Unforgotten (28 page)
Rese scrambled up and tried to see what he had, but people were gathering at the intersection. She hurried after Lance, down the stairs and out to the street. At the corner Lance crouched beside Rico, who was spitting blood and curses. Relief rushed in before the smell of burnt rubber and blood hit. Then the sight of Rico’s arm paralyzed her with blurred images of another blood-soaked arm, Dad’s screams and hers.
On his knees, holding Rico by the shoulders, Lance pulled his phone from his pocket and thrust it at her. “Call for help, Rese.”
Rico swore. She didn’t move.
“Rese.”
Pulse pounding in her ears, she took the phone and forced herself to think. 9-1-1. Red and blue lights; Dad carrying her out. Red and blue lights; Dad bleeding in her arms. Bleeding to death.
“What is the nature of your emergency?”
“There’s been an accident.” The voice sounded firm and controlled. It took a moment to realize it was hers. She described the scene and Rico’s condition as well as she could tell. Was he alert—yes. Moving—yes.
She searched the intersection and gave the street names. As she finished, the faces around her came into focus. Old and young, dark and light and in between. “They’re coming,” she told Lance, then squatted down, cradling the phone in her lap. “What happened?”
“Guy ran the stop. The bike’s brakes were soft.”
She closed her eyes, recalling too well Lance’s speed on that same bike—with her. “Did he hit his head?” She’d have asked Rico but he was gritting his teeth in pain.
“He knew enough to ride it down.”
“Ride it down?”
“An experienced biker never separates in a crash. That’s where the head injuries happen, when the driver lets go and tumbles. Rico stayed with the bike to the ground.”
And it looked like his arm made first contact. The air filled with a wailing siren. Her stomach rolled. Closer and louder. She forced her mind back to Rico. Friction from the pavement seemed to have cauterized the blood, or maybe that was how arms bled when the artery had not been severed. She gagged back the memory of her own slippery attempts to staunch arterial flow.
Louder. Closer.
Rese forced herself to look at Rico, to realize that his life was not pouring out onto the pavement, even if bone protruded from his arm and the pain must be awful. The scream of the siren set her teeth on edge. The squeal and sigh of the fire engine’s brakes and the flashing lights registered, though she kept her face averted, tasting the exhaust that clung to the air.
Lance got out of the way as the emergency personnel took over. He drew her back against him while Rico argued about being laid flat on a backboard. More sirens. Rico turned to the police officers arriving on the scene and spoke in Spanish.
“What did he say?”
Lance said softly, “He wants them to find the jerk who ran him off the road, so he can slit his gullet.”
Rese looked over her shoulder. Lance was not making it up. “He’s okay, then.”
“His arm looks bad.”
It wasn’t pretty, but the hand was still attached. As with Chaz’s friend Ubaiah, it was all a matter of perspective.
Lance had wrapped her around the waist and held her against him as the officer continued his investigation. If Rico had made his own stop here at the intersection, his speed could not have been that high. But what she’d heard from the window hadn’t sounded like deceleration. More likely they’d both ignored the stop sign.
More sirens. An ambulance had been called. Couldn’t they just walk him to the hospital? Put him in a cruiser and drive the few blocks? But she knew they’d take no chances with a possible spine or neck injury. Red and blue light slashed across her vision. Lance’s hold tightened, and maybe that was why it got hard to breathe. She couldn’t avoid seeing the stretcher without ignoring Rico. So she made herself watch as they raised him up on the backboard to the gurney.
She could almost feel the mask pressed to her face as they strapped it over Rico’s, smell the sweet oxygenated air he breathed. It could have been her getting closed into the ambulance. It could have been Lance. But she didn’t go light in the head. Everything grew shockingly clear, thoughts linking like a chain being forged. Helpful adversity. If Star hadn’t left, Rico would not have gone looking. If Rico hadn’t crashed, she and Lance might have taken the bike out. Soft brakes. Soft … brakes.
Was there a reason for this accident that might be no accident at all? Was there a meaning and purpose behind every bad thing—no, behind
everything
?
L
ance waited for Rese to lose it, but she didn’t. As the ambulance took Rico to St. Barnabas, he loosened his hold. “Are you okay?”
She turned in his arms. “Yes.”
He studied her face, then let her go as his own fear calmed. The professionals had charge of Rico, and there was only one immediate thing to do. From the officer in the intersection, Lance asked permission to get the bike out of the street.
The damage didn’t seem irreparable, and Rico would want to try. He had done the original chopper modification—on a Kawasaki no less—stripping off everything extraneous. And he’d done all the repairs over the years that kept it running. Lance made no attempt to start it, though. If he even thought of driving the thing, Rese would have his head.
She came up beside him. “What are you doing?”
“Walking it back.”
Her mouth dropped open. “You can’t think Rico would drive that again.”
He walked it around the parked cars. “Might not be possible.” But Rico would give it his best shot.
“He could have been killed. We could have.”
Not surprising she’d drawn that conclusion. He shouldn’t have mentioned the brakes. Rico was probably gunning it, rolling or ignoring the stop—traffic signs being more suggestion than law in his right mind. Angry or disappointed, Rico got crazy, took chances. But pointing that out wouldn’t help. Rese could easily attribute the same to him.
“We weren’t killed, and neither was Rico.” He’d saved a head injury, riding the skid, but his arm was bad. It would have been better to break a leg, both even. Rico’s livelihood was in his arms, and more than that, his identity. If he couldn’t drum … Lance shook his head.
No way, Lord
. No more grief for people he loved. Quota filled. When they reached the yard, he put the bike into the enclosure.
Rese pressed a hand between her eyebrows. “He could have brain damage.”
“He wasn’t hit. There was no collision.”
“He made contact with the street!”
It was catching up to her. “He’s all right, Rese.” They would do a CT scan or MRI to be sure, but Rico would be fine.
He’ll be fine, Lord
. Because Rico was like a brother, and Lance was not losing another brother.
No way. No way!
It was catching up to him too.
“Promise you’ll never drive it again.”
Lance looked from her to the offensive machine.
It
being Rico’s chopper, he said, “I promise,” and before she could broaden the demand added, “We need to get to the hospital.” That thought tightened his stomach like a cramp. “I’ll find a car. Rico won’t feel like walking home.”
Did he really think they’d put on a Band-Aid, give him a sucker, and send him home? Best case: a cast and sling, and Rico immobile was a scary thought. He functioned in motion. He thought in rhythm. He breathed in beats.
They took Sofie’s Neon to the hospital. Word had spread, and someone would have certainly called Rico’s mother by now, but Lance didn’t see her. Rico’s older sister, Gabriella, came by, but no one else from his immediate family, and as the hours dragged on and Rico went from the emergency room into surgery, even Gabbie didn’t stay. No matter. He’d have the rest of the neighborhood there if the hospital would let them in.
Rico could handle pain, but judging by his swearing before the adrenaline set in, his concern was the immediate and long-term effects of the injury. Losing use of his arm would be death to Rico. Lance felt a tightening inside, like the inner girding before a fight.
Not this time, Lord
.
But the first information they got was good. Sprains and contusions, but no internal head or spine injury. He’d bitten his tongue pretty bad, but no internal bleeding. So now they waited for word on the arm. Rico must have reached down to control the skid as they’d done dirt racing. But pavement was not as forgiving.
Lance kept a running conversation with God, some of it supplication. Rese had paged through everything from
Golf Digest
to
Sunset,
and she wasn’t even a reader. Some trip this was turning out to be.
Momma came in with Sofie. “How bad is he?”
“You better start cooking.”
She sank into a chair. “I thought he only broke his arm.”
“It is his arm, but it’s bad.”
She shook her head. “And him with no insurance and no job.”
Momma was a good one for pointing out the worst. “Rico has a job; it’s just not nine-to-five. And it takes both arms to do it.”
Momma pressed her palms to her cheeks as though it just occurred to her that Rico couldn’t drum one-handed.
“And don’t make this worse for Rico. When he comes out, don’t talk about money or the future. It’s going to be hard enough not moving his arm for a while.”
“All right. Okay. You think I don’t know?”
She might know, but she always did it anyway. In case someone wasn’t fully aware of the pit they were in, she described just how wide and deep and dark it was. But there was love and concern behind it; Rico knew that much.
After a while, Sofie stood up. “I need to eat something.” The urgency in her voice was no doubt a hypoglycemic reaction to going too long without. If she’d been working or studying, she might not have eaten all day.
Momma jumped up. “I’ve got meatballs in the oven.”
“Since when?” Lance winced.
“Since I put them there. You come in for a sandwich after.”
He bobbed his chin. “Yeah, okay, Momma.”
She turned. “Rese, you come home now.”
He glanced to see if she’d caught the destination and realized the significance. Only family went home.
Rese met his glance but seemed more concerned about leaving him than going with Momma—another sign that their coffee chat must have gone better than Rese let on. She’d come upstairs and stipulated right up front that she was not learning the two-sided break with a man wrap. But she hadn’t been traumatized.
He squeezed her hand. “Go ahead. I’ll stay with Rico awhile when he wakes up.”
Not long after they left, he was admitted to the post-op recovery room. He hooked fingers with Rico’s good hand. “How you doing, ’mano?”
Rico nodded, then looked down at the arm strapped in place across his chest. There was no cast, just bandages from the elbow to the wrist. A nurse brought in a cup of ice chips and spooned some into Rico’s mouth, then gave Lance the cup. When she left, he said, “What say we make a break for it?”
Rico smiled, but it turned into a grimace, and he closed his eyes. Maybe not yet.
After a while, the surgeon appeared and explained the reconstruction; the wrist being the worst of it, pinned in several places, and the rod and screws to secure the fractured ulna he’d seen protruding from Rico’s arm. That much metal was almost bionic. “Brunhilda’s wand for you at the airports, buddy.”
Rico cracked a grin, then faded back out. Maybe he’d be up for jokes tomorrow—or not. Lance left him to get settled into a room for the night, then met everyone at Momma’s, where the main course was how much worse the accident could have been, served with sides of other close calls, especially his and even Tony’s. Misfortune bred misfortune in Momma’s kitchen until Lance was choking on it.
How could so many bad things happen to one family? Of course the refrain was, “It could have been worse. Could have been killed like poor Tony. Such a waste.” And tears would salt the memory.
He had to get out of there. “Rico’s gonna be fine,” he said. Then came all the shoulder-patting, head-stroking assurances for Lance, who was taking it too hard.
Chaz would sprinkle it with glory. Must have had angels warding him off the car. What a miracle he didn’t hit his head. But Chaz hadn’t even heard yet, as far as Lance knew. He’d work late into the night at the fancy Manhattan restaurant that supported half of Jamaica through his long hours and come home none the wiser.
Chaz hadn’t prayed through the surgery, hadn’t beseeched God to guide the surgeon’s hands, to bring order to Rico’s bones, to sustain his spirit. Chaz was not in the forest when the tree fell. Which begged the question, where was God? Afar, removed and uncaring? Or hearing every word Lance said and weighing them according to his deeds.
Lance shook himself. What were these thoughts? The God he served, the God he loved was neither of those things. It was his own understanding that fell short. But his understanding had been falling short a long time now.
Bobby and Lou had gone to the ballpark. The kids had long before grown bored with the conversation and crowded the TV in the living room. Either choice did Rico as much good as hashing and rehashing life’s misfortunes. He looked at Rese.
She’d been all but silent. She didn’t know how to charge into the conversation on top of someone else if necessary, didn’t know volume equaled relevance. But that wasn’t her mode anyway. Brad said she didn’t speak for weeks after her dad’s accident. This wasn’t anything near that bad, no death or dismemberment. And she was coping. But he had to get her out of there. He needed out of there.
He stood up, kissed Momma, Sofie, and Monica, Lucy’s cheek damp with tears—she was the crier, nicknamed The Faucet in his less kind moments. Pop brooded at his end of the table, and Lance avoided it. The rest of them found comfort speaking Tony’s name, keeping him present, keeping him real. Not Pop.
Lance laced fingers with Rese as they climbed the stairs and entered the empty apartment. No Chaz, Rico, or Star. Only the two of them, a situation that would have excited him, spurred thoughts better not acted upon. Thankfully his mood was too dark for temptation, and Rese was surely craving solitude. He kissed her cheek as he would his sisters’ and closed the bedroom door behind her.
