed in spite of himself. “Yes, Voncille. Maybe by then.”

J
eremy came to.

He was lying on his back looking up at the sky on this cloudless early spring evening. There were no stars yet, and he could not remember where he was or what he was doing sprawled on the ground. There was a light breeze swirling all around him, and he felt its chill on his face and hands. Then he sat up gingerly, crying out sharply as something caught in the vicinity of his rib cage. Whether muscle or bone was the culprit, it was uncomfortable to breathe. His head was also throbbing, and when he slowly reached up and ran his hand through his hair, he came away with something sticky clinging to his fingers. When he touched the tip of his index finger to his tongue, he tasted his own blood.

Through the filmy dusk, he stared ahead and discerned the outline of what remained of his little Volvo. It had been reduced in size by half, squeezed like an accordion against the trunk of an enormous pine tree. The entire hood and front seat of the car no longer occupied any significant portion of space. They now consisted of a few inches of twisted metal and shattered glass that had fused into pine bark to create some entirely new and hideous substance. Off to the side, looking forlorn and out of place, was the door to the driver's seat—essentially intact. Clearly, it had been shorn off at the moment of collision between car and tree, and violently cast aside, but how was that possible? Why hadn't it been compressed like the rest? Why was he alive when his car was essentially dead?

Jeremy tried his hardest to focus, but the pain filling up his skull would simply not allow him to do it. For a brief second or two, he had a flash of something—impulsively unbuckling his seat belt at the last possible second, flinging the door open and tumbling out before impact. Had he actually done that, or had something beyond his ken intervened on his behalf?

Deprived of rational thought, he began to panic. Had he somehow died along with the car? Was he actually out of his body now? At first, he dismissed the idea as pure, unadulterated foolishness. But then, as if on cue to provide an answer, he could feel a light of some kind suddenly shining upon him from behind, brilliantly illuminating the forest and the wreck that had brought man-made horror to its very edges.

It was not easy for Jeremy to twist himself around enough to face the light in the distance, but with great effort he managed to do so. He was blinded by its brilliance, and the cobwebs in his brain would allow him only one credible answer:
He had indeed died, and this was what it was like during the transition.
Never a drumbeater for the tidy organized religion his parents had bequeathed him, he had nonetheless always maintained a belief in something greater than himself. Perhaps he was now about to meet up with that something greater.

Music soon followed, but it caused him to frown immediately. This was no hymn, no heavenly choir of angelic voices accompanied by golden harps. There was singing, to be sure, but it hardly sounded like it belonged in a church. He strained to catch the boisterous lyrics, and a sickening feeling spread throughout his body. Could it possibly be? His much-despised game of college football was played to rouse team spirit in the afterlife, too? Whatever the case, he was undeniably listening to the last verse of the University of Michigan fight song while sitting on the cold ground smack dab in the middle of nowhere.

As if that were not enough, the fight song started over from the beginning; then he heard a booming voice shouting, “Hello, out there! Anyone alive out there?!”

Was that what God sounded like? Was he a Wolverine to boot? Did he sometimes specialize in search-and-rescue missions in today's complex world?

Momentarily, Jeremy was able to discern a dark, bipedal shape, and he wasn't sure if it would turn out to be angel, demon, or something—any thing—in human form. But it was fast approaching him with a flashlight that augmented the stronger, wider beam streaming out from behind. A few feet more and Jeremy could clearly make out a man—an ordinary, older man in a windbreaker and dark baseball cap with the letter
M
emblazoned on it in a lighter color. He breathed a sigh of relief, realizing at that instant he was simply not ready for a supernatural encounter of any kind.

“Here!” Jeremy managed, waving just once, but it hurt too much to stretch those particular muscles, and he quickly brought his hand down. Fiery pain raced the length of his arm. “I'm alive. At least I think I am! Are you alive, too?”

The man covered the last few feet quickly and came to a halt, looking down on Jeremy at last. “Of course I'm alive. But Mother and I were worried to death when we saw somebody had gone off the road that they might not be.” The man took a cell phone out of his pocket and quickly punched up a number. “Ah, good deal. Cell works down here, too!” Then, “Good news, Mother. There's a youngster alive out here. Injuries don't seem too awful bad from what I can see. Bring down a blanket and the first-aid kit right away.”

Jeremy completely ignored what the man was saying as something broke through the pain in his head. “That
M
stands for Michigan, right?”

“It does for a fact. Go Blue!” There was a brief pause and then came the recognition. “Oh, and you probably heard Mother playing the fight song CD up in the Winnebago. She's got it on a loop. She gets in the mood every now and then while we're traveling around, don'tcha know? She doesn't hear as well as she used to, either, so she turns it up real loud. First thing when we get back home after this trip down to New Orleens, I'm getting her an appointment with Dr. Brady. Oh, I believe I see her heading over to us right now.”

For some reason, Jeremy just had to criticize the man's pronunciation. “It's New OR-lyuns, not New Orleens.”

“Is it?” the man said, cocking his head. “Mother and I have never been there. We can't wait to tour the French Quarters.”

Jeremy continued in his correcting mode. “Just one Quarter down there.”

“Beg pardon?”

“Never mind.” Jeremy's brain told him to switch subjects. “What do you call people from Michigan?”

“Michiganders,” came the reply. “It's a lulu of a name, I'll be the first one to admit.”

“I thought I was right about that. So those are your headlights that had me so mesmerized and thinking of other dimensions up there on the road? That's not the white light everybody's on the lookout for there at the end? You're just that couple I got behind somewhere back in Tennessee?”

“Afraid Mother and I don't hold the secrets to the universe,” the man said, breaking into subdued laughter. “Yep, those are just our high beams up there. They're quite powerful, though, and we wanted to be sure we got a good look around. We're partially blocking traffic the way we've got our big Winnebago angled up there, but who cares about that? Someone's bound to be here soon to direct traffic around us. Mother's punched up the park ranger's number, too. But never mind all that. Thank God, you survived.”

Jeremy made a feeble attempt to get to his feet, but the man quickly nixed it, pushing him back down as gently as possible. “No, no, son, don't move. You're to lie back and lie still. Mother's already got an ambulance on the way. You best stay put until the paramedics arrive. They say you can do some severe damage to yourself by shifting around like that. Something may very well be broken, and you don't want to make it worse.”

“I've got a sneaking suspicion I have a broken rib. I hope not more than one, though,” Jeremy told him. “Can you shine your flashlight on my head and tell me what it looks like?”

The man complied and made an unpleasant face, shaking his head. “Doesn't look pretty up there right now, son. Matted hair and blood mostly, don'tcha know. It's pretty much clotted, though. I'd know how to stop you from bleeding if it hadn't, though. Does your head hurt?”

“It did a little while ago. Seems a little better now.”

“You just sit tight now. Oh, here's Mother to the rescue now.”

Jeremy peered up at the woman, her gray hair pulled back severely in a bun. But the crow's feet around her eyes trumpeted her kind, always-smiling nature, and Jeremy began to feel he just might get out of this mess alive after all.

“Here's a blanket to keep you warm, young man,” she told him, draping it over him. “It's a Michigan Wolverine blanket. Father and I here are big fans, as I guess you know by now.”

“I do,” Jeremy said.

She kept on smiling down at him tenderly, and there were moments when it felt like she was his mother and he was her little boy. “I'll just clean you up a bit until the paramedics get here. Just a few wet wipes and a little alcohol to remove some of this blood just below your hairline. Really, it's not that bad. You went off the road ahead of the right people, don'tcha know. First thing Father and I did after we retired and bought our Winnebago was to take a CPR and first-aid course. You never know what might happen out here on the open road.”

While she fussed over him, the man began scouring the wreck with his flashlight. “I'm afraid your little car is totaled, son. What happened? Why'd you skid off the road like that? It hasn't been raining even the least little bit.”

“A deer in a helluva hurry did me in.” Jeremy decided to add nothing further, suddenly feeling weaker.

“I can certainly believe that. Why, Mother and I have seen maybe a dozen by the roadside since we got on the parkway just south of Nashville. And some wild turkeys, and even what looked like a wolf, but it may have just been a wild dog. Mother hasn't stopped with the camera all the way down.”

Jeremy didn't feel much like talking now, as the Michigan fight song continued to play over and over in the background. But he felt he ought to say something every once in a while. “I like that Midwestern twang you both have. Very distinctive.”

The man snickered. “Well, Mother and I like to hear you people speak Southern to us down here. We get the biggest kick out of it. We especially like all those ‘you alls' we've received everywhere we go—in all the restaurants, gas stations, rest stops, you name it.”

“Yeah, I guess we're famous for that,” he managed. Then he was frowning. “I guess we haven't introduced ourselves yet. I'm Jeremy McShay from Nashville, Tennessee.”

“Pleased to meet you, Jeremy. Though I wish the circumstances were different,” the woman said, continuing her cleanup duties. “And we're Darlene and Malcolm Hayes of Battle Creek, Michigan.”

A terrible weakness suddenly engulfed Jeremy's entire body, and he was unable to focus in on too much more. Just that last line from the Michigan fight song—
“Hail! Hail! to Michigan / The champions of the West!”—
along with the distinctive but distant wail of a siren.

Then everything went dark.

 

Maura Beth felt so guilty she could hardly stand it. “Here I was, so mad at Jeremy because he didn't show at the meeting tonight, and now I find out he was doing his best to get down here to Cherico. I'm being punished for such mean-spirited thoughts, I just know,” she told Connie and Douglas as she began to tear up.

The three of them were standing just outside Jeremy's hospital room on the second floor of Cherico Memorial, and the McShays had just told Maura Beth everything they'd learned from the visit with their nephew and his doctor. “Don't be ridiculous. No such thing is happening,” Connie said, giving her a hug and a few pats on the back. “It's wrong to even think such thoughts.”

“She's right, you know,” Douglas added, nodding sympathetically. “You need to lighten up a little. This isn't the time for second-guessing yourself.”

Maura Beth was sniffling now. “Well, you just ask Periwinkle what I said to her after the review tonight. I couldn't have been bothered with giving Jeremy the benefit of the doubt. Oh, no, not me!”

Connie pulled away and gave Maura Beth her sternest glare. “You are not going to help Jeremy one bit if you go in there and break down in front of him. Just be thankful he's basically walked away from this with only a mild concussion and one fractured rib. From the looks of his car, they say it could have been much, much worse.”

Maura Beth looked skeptical. “Who are
they?
”

Douglas stepped in at that point. “Dr. Tillman said the state trooper, or the park ranger or the paramedics, I forget which—anyway, somebody said that the driver of that car shouldn't have survived at all. But somehow Jeremy did. That could be a sign, you know.”

“There were angels on his shoulders,” Connie added. “And they're probably looking after you, too. So stop beating yourself up. Stand up tall, march straight in there, and the two of you get things back on track. That's what you want, isn't it?”

Maura Beth wiped her eyes with the back of her hand and then a smile broke through. “I didn't realize how much until you called and told me what had happened tonight.”

“You just hold on to that, then,” Connie said. “You lift his spirits, and you'll be lifting yours at the same time.”

Maura Beth gave them both her best smile, pointing to it with her index finger. “How does this look?”

“Dazzlingly white,” Connie told her. “And no spinach between your teeth. Now, go on in there. You channel Scarlett and Melanie together the way only you can. And don't forget to give Jeremy that little gift from those lovely people.”

“Thanks, you two.”

Indeed, when Maura Beth walked into Jeremy's room, she noted with great relief that he did not look particularly compromised. There was a big bandage on his head, and he was hooked up to the usual equipment monitoring his vital signs, but it was clear that the car and not Jeremy himself had suffered most of the severe damage.