One Mountain Away (23 page)

By the time she leaves, the peace and serenity of Hawaii are forgotten and I am, once again, confused and unsure. A terrifying incident shatters what little confidence I have.

Ethan leaves town for a job interview in Knoxville, and for three days I’m alone with Taylor. She’s unusually fussy, but at first I discount it. I assume she misses her father, who’s better at soothing her. When I’m the only one available to put her to bed, she can’t be consoled. She wakes twice during the night, and the second time I let her fuss. In the morning she sleeps later than usual. I assume the fussing has worn her down and she’s making up for it now.

By nine, when she still hadn’t awakened, I check on her and find she’s feverish. The pediatrician’s office is overflowing with children, and on the telephone they tell me there’s a virus making the rounds. They suggest I keep my daughter at home, away from other children, and explain what to do, as well as what to watch for.

Since the job interview’s an important one, I decide not to call Ethan, and I certainly don’t call his mother, who would make it clear that I have failed my daughter by allowing her to get sick. I spend the day bathing Taylor in cool water and giving her the over-the-counter medicines the pediatric nurse has suggested. By evening she seems better, and I’m encouraged, though worn out by her demands.

That night she sleeps fitfully, but she doesn’t seem worse. We have another day that’s much the same. By then it’s Friday, and Ethan’s due home the next afternoon, so when he calls, I tell him what we’ve been through but assure him we’re coping. I put Taylor to bed early because she falls asleep in her high chair. She’s quiet, and doesn’t seem as hot.

I don’t know what wakes me at midnight. Maybe she cries out, or maybe it’s just a mother’s instinct, but when I check on her, I find she’s burning with fever and unresponsive. I leave a message on the pediatrician’s emergency line. I call Ethan, wake him at his hotel and tell him I’m taking her to the hospital. He promises to drive home but reminds me it will take several hours. Somehow I manage to dress us both and get my limp daughter into her car seat for the race to the emergency room.

The waiting area’s nearly full, and I’m lucky to find a chair. There’s been a car wreck on the outskirts of town, and the injured are taken care of first. An hour of pacing passes before a nurse takes us back into a cubicle to take Taylor’s history.

The woman looks familiar, although I’m hardly paying attention. She takes Taylor’s history, shaking her head, then she does a quick examination before she leaves us alone. She returns with a resident, who does his own exam. They question me closely about why I’ve waited so long to have Taylor seen by a doctor. I explain the situation, what I’ve done, what I was told by my pediatrician’s office, but they wave my words away. Taylor’s very sick, something I should have seen, and now they must admit her right away.

The doctor leaves to make the arrangements, and the nurse faces me. Only then do I finally realize who she is. The woman is Sally Klaver, grown and educated. She asks if I’ve been drinking. I realize immediately she’s recognized me, as well, and assumes I’ve followed in Hearty’s footsteps. I tell her of course not, that I’ve hovered over Taylor since the first sign of illness.

“Children don’t get this sick so quickly,” she says. “You were negligent.” She goes on to tell me she’s going to call social services and have them look into Taylor’s safety.

I’m stunned, then mortified. Sally knows nothing about me except my family background. Tonight I grabbed the first thing I could find to wear, jeans and a wrinkled shirt. In her opinion, I am still white trash.

Upstairs no one will tell me what’s happening. Repeatedly I’m told to wait at the end of the hall, and hours later the resident finally comes to find me. He’s spoken to my pediatrician, who’s on the way to examine Taylor. The resident is perfunctorily apologetic. My pediatrician has confirmed that Taylor is a regular patient with two educated, involved parents who consult him frequently and pay close attention to her welfare.

Ethan arrives as the young man begins the apology, and when he finally says social services won’t be notified, my husband explodes. I’ve never seen Ethan so angry. He demands to know why anyone thought they might be needed, and the resident admits that he and the nurse made an error in judgment.

Only I know the reason why.

Taylor recovers. She isn’t the only child who has taken a quick turn for the worse with the same virus, and the pediatric ward is quickly filled to overflowing. I don’t see Sally Klaver again during Taylor’s stay, but years later I sit in on interviews for a coveted position as the head of nursing at an upscale retirement community. Sally is the top candidate until I, a respected board member, arrive to vet the finalists. During that interview, if she recognizes me, she doesn’t say so.

She doesn’t get the job.

The incidents with Ethan’s mother and the staff at the hospital change me, or maybe I just use them as the excuses I need. Gone are all thoughts of a quieter life or a slower start up the career ladder. I vow never to allow anybody to look down on me again. Not Ethan’s family, not prior acquaintances. I want everyone in my path to bow and scrape. I want power, control, status, all the things that will set our little family apart and protect us, and since Ethan isn’t interested in any of them, it’s clearly up to me.

Taylor’s recovery takes weeks. Mine takes a lifetime.

Chapter Twenty-One

ETHAN WAITED AT the hospital with Taylor until Maddie regained consciousness, and Dr. Hilliard, who had arrived quickly, assured them there was no cause for alarm. Maddie had suffered a concussion, and a gash to her head that was now sutured. She had also broken her collarbone and dislocated her shoulder, which, with luck, would not require surgical intervention. They were still doing tests, but so far none of them indicated a more serious injury. She would be in the hospital at least a day or two, though, just to be safe.

Throughout the ordeal Taylor was shaken, grim, uncommunicative. Ethan tried once to explain why he hadn’t told her he’d seen Charlotte at the park weeks before, but she held up her hand to stop him.

“I can’t deal with this,” she said, and he realized it was true. Taylor, who was mature beyond her years in almost every way, who was a marvelous mother and teacher and all-around human being, was a child again when it came to Charlotte.

“Do you want me to stay?” he asked, after he’d been allowed to pop in and say hello to a groggy Maddie.

“They’ll make up a bed for me in her room. We’ll be fine. They want her to get as much rest as possible.”

“Call if you need anything.”

She hugged him, but she held her body stiffly, as if she was already withholding part of herself. He hadn’t realized how important it had been for Taylor to view him as her fully committed partner in the battle against her mother. Now she sensed disloyalty. He wondered how much he had fed into her perception.

He’d promised Charlotte a phone call, but he knew he owed her more. Not only had she been there for their granddaughter when she was most needed, she had absorbed Taylor’s fury without returning it. Both efforts had taken a toll. He’d seen how pale she was, and noted for the first time how fragile she seemed. Still, she’d borne both the accident and the rage without collapse.

For that, she deserved a full report.

Without phoning first, he drove to the house in Biltmore Forest. He hadn’t eaten lunch, and now it was dinnertime. He was exhausted, hungry and badly in need of a few hours alone. But this was more important.

He parked where he had the last time and knocked. The same young woman—he couldn’t remember her name—answered the door. This time she didn’t check with Charlotte. She just opened it wider and ushered him in.

“Look, I don’t know what happened today,” she said in soft tones, “but Charlotte looks like somebody hit her with a semi. If you’re here to make things worse, please don’t, okay?”

He admired her for getting straight to the point. “I’m here to relieve her mind about something.”

“Then she’s out by the pool. I have to leave in a few minutes to do an errand. I don’t think she ate lunch, and I know she’s not going to eat dinner unless somebody makes her. Will you stay and eat with her? The food’s in the fridge, all ready to go. It just needs to be heated up.”

Despite everything, his stomach growled. He nodded. “I can do that.”

“Great. The dog’s about to have puppies, and I have to help my friend—she’s a vet’s assistant—move in so she’s here when it happens.”

“Dog?”

“We’re taking care of somebody’s dog as a favor. Charlotte volunteered.”

This was more than Ethan could take in. During their marriage every discussion about having a dog had ended in a stalemate. Dogs were messy, unpredictable and time-consuming. And according to Charlotte, Taylor wasn’t old enough to be responsible. By the time she was, Taylor had lost interest.

“I’ll find my way to the pool,” he said.

“Good. I’m leaving in a few minutes.”

He wound his way through the house and out the back by a slightly more direct route. Charlotte didn’t turn as the door closed behind him. She wore a hat with a brim wide enough to shade her neck and shoulders, even though the sun was well on its way to meet the horizon. He saw she had what looked like a notebook on her lap and a telephone beside her, probably waiting for his call.

As he walked toward her, he spoke her name. Only then did she turn. She looked wary, as if she was steeling herself, and closed the book.

“She’s okay,” he said, when he was close enough to be easily heard. “They’re keeping her, probably for a couple of days, but she’s going to be fine.”

He saw relief steal over her features, and she seemed to go slack with it, shrinking before his eyes.

“Thank God,” she said, and now he was close enough to see her eyes were filling with tears.

Without being asked he took the chair beside her. “They let me see her. She’s awake, but pretty lethargic. They’ll be watching her closely.” He outlined the problems. “If we’re lucky, she’ll recover quickly,” he finished.

“It was an awful fall. She’d just gotten to the top, and she was pumping her fists in the air in victory. Then…” She shook her head. “I was too far away to do a thing. Kind of the story of my life.”

“I’m sorry Taylor was so brutal.”

“Taylor never kept her feelings to herself. Not from the beginning. Remember the year she was three and we bought her…” She laughed a little, but it sounded forced. “Now I don’t remember what it was, but she told us clearly she was disappointed. She’d told us what she expected, and we had failed her. I think she said it just that way.”

“She’s gotten a bit more tactful in the past decade, but apparently not enough.”

“She has every right to be furious with me. And now I’m skulking around spying on her daughter. At least that’s how it looks to her, I’m sure.” She turned to watch him. “I’m glad you didn’t tell her what I said that night in the hospital. I’m sorry she overheard us all those years ago, horribly sorry, but I’m glad it wasn’t you.”

“Do you think I would try to make my own daughter feel worse when
her
daughter was barely holding on to life?”

“No, not when I think about it. You’ve never been cruel.”

He didn’t say what he was thinking, because he wasn’t cruel, either—or tried not to be.

She turned away. “I know I sounded cruel that night,” she said. “I’m not defending myself. How can I? But there I was, looking at that poor little preemie, tubes going everywhere, a machine breathing for her, a prognosis so grim it was horrifying. All I could think about was how much pain she must be in, what a terrible introduction this was to life and how little she might have to look forward to if she survived. So yes, I wished out loud Taylor had taken my advice and ended the pregnancy quickly, so Maddie wouldn’t have suffered that way. I felt like every one of those tubes was draining the life from her sweet, innocent little body. And I knew if I’d been a better mother, someone Taylor could have talked to before she slept with Jeremy Larsen, I wouldn’t be standing there. We would be off looking at colleges or having pedicures, or shopping for her senior trip.”

It was a long speech for a woman who had always chosen her words with precision, but it said so much. The events in question were the same. He’d witnessed them, so there was no way to alter that. But the slant was so different.

“That’s not the way Taylor heard it,” he said after a moment. “She heard ‘I told you so.’ She’d heard it before, only this time it was her baby’s life at stake.”

“I’ve been thinking about this so much lately. Taylor and I got off to a bad start, right from the beginning. And I compounded that by trying so hard to give her the childhood I never had. If you boil down our relationship, at least from my end, there it is. But while we were living it? I couldn’t see a thing. When I threatened to kick her out of the house if she didn’t do what I knew she ought to, I was just taking our long history to the logical conclusion. I wanted what was best for her, and I was willing to do anything to make it happen. I was absolutely certain she was going to destroy her life.”

“Your life, not hers. The one
you
wanted for her.”

“Right.”

He waited for recriminations, because wasn’t this exactly the moment when she could have pointed out that during their years together he hadn’t helped the situation? That early on he had allied himself with Taylor and slowly shut out Charlotte? That he hadn’t tried hard enough to help his wife see what was happening, or demanded they go to a counselor? That he hadn’t stood up to their daughter—or to
her
—when it was really needed?

But the recriminations didn’t come.

“I made mistakes, too,” he said at last.

“It’s amazing, isn’t it? That two people who want nothing more than to raise a happy child can go so easily astray? And now look where we are. I think the only thing I can do is back off for good. I don’t want to compound my mistakes or her misery. If I try to make myself heard, she’ll only shout louder.”